Chili #1

Who'd of thunk. Here I am, 38 years old, and I've never made a batch of chili before. With 6 inches of snow on the ground a way too much cold it seemed like a good idea. I knew the basic recipe so I read a couple on line and took a simple approach.

2 lbs of stew beek
1 large yellow onion
2 large vine tomatoes
1 serano pepper
4 cloves garlic
chili powder
cumin powder
dried oregano
black pepper
salt

First I roasted the serano pepper in the toaster oven.

While that was going on I browned the meat in skillet. Add a bit of olive oil, 1 crushed garlic clove, one pound of meat cut into bite sizes, and a bit of salt. Cook until browned. Dump the whole mess into a stew pot. Repeat for the 2nd pound of meat.

Once brown I diced the serano pepper, the onion, two tomatoes, and two more crushed garlic cloves.. All that was thrown on top of the beef. On top of that I put about 3 cups of beef broth. Basically bringing it to the level of the mixture. I added chili powder, cumin, oregano, black pepper, and a bit more salt. I didn't measure. About 2x as much chili powder and cumin. Sprinkle the oregano and black pepper.

I brought the broth to a boil and then reduced the heat back and let simmer for about 90 minutes.

With it I made some cornbread muffings. (Blue Jiffy box. Followed the directions.)

How was it? Not all bad. It was a little bland to my taste. Some more cumin I think. Possibly a jalapeno instead of a serano pepper. Also, I would not put both whole tomatoes in at the beginning. The cooked down to nothing. Completely predictable but wasn' thinking. I'd save the second one until the last 20 minutes or so.

We'll see how it is after sitting for a day.