Survival Sunday 16

Picture this: You're planning to have people over. You don't want spaghetti or burgers. It's cooler outside than it has been in a while. You're craving something spicy.

Chili seems to be the answer!

But how do you make a chili? Doesn't chili take a long time? Isn't it hard?

It's not hard. It is time-consuming.

It's amazing.

Z & I have been craving chili for a long while now. We both like beans, we both like spice, we both like chili. Bam. Chili time!

Here's what I used in the chili:

• 1/2 package ground beef (You can use more or less - the meat isn't 100% necessary)
• 3 cans of beans (we used White Cannolinis, Dark Red Kidney, and Black beans)
• 4 chipotles in adobo sauce
• 1.5 serano peppers (that's what we had on-hand)
• 1/2 poblano pepper, seeded
• 1 Hungarian Wax pepper
• 1 Aloha bell pepper
• 1 can chopped green chilies
• 1 can diced tomato
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 large, sweet onion
• 3 scallions, snipped
• bacon bits
• 1 heaping tablespoon gochujang
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• bone broth
• soy sauce
• peanut oil
• smoked paprika
• brown sugar
• red pepper flakes
• ground mustard
• cocoa powder
• instant coffee
• Mexican hot chocolate

Not every ingredient is here, and there are a few things that I didn't use out here...

I'm pretty sure I've missed some stuff in these ingredients. It was hectic and I didn't photograph everything... oops. Also, a lot of these pictures will be blurry as heck because I was cooking up a storm and couldn't photograph everything! Yargh!

Z & I aren't 100% keen on beefy chili (that's more of a thing for my dad, who hates beans in his chili...), so I only used half a package of meat and froze the rest. What follows is approximately how I made the chili:

1) Take a heaping spoonful of the gochujang (a spicy Korean chili paste) and a spoonful of hoisin sauce and start frying them up in some peanut oil. Why peanut oil? It's what I had on-hand and I like the flavor. If you're allergic, obviously don't use it!

That's our hoisin on top of my gochujang

That's some good, good stuff.

Mine has become about the same consistency as fruit leather, which meant that it was harder to incorporate.

2) While that's sizzling away, grab your meat and put it in the same pan. We want the flavors to mingle!

Pro Tip: If your beef is frozen, actually thaw it out before you pop it in the pan.
My bad.

Do not adjust your television set. I cannot photograph things.

3) When all of the meat is browned and the sauces are basically incorporated into the meat, carefully dump everything into a crock pot. We're using a big (and I mean BIG slow-cooker here). Try to leave as much oil/fat behind in the pan as possible, because we'll need it for the onion in a second. Do not turn the crock pot on yet. Just cover it with a lid and continue with the rest of your ingredients.

4) Chop half your onion and start frying it in the same pan you just used. Don't clean out the pan. We want that delightful flavor to get stuck in the onion. This onion is likely going to fall apart in the chili as it cooks, so don't be too concerned about uniformity, perfect cooking, etc. It'll all go in the pot when you like how it looks.

By the time this was finished cooking, it was basically orange.

5) The other half of the onion should also be chopped up, but this onion will be dumped into your crock pot raw. We want some texture, after all. Also, keep the lid on the crockpot when you're not adding stuff.

By now the kitchen was really smelling good.
That's my excuse.

6) Time to chop up your peppers! I only managed to photograph the fresh ones, since I actually forgot about my frozen poblano and seranos. They were frozen because I got them a couple weeks ago and couldn't let them rot. I had to defrost them in 10 second bursts in the microwave. It took me 20 seconds to get both soft enough to cut easily with my freshly-sharpened knife. Also, with how big the poblano was (maybe 6 inches long?!) I only needed half. By the end, my hands and eyes smarted from all the capsaicin in the air. Dump all the chopped peppers into your crock pot and replace the lid. Yes, the chipotles are slimy. Yes, they burn. They all burn. Except the bell pepper.

That's my blurry Aloha pepper - kinda citrusy in flavor.
Very nice to look at in our chili when it was all cooked!

This is a Hungarian Wax pepper.
I don't know why I took this picture.

This is a chopped Hungarian Wax pepper.

These burn. You can vaguely see the green chiles next to it.

The smears up above the seranos are just adobo sauce.
The seranos are frozen solid in this shot.

7) Time for beans! Open your cans and dump them straight into the crock pot. No draining. Just dump them in. Same with the diced tomatoes.

You can kinda see the poblano and seranos here!

8) Time for the tomato sauce, too. Dump it in. Chili is the original dump dinner.

9) Add some bone broth. I used beef bone broth. Yum.

Just dump it in.

I was gearing up for the rest of the weirder ingredients, I think...

10) Here's where things start to get... weird. You're going to start adding things like garlic powder, yeah, but also a splash of soy sauce, some brown sugar, some cocoa powder, a heaping tablespoon of the Mexican hot chocolate mix, a sprinkle of dried ground mustard. You want to get some baseline of flavors in here besides the wet ingredients. I forgot chili powder in mine. You can add yours.

This is also where I added about a teaspoon of instant coffee, but you do not have to do this. I like it. It adds bite and buzz.

Obviously, this isn't all I added. I only remembered the cocoa powder later, after all.

This stuff is amazing. Spicy, decadent madness.

Honestly, my favorite paprika is smoked paprika.

Oh yeah, also snip your scallions into the pot now.

11) Throw that lid back on and start cooking on high. Check it every now and then by stirring the chili and tasting it. If it's too acidic, add more cocoa powder and/or brown sugar. If it's too sweet, add something like a vinegar (any kind of vinegar would work). Trust your tastebuds. If it's not spicy enough, add more spicy things. If it's too spicy, you can fix that later with dairy products added to your bowl. Yum.

I left this running from about 11AM to about 6PM.
You can do yours longer or shorter.
It all depends on how long you have to wait for dinner.

12) If you're like me and love bread products, go ahead and make some rolls right before you eat. I don't suggest making them if it's really humid out, though. These ones came out small and hard even though I followed the directions 100%. Meh.

I still ate half of them because I'm a glutton.

13) Finally, serve your chili in bowls with some cheese and sour cream - the dairy will absolutely help cut the heat and bring out the darker and richer flavors.

Delicious.

I made this on Wednesday, and I still have leftovers.

By the way, I'm not doing a Spice this week.

That's because I'm giving you a BONUS RECIPE!

That's right! I had so much freaking chili that I had to use some of it up the next night in something I think you'll like:

Chili Dip.

Sadly, I have no pictures, but it's literally a 3 ingredient recipe, so don't worry.

Your ingredients are:

• Leftover chili (or chili from a can, either way works)
• Cream cheese (brick form works best)
• Shredded cheese to cover

1) Leave your cream cheese bricks out to soften. I used 2 because that's the size pan I used (one of those disposable square ones for brownies). Preheat your oven to 350℉

2) When you feel like your cream cheese is soft enough, plop them into the bottom of your baking pan/dish and squish them down so they cover the whole bottom of the pan with no gaps. This is your base. You want it solid and full. And delicious.

3) Spread out a nice thick layer of your leftover chili out over the top of your cream cheese layer. You can make this as thick or thin as you like, depending on your pan's depth.

4) Cover the top of the chili with a layer of shredded cheese. Bam. Done.

5) Bake the whole thing at 350℉ until the cheese on top is melted. If you need to wait for someone to show up, leave it in the oven, but turn the heat off. It should stay warm enough for a few hours!

6) Eat with tortilla chips, Fritos, etc. Everything is better with chili dip.

That's all from me this week, folks.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC