A big pot of chili.

Eugene and I have a lot going on tonight, so I knew we wouldn’t have time to make dinner. I decided to put on a big pot of chili so that we could tap into the leftovers for tonight’s dinner. I make chili the way my dad makes it, and I like it that way. :) The key to good chili is boiling it a long time. The longer the better. I usually only boil it 3-4 hours because I start it after work, but my dad keeps his on the stove all day…and his is better than mine. Don’t do it in a crock pot; I’ve tried and it’s not good. Boiling is a must.

In the middle of making the chili, we got a huge thunderstorm. Perfect weather for chili.

The ingredients for my/my dad’s chili are:

• ground turkey
• diced onion
• 1 large can of tomato juice {my mother-in-law uses V8 instead, and it’s good too…a thicker, more tart taste, but good.}
• 1 can light red kidney beans, drained
• 1 can dark red kidney beans, drained
• 1 can chili beans {not drained}
• crushed red pepper
• ground chili pepper
• shredded cheddar cheese
• crackers for topping

First, I diced up the onion {super fine because Eugene doesn’t like onion if he can see it!}

Next, I browned my turkey with the onion in the same pot that I wanted to use for my chili.

Once my meat was browned, I added some chili powder and crushed red pepper to spice it a bit.

After that, I drained the beans, except I don’t drain the chili beans. Then I dumped the beans into my meat mixture. The above picture shows the leftover sauce at the bottom of the bean cans. I usually add 1/2 can of water to each bean can to swish out this sauce and pour it in the chili, and it adds more water to my chili, which is needed.

Next is adding the tomato juice.

Stir it around…it’s pretty thin at this point {that’s why boiling is important.}

 

Cover it with a lid. Boil. Boil. Boil. As long as ya got, boil it.

Serve the comfort food with cheese & crackers {and a PBJ if you’re feelin hungry…I love it with PBJ.}