Tom & Stacey's chili cook off!

Friends Tom & Stacey hosted a chili cook off in Hermosa beach on Sunday night.  My chili experience is limited to one time when I threw everything in the crock pot and hoped for the best.  The results were disappointing as there weren't any discernible flavors...everything tasted the same.  So, this time I was going to layer and do it right.  I wanted to do something different but also do a traditional chili so I went big and made two.  Aim high, right?
For the traditional, I called it "Kitchen Sink Chili", I just used everything I thought would taste good. I was also in a time crunch and had about an hour. I decided to go the canned route as I didn't have time to cook beans.....

 I started with ground beef and chorizo, browned and drained, then added onions and garlic.
Added some canned diced green chilis (canned and in the mexican foods section) stirred those into the beef mixture
Added some chipotle peppers that I made a paste out of by putting them in a food processor for 30 seconds (also canned and in the mexican foods section)
Added some tomato paste and chicken stock
Added three types of canned beans...black, kidney, and another red type
Added chopped green peppers
Then I started to add spice
Chili powder, salt and cayenne
Onion powder and more cayenne
More chili powder and cumin
I let it go for about 45 minutes and kept tasting adjusting spice

Top with the usual....sour cream, chopped green onions, and cheese. To make it even more rad, add  fried tortilla strips.

There were seven different chilis.   And Stacey obviously had a hard time deciding.....

It was kind of amazing that none of them tasted the same even though everyone went pretty traditional (except for my "Sausage Fest Chili" recipe below)
"Minnesota Meaty" was the only one to incorporate steak and the flavors were my favorite.  There was also a veggie chili with faux meat and I wouldn't have noticed the difference.  Everyone tasted and re tasted each chili.  Categories such as "Most Original", "Best Texture", "Best us of Spice" were on the ballot.  The category with the most points was the "Favorite" chili.  My "Kitchen Sink" chili won the favorite award!  RAD.  Especially since I sustained an injury (burning the shit out of my hand on a hot spatula) and cooked most of the way one handed.  It's hard to chop with your left hand.


It was a fun night and they have decided the next category will be meatballs.  I have never made meatballs before........any tips?


"Sausage Fest Chili"  (inspired by a chili in Esquire Magazine created by a James beard award winning chef but named by moi)

Chop sausage (14-16 oz) and brown (the Esquire recipe uses Italian sausage but I wanted something with a bit of sweetness to counter the heat so I used Chicken Apple sausage)

Cook bacon and drain most of the fat
Add chopped onion and chopped fennel bulb to the remaining fat and cook about 4 minutes
Add garlic
Add cooked sausage
Add diced green peppers
Add chicken stock  (just enough to cover the ingredients. It will cook down)
Add 2-3 cans of  WHITE beans
Salt and pepper
Add red chili flakes

Cook for about 40 minutes.

Top with sour cream and some reserved chopped bacon
The flavors of the chili flakes, sweet sausage and fennel are really amazing.

Photo is of ingredients before adding stock.

 Adding up the points.....

 Ryan's fav chili

My favorite little dog