Once when I asked Jacob for a meal idea he immediately wanted chili, like his mom makes. He got her recipe; I believe there is a lot of experimenting still to be done but here is her original suggestion:
Ingredients:
- 1 can of kidney beans (15.5 oz)
- 1 can of chili beans (15.5 oz)
- 1 large can of crushed tomatoes (28 oz)
- chili powder (sprinkle some in)
- 1 can diced tomatoes (12 oz)
- 1 onion
- 1 lb-ish Hamburger, cooked
Those were our instructions. Throw it all in, let it go all day. The end.
Well O.K., I like the idea but I’ve run with it a bit. I like the amount of tomatoes but we wanted less liquid, and more beans. In my most recent episode of chili, I actually soaked some dry black beans (1 lb) over night and threw them in as well. I’m very new to this bean thing, so I didn’t realize I also needed to cook the beans, they were a bit hard but the chili is still fine to eat. We made the mistake of trying to fix the liquid and bean issues at the same time, which resulted in a very thick chili, not a problem per se but I will leave in all the juices the next time I add beans (but not the bean’s cooking water).
I like to cook the onion with the meat before throwing it in. This could loose some of the flavor to the chili because some flavor is lost in the juices/fats removed, but if I have to cook the meat, I might as well throw in the onion. That is just a personal preference.
I think in my next iteration I would like to maybe add more vegetables like celery, if I have any at the time. I would also like to normalize my addition of chili powder, Jacob says it never has enough so I will start with 1 Tablespoon, and work from there.
In general we really love this recipe for a start, I love that I don’t have to add water or a ton of seasonings. And Jacob only had to buy 8 cans of kidney beans to get sent a free stuffed bean, yay for food storage and free toys. Seriously, I do love that all these ingredients are storable, so as long as we have power, or a fire we can made some chili with all our canned beans and tomatoes.