There's nothing better than a pot of chili on a Friday night especially when the temperatures are cooler and there's rain coming down.
Now we've enjoyed a lot of different chili's on this site and one of the many things I've learned during our 10 years is Tucson is there's a huge difference between a Mexican style chile and a chili like this one. In case you want to know the authentic Tex/Mex version, at least the one I make, doesn't have a touch of tomato in it, uses cubed beef instead of ground and there's not a bean in sight either. Not so with last night's pot of glorious stew.
A Cooking Light Recipe via myrecipes.com, this one starts with the usual sauteed onion and garlic, and makes use of sweet Italian sausage for something a little different. A couple of poblano peppers instead of the usual sweet green bell pepper variety and the pot's completed with canned diced tomatoes as well as a couple of poblano peppers and a can each of red kidney beans (the recipe called for black) and pinto's too. I added a little more tomato flavor in the guise of tomato paste because I thought the pot needed a little extra richness and I nixed the cilantro because mine was looking a little tired.
This chili has a very mild flavor, at least to our tastebuds, so we added extra spice to our bowls to make it more to our liking, but for those of you who are less "heat tolerant" the recipe as written is the way to go. Hit the link here and it'll take you right to the source.
I whipped up some quick cheese quesadillas out of corn tortillas and a mix of cheddar and Velveeta as a "with" but a hunk of cornbread would be a super side too. Enjoy! We certainly did.
A year ago - Weenies and Bacon Maple Beans
Two year's ago - Pork Tenderloin with Bacon,Onion,Mushroom Bourbon Sauce
What a beautiful bowl of red. We must be in the same zone...made chile this week too (but with ground turkey). This one sure sounds rich and yummy! Thinking of you guys today.
Posted by: Lorraine | 11/10/2012 at 08:53 AM
I am happy you are finally getting some cooler weather - nice bowl of chili there!
Posted by: Lea | 11/10/2012 at 10:01 AM
Lorraine - it was such a suitable meal for a cooler evening. It's even cooler today and we had more well needed rain last night. It's cool enough that (feral cat) Georgie was looking for cuddles during coffee hour this morning. She started asking at 3 this morning...she's OK as long as she can see the open door. LOL
Posted by: June | 11/10/2012 at 11:22 AM
Lea - it is lovely, just lovely. Max had us up at 1:50 AM with seizures and it was raining beautifully then. He managed to go 28 weeks...over half a year so we're thankful for that. He had 3 of them and we were all back in bed by the time Georgie was "knocking" at the screen door. LOL
Posted by: June | 11/10/2012 at 11:25 AM