knock your socks off chili

Chili is one of those things that are always good. It can also be extremely cheap and easy.

A basic chili is basically a stew with meat, beans, and some kind of tomato based sauce. But to get that bowl of steaming hot goodness to really knock your socks off, we're going to have to take it up a few notches.

To start off roast 5 red bell peppers. The easiest way to do this is right on the stove. Basically what you want to do is burn the skin so it can be peeled right off. So once at a time place the peppers over the open fire, rotating them once the skin has a nice char on it. Once all the peppers are fully charred, place them in a large bowl and cover them with plastic wrap to sweat them off as they cool down.

Next is when you sear the meat. Cut about 3 pounds of chuck meat into bit sized pieces, remember meat shrinks when cooks, so don’t cut them too small. In a large bowl, mix the meat with all purpose flour, enough to coat each piece evenly. Then in a sauté pan (preferable not a non-stick pan) sear each piece of meat so that they get a nice golden color on them. Make sure there is enough fat from the meat or oil in the pan so that nothing burns off. If your pan starts to smoke up, add some oil to the pan.

Once all the meat is seared, sauté one yellow onion cut up into small pieces. Once the onions are translucent add about 10 button mushrooms cut to the same size as the meat pieces, along with 3 or 4 cloves of garlic diced extremely fine. When the mushrooms are tender add enough tomato sauce to deglaze the pan, depending on the size of your pan, you will probably need about 8 oz (half a 16 oz can).

Once the peppers have cooled down, start peeling the skin off with your fingers. If they are roasted long enough the skin will almost fall off. Next is coring and de-seeding, you can do this by cutting the pepper in half and pulling out the core and seeds. You don't want any seeds in your chili. Next slice up all the peppers to about 1/4" pieces.

Once all the peppers are cut up place them in a large pot along with the mushrooms, onions, and 2 or 3 stalks of celery sliced into 1/2" pieces. Then add the other 1 and a half cans of tomato sauce, 2 cans of tomato paste and 1 can of diced tomatoes. 

Now I like my chili to have a nice kick, so I add 1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper and 1 Tsp cinnamon.

Let that sit on a high heat until it starts to simmer, then lower the heat to a medium low heat. 

Once you have reduced the heat add a can of black beans, drained and rinsed along with the meat pieces. Give that a nice big stir so that everything is mixed evenly. 

Cook for another hour/ hour and a half, and enjoy.