In Mendota, we didn’t think winter would ever arrive when we were lounging around in 70 degree temperatures in December. Whoops! Were we wrong! It’s here!
We had a weird little snow last night that left things very slick so I took a serendipitous holiday/vacation day from work. I was about to change my mind and go in around 9 am when WCYB TV came on with a report about all of the wrecks–one near where I work which, apparently, downed two power poles. My driver said he wasn’t taking me and I wasn’t going to drive my Prius, so it was a day at home!!
So…it was a good day for chili and I’d been looking at a Wendy’s chili recipe that I found on a website called www.topsecretrecipes.com. I followed the recipe closely with the exception of medium tomatoes, chopped. Instead, I used the southern woman’s secret weapon for any recipe — our home canned tomatoes and then I reduced the amount of water that the recipe called for. There are few things as good.
I can open the jar and just eat the tomatoes. I only used the quart jar of tomatoes.
At any rate, I used a quart jar of tomatoes and just reduced the water in the recipe to 1 and 1/2 cups vs. 2 cups.
Here’s the recipe:
2 pounds of ground beef
one 29 oz. can tomato sauce
one 29 oz. can kidney beans (including liquid)
one 29 oz. can pinto beans (including liquid)
1 cup diced onion (1 medium onion)
1/2 cup sliced green chilies (2 chilies)
1/4 cup diced celery (1 stalk)
3 medium tomatoes, chopped (I used 1 quart of home canned tomatoes)
2 teaspoons cumin powder
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons sale
2 cups water (I used 1 and 1/2 because of the water in the home canned tomatoes)
Brown the beef in a skillet over medium heat and drain the fat. Using a fork, crumble the cooked beef into pea-size pieces. (I mashed the heck out of the beef with a potato masher). In a large pot, combine everything and cook about 2 to 3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes.
Here’s what it looked like. I didn’t have any cheddar cheese to put in it so I used what I had…mozzarella cheese. Yeah…I eat all my chili out on the porch in the snow. It’s just our way around here.
This made a ton of chili, and it does taste like Wendy’s chili. However, I miss those yellow cardboard bowls.
Have any of you heard about a large snow headed for southwest Virginia on February 16? If you want that snow, you know what you need to do:
- Wear your pajamas wrong side out
- Sleep with a spoon under your pillow
- Flush six ice cubes down the commode
- Brush your teeth with the wrong hand
It works. This is science. You can make it happen.