Monday, November 3, 2008

Beef Chili

[week of 11/02/08]

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what else you can do with ground beef, besides just burgers. Not sure why it seems so hard to generate ideas about this, sometimes. But, the other day, I had an aha moment, and realized: chili. Beef goes in chili.




So, I started searching around, and settled on Half-time Chili. With its nearly 300 reviews (many with lots of positive things to say), I sort of figured it might be a good first attempt at chili.

Really easy to make, minimal effort, though you do need to start a few hours in advance of the meal, as it takes some time to simmer/cook.

The recipe calls for 3 lbs of meat and 1 can of chili beans (I did not even know such a thing existed, and was all worried about finding them at Hannaford, and if unable to find them, what would I substitute with??. But, not to worry, Hannaford has them, and upon reading the label, you discover it is just a pre-mixed combo of pinto, black and kidney beans. What a scam, really, since I am guessing you pay a bit more for their efforts).




I changed that to be 2 lbs of beef and 2 cans of beans.

Secret ingredient: bottle o' beer. Ray claims it was a waste of a good beer, though he seemed to enjoy the chili...






We had Emma and Steve over for supper; they brought Trader Joe's cornbread, which turned out to be yummy (I initially disclosed my personal dislike of cornbread), I had also made applesauce, and we tucked into a quart of frozen custard for dessert.


Note: I had been assuming that each package of burger meat weighed a pound, and was not even bothering to weigh them. E and S said they found big variabilty across packs. So, all I really know at this point is that I used two packages of meat for this recipe.

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