Sunday Supper: Mom's Chili

I learned to make chili from my mom and a few years ago she gave me her recipe. She can't remember where she got it from but it's the chili she has cooked for years and I get to share the recipe with you!

Mom's Chili

Ingredients

• 2.5 lb ground chuck
  
• 2 cups chopped onion
  
• 1 chopped green pepper
  
• 2 cloves garlic pressed
  
• 3 Tbsp chili powder
  
• 1.5 tsp oregano
  
• 1 tsp basil
  
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
  
• 2 tsp ground cumin
  
• 1 tsp sugar
  
• 2 tsp salt
  
• 2 cans whole tomatoes, undrained
  
• 2 cans tomato sauce
  
• 1 can tomato paste
  
• 2 cans kidney beans, light and dark or both same
  

Cooking Directions

1. Cook meat until no longer pink and then drain. 
2. Reserve meat and add onion and green pepper to pan. 
3. Next add garlic and all remaining spices. 
4. Stir in the ground beef and the remaining ingredients except beans. 
5. Bring to a boil. 
6. Simmer 1 hour and then add the beans.
7. Cook another 15 minutes.
   

Simple right? Now me being me and The Cook Crook after all, I don't actually follow this recipe to the letter. In fact, since Sunday's meal was in fact chili, I started it this morning before we all headed to church. Once I browned my meat and reserved it, I sauteed both red and yellow onion and omitted the green pepper all together. My husband likes spice so too the mix I added some fresh chili peppers from this handy kitchen helper:

I live by these little tubes now!

Anyway, I then added 1 can of diced tomatoes and green chiles and a new product made by Hunt's that is tomato sauce seasoned for chili. The only change I made to the spices in mom's recipe was I cut back to 2 tablespoons of chili powder instead of 3 to account for the seasoned sauce. With no other tomatoes or suace added, this by itself would make wonderful hot dog chili!

Today the chili went into the slow cooker and I added the remaining ingredients and if you were in my house right now, you would definitely smell chili! Nothing like it when it cooks all day and those flavors come together!

I love chili and have won a few chili competitions just by experimenting with my Mom's basic recipe. Have any chili tips to share? Let me know! And as always send in your "cook crook" moments as I would love to share them.