Crockpot Chili

It has been raining for a week straight, and the temperature drastically dropped, too, in DC. It can put a damper on things, but it motivated me to make chili. I've never made it in a crock pot, so I thought I'd throw everything in it, set the temperature, and have a hearty chili waiting for me the next day. I looked at several recipes, and the one I narrowed it down to is actually a lot more involved than I wanted it to be, but it sounded the best. I went shopping, came home, and started the creation around midnight and finishing around 10AM. In the end, was it worth it? Heck yeah. The only thing I would have done different is added more heat for an extra kick. Anyway, here is the recipe that I used with my own modifications and pictures I took along the way.

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Start the DAY BEFORE; the flavors have to blend!

- 2lbs ground beef
- 2lbs beef stew cubes (chuck), cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 lg onion, chopped
- 3-4 garlic cloves chopped
- 2 red or green peppers, (your choice) diced
- 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (one pepper, not the whole can!)
*** Note - I couldn't find this, so I used a spoon of hot sauce and 3 spoons of brown sauce (like A-1, HP, etc. I used HP sauce. Like a British A1 sauce, but a little different.)
- 1 28oz can diced tomatoes in puree
- 2 14oz cans tomato sauce (with green chile peppers are good)

- 2 14oz cans Heinz beans (if you can't find Heinz, use kidney beans (light or dark) but drained and rinsed

- 1 14 oz can black beans drained and rinsed

- 1 14 oz can cannellini beans drained and rinsed
- 1 12oz beer, any kind
- chili powder
- cumin
- garlic powder
- salt
- black pepper
- cayenne pepper
- Secret ingredient: 2 square unsweetened Baker's chocolate

Saute onions, garlic and red/green peppers until soft. Remove to crockpot.

Brown ground meat and the cubed meat, add to crock pot. If you'd like more flavor, go ahead and all the juices and fat too.

Turn crockpot up to high, add all the tomatoes and the beans.
About 3 hours later, add the beer (it'll foam up), let that get hot.

Start adding the seasonings to taste. What this means is, start with at least 1-2
tablespoons of chili powder and cumin (don't be shy!), some garlic powder, salt and black pepper.

Scrape the seeds from the chipoltle pepper, and chop it up. Throw that in with a tsp of the adobo sauce. As I said above, if you can't find this, use the substitute.
Let it cook up a while. Look for a reddish-orangeish color. You'll probably have to add some more of the spices. If it's not too spicy, sprinkle a little cayenne in. It does get hotter as it goes along. Again, the color will dictate the taste, if it's still red like straight tomatoes you need more spice, but go easy on the salt and the cayenne; folks can always add more if they want it hotter or saltier.

When it's getting nice and hot and rich-looking, drop in the unsweetened chocolate, and let that melt right in. That adds another layer of flavor, and deepens the color.

Let it cook at least four hours. You'll need to remove the lid now, and then and let it cook off some of the liquid so it's not too soupy. You can just cook it over night if that's easier, then cook it down in the morning. But you should let it cool so the flavors blend, then heat it up again. It sounds like a lot of work but it's definitley worth it.

You can serve this one rice, noodles, or straight up. I didn't have sour cream at that moment, so I sued cottage cheese in addition to blended shredded cheese and chopped onion. Yummy!