Thursday, September 24, 2009

Culinary Adventures: Chili Edition (Part 1)

Every year around Halloween the fam gathers at their usual camping spot along the mighty Ohio River for an annual chili cook off. Family members, friends and camping neighbors usually participate giving us a good sampling of 8-10 varieties of chili. The chili is consumed. The votes are cast and counted. The winner usually gets some sort of token trophy or plaque and more importantly bragging rights.

Usually I like to partake in the consuming of the chili and voting for the winner. I haven't thrown my chili into the mix. That's all going to change this year. I've decided to throw my hat into the ring, and I'm not going into this unprepared. Recipes will be tested to find just that perfect winning chili. Mostly it's just an excuse to make and consume lots of chili. Delicious, delicious chili.

This past weekend I started the testing. With the help of my two taste testers Gina and Aiden I'm going to crack the perfect chili recipe, or just eat lots of delicious chili.

I started with a basic chili recipe from allrecipes.com. I started with a little browning of ground beef, and onion saute.






Dump it into a pot with the beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, and seasonings.






Bring to a boil, followed by a simmer for 15 minutes. Then....we wait. That is the end of the recipe, and we could have eaten it right then, but we all know that chili tastes much better if it's allowed to sit for a while. Let those seasonings settle in and mature to perfection.

Flash forward a few hours and....






Voila! Throw some crackers and shredded cheese and we've got some delciousness happening.

According to the taste testers....
It was delicious. According to Gina it wasn't terribly spicy, but still had a nice underlying kick. That would be the extra bit of spice I threw in. Aiden gave it two thumbs up.

How could we improve upon this recipe?
More. Gina suggested putting in some more beans. Amp up the that spicy kick. I agree it could use a bit extra bite to it. Otherwise it was quite good. It was just as good when I took in the leftovers for lunch. Yum.

What's up next?
I'm not sure just yet. I'm checking out some other chili recipes to make this weekend. Ed's Chicago Cocoa Chili sounds very interesting. Whatever I decide to make I can't wait to chill out after the State to State Half with some delicious chili and the Bengals on the tv.

1 comment:

Gina said...

It was damn near perfect, I say.