A Fundamentally Quick Chili

Better than fast-food chili

Once again, I regained some of the inspiration to cook and blog a little; maybe it was all the stress from college or lack of inspiration. Either way, I hope to be back better than before!

One of the most notorious things about chili is that most recipes require that it needs to cook for 6-8 hours in a crockpot (one appliance I'm not keen on getting). Truth be told, this recipe (adapted from The FamilyFun Cookbook) takes less than an hour to make since it uses canned beans instead of dry ones. I used the sweet corn chili recipe as my base and substituted the corn with jalapeno to spice up the evening.

Chili
1 1/2 lb of ground beef
1 cup of chopped onion
1 1/2 green bell peppers
1 can of red bell pepper
2 cans tomato paste

1 can of red kidney beans, drained
1 tbsp cumin

salt and black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp chili powder
Plenty of Tex-Mex seasoning
1 medium tomato, diced
1 to 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp crushed garlic
1 tbsp oregano
1 jalapeno, diced
2 cups of cooked rice

Topping
Crispy bacon, chopped
Crumbled feta cheese

First off, crumble the ground meat into a hot skillet with butter and brown.  I took the liberty of lightly seasoning it with the tex-mex seasoning while it cooked.

While it browns, saute the onions in a large pot until just translucent with the oil. Add to the onions the peppers, diced tomato and paste, jalapeno, beans and seasoning until just about cooked (about 15 minutes on medium heat).

Add the browned beef to the bean casserole and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until the ideal thickness is achieved. Pour the chili over the steamed rice.

Chop some crispy bacon roughly and top the chili with it and the cheese. Serve immediately.

Serves 6