Chili recipe!

In honor of my hate of the Semi-Ho (yeah... yesterdays new episode had yogurt plus tofu plus VOKDA... this lady is nuts) I've been meaning to post my totally un-gourmet, "king of canned foods" chili recipe. Yeah. It looks kinda sketchy on the surface but it's the way my grandfather made chili, my dad made chili and I learned to make chili.

My husband, the notorious picky eater, just about dances when he knows I'm making chili for dinner. It not only means a couple of tasty bowls of chili for dinner, it means a chili stash in the freezer for chili dogs, chili fries, chili omelettes (yeah, sounds gross but it's damned good) and various other chili applications.

Adding adobo chiles and some hot sauce even made this a winner of a chili contest (yeah, us midwesterners kinda suck when it comes to what we think is good chili, I'll admit it).

Easy-Ass Chili

1 1/2 to 2 pounds ground beef
2 -3 large onions, chopped
1 tablespoon McCormick Chili powder (the brand is important!!)
2 cans light red kidney beans, undrained
1 can dark red kidney beans, undrained
2 cans Campbell's condensed tomato soup
1 tablespoon butter

Brown ground beef and onions in a large pot, until meat is no longer pink and onions are translucent. If your meat was really greasy, drain it. No one needs THAT much beef fat.

Add chili powder and cook 1-2 minutes, stirring, until it starts to smell like chili.

Dump in he beans and tomato soup. I cannot stress "undrained" enough. Trust me, the end result will not be too salty. And just think about how all the preservatives in there will keep your corpse looking good for years after you die.

Bring to a boil and taste for seasoning. Add more chili powder if you want.

Cook over low heat, covered, for two hours, stirring every 15-20 minutes, being sure to scrape the bottom of the pot. Don't let it burn on the bottom of the pot. If it does, all is not lost, DO NOT scrape the burned chili off the bottom, just dump the still-good chili in to another pot and continue cooking. Then quickly clean up the evidence so no one will ever know.

All that sound like too much trouble?? Then dump it in a crock pot. 4-6 hours on high, covered, will cook it nicely.

No matter which method you use, cook an additional hour, uncovered. If it's on the stove, you still need to keep stirring.

Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon butter. Don't know the chemical explination, but it makes it good.

Serve and eat.

Serving suggestions: shredded cheese, chopped onions, tortilla chips, crackers, sour cream, or my favorite, buttered saltine crackers (like a little canape!!)