it's chilly enough for chili: teddy's homemade recipe.

i once heard a woman at work say: "i love chili, however chili does not love me".

this was said as we we're walking into the ladies room, which is both hilarious & a damn shame.

for no particular reason, i cannot bring myself to eat chili, unless the weather is cold(ish) outside -- it doesn't need to dip below a specific temperature, or maintain a certain degree for a sustained period of time, it just simply cannot be hot as balls out. i guess it has something to do with the fact that chili has a way of warming you up as it fills you up; it's hearty and beefy and brings me back to falls and winters growing up. i have memories of coming home from school on days my dad had off, and smelling the huge ass pot of chili simmering on the stove, from outside the front door. we would eat great big bowls of it for days on end, and loved every second of it to the very last bite.


to keep my old man's tradition & recipe alive, i make a pot of his famous chili a few times each fall. one of my prouder moments, was a few years back, when we held a "chili cook-off" at my work (yes, we are all that serious about chili). i am incredibly proud to say, i won second place. note: first place went to a co-worker who used bacon in their recipe, and i know the rules, bacon in anything is always going to win first place, fair enough. so here it is, yours to enjoy.

how we do: teddy's second-place-at-work, first-place-in-my-heart, homemade chili

{makes 1 gigantic pot}

prep time: 15 minutes

cook time: 3-4 hours

eating time: a solid week of leftovers. you're welcome.

you will need:

3 cans of crushed tomatoes

2 small or 1 large can of tomato paste

1 large can of kidney beans

2 pounds of stewing beef

1 pound of lean ground beef

1 large onion

2 red bell peppers

7 stalks of celery

20-25 mushrooms, sliced or small buttons

3 chili peppers from nonno's garden

5 heaping tablespoons of chili powder or to taste

salt & pepper to taste

chipotle tobasco sauce

let me start off by saying there is no need to make as much as this recipe calls for. this will easily feed a family of 32, with leftovers to freeze, so cut the recipe in half for a family of 4 (you will still most likely have more than enough for the next day) or to be able to fit it into most standard size crock pots. we like to have lots for leftovers (to share at work) and to make dirty chili cheese dogs or fries with through the week. because we're dirtballs like that.

in a large pot, get the ground beef and stewing beef browning in a little bit of olive oil. you don't need to cook it all the way through, just enough to get some colour and texture going on -- you're gonna cook this bad boy for several hours, so everything will be perfectly cooked through, promise. while the meat is cooking, chop your onion, bell peppers, mushrooms and celery into chunks, whatever size blows your hair back. carefully chop the chili peppers, and remove seeds for less heat, or you can throw the whole bitch in like we do.

add your veggies, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and kidney beans (just like my nonna's sugo & meatball recipe, we only use 'unico' brand for these ingredients--somehow, it makes a difference) to the browning meat, add the chili powder, salt & pepper and tobasco.  i like to fill the empty crushed tomato and tomato paste cans with warm water, stir a bit to loosen anything remaining in the can, and use that to top off the rest of the pot--this water will cook away as your chili simmers, and thickens everything up. give it all a good stir, and let everything come to a boil with the pot lid on. once it boils, you can reduce the heat and let it simmer on low with the lid off for at least 3 hours, stirring every once in a while. we let ours go for a solid 4 hours, adding more chili power and tobasco as we went, to create a bold, flavourful chili, that was good enough to eat on it's own, and as a meal.

teddy's chili may not be first place material at work, but in our home, there is no competition. literally.