Chili con Carne
I ditched the crockpot…
A slow cooker is a classic way for a senior missionary cooking for Young Adults, but I’ve been finding myself moving away from the crockpot a bit lately. Good news: this former slow-cooker classic works beautifully in a huge pot right on your stove!
For the deepest flavor, I cooked the meat and veggies seperately in the same pot before combining them. And speaking of efficiency, I highly recommend using an Instant Pot (a recent addition to my kitchen!) to cook the dry beans—it saves both money and time!
I cook and prep most of the ingredients before taking it all to the church, but then it is easier to transport if I wait until we get to the church to combine it with all the wet ingredients. I use the Ikea big food prep buckets with lids and then put it all in a pot about an hour before institute starts. Then it has until after institute is over to simmer.
(Original inspiration for this dish comes from Carlsbad Cravings.)
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound Hot Italian sausage
1 onion chopped
1 large green bell pepper chopped
1 large red bell pepper chopped
6 garlic cloves minced
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (no salt/seasonings added)
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
2 14.5 oz. cans fire roasted diced tomatoes, with juices
3 15 oz. cans dark kidney beans rinsed and drained
1 4 oz. can mild diced green chiles
1 cup reduced sodium beef broth
2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 TBS EACH ground cumin, beef bouillon
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tsp EACH smoked paprika, ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon pepper
salt to taste (I use 1/2 teaspoon - but start with less)
1 bay leaf
Toppings (your favs!)
cheese
green onions
cilantro
Avocados/guacamole
crackers
chips
Sour cream/Greek yogurt
amazing with my Sweet Cornbread!
Instructions
Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add beef and sausage and cook until browned. Transfer to 6 or 7 quart slow cooker.
To the same skillet (don’t wipe out) add onions and bell peppers and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 30 seconds. Transfer to slow cooker. Add all remaining Chili Ingredients to the slow cooker and give them a stir.
Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours (recommended) or on HIGH for 3-4 hours. Taste and add salt/pepper/cayenne pepper to taste. Serve with desired toppings such as cheese, sour cream, green onions, corn/tortilla chips, etc.
Spain Adaptations
Ground beed and Sausage - Well we are in luck with that. Pork is the cheapest meat here and consequently is added to a lot of things. There is a mix of ground beef and ground pork sold in the markets and that is what I used here.
Green peppers - hard to come by and usually a bit soft. Red peppers are HUGE and a plenty, so i just used the quantity of both in red only.
Fire roasted tomatoes - no, haven’t seen those either, but I cut up fresh tomatoes and cooked them in the pan with the extra veggies I added.
Green chilis - We haven’t found a can of green chilis, yet. I bought a bag of “medium hot” green chilis at Mercadona, seeded them, roasted them in a pan, and chopped them up. They added wonderful flavor.
Extra Veggies - just like with my kids i am always looking for extra veggies to throw into the mix. I had a ton of carrots in the fridge so I “processed” them into small chunks and added them to cooking the veggies
No Crockpot - As I said in the begining I have kind of gone around the crockpot and traded for a big pot on the stove. Why, because I had to transport the crockpots back and forth to the church and work around not spilling it in the car by either putting into buckets and then back into the crockpot at church. Now I cook everything up, put it in big Ikea food grade buckets. and then combine it together at the church to heat up all together. I have a good 2 hours to let it simmer there.
