A55M0NKEY's Journal: Chili

My chili recipe is a mish-mash, stolen from various other people and added to by me.

• Chili
• Optional: Fry up green bell peppers, or poblano peppers work too. If you will be serving to wimps don't use poblano. Poblano is a wimpy pepper, but some people are, well, wimps. Cut em small and fry them until they are dead. Use lots, but cook em down good so they aren't obnoxious. Onions too, but you don't need to cook them so much so add them when your peppers are mostly done. The Clorophyll in green peppers seems to sap the taste out of spices unless you fry the shit out of them first, but the pepper taste is yummy.
• Fry up some grated garlic and pepperoni. Pepperoni needs to fry first because it is tough and full of flavour that you want to get into your food.
• Add ground beef.
• Dash of oregano.
• 1 can whole or crushed tomatos
• Major shit loads of chilli powder. I buy the big ass bottles at the dollar store because I use like a quarter of a cup or more at a time. Some chili powder sucks but it doesn't seem to be related to price. Good chili powder gives food that rich pepper taste. Use more chilli powder if you left out the green peppers. Use paprika instead rather than crappy chili powder - it tastes more like chili powder than crappy chilli powder. If you taste ascorbic acid or citric acid in with the powder you buy it is crap. Chili powder should be nothing but powdered chili peppers.
• Optional: Cumin powder or seeds if you like that 'taco' taste.
• Sugar + salt to taste. Yep sugar. You can put as much sugar as you like, but keep tasting because you can't take it out.
• Sometimes I can't find sugar. You can substitute Hersheys Chocolate Milk syrup. Chocolate you say? Yep. Sometimes I add baking cocoa. This is totally optional. It doesn't make your chili taste like a candy bar though. It's rich and yummy. Prolly authentic. They have cocoa down Mexico way....
• Optional but recommended Black Beans & Kidney Beans 1 can each. I like beans in my chili.

This might seem like wimpy chili to you. And you are right it is chili anyone can eat. You can heat it up with peppers or Daves Insanity Sauce or whatever, or if you will be serving it to other people, you can eat it like I do. I keep it wimpy, but sprinkle a chopped haberno pepper on top of my bowl. Or I just cut pieces off the whole pepper with my fork as I'm eating. The chili cools your mouth but it tastes good with the hot pepper!

Another secret I learned from my wife's dad: Spaghetti & Meatballs is awesome with raw haberno peppers. Stab a bit of haberno onto your fork before skewiering a meatball and pop it in your mouth.. Fuckin awesome! Habernos are best raw anyway. If you cook em, they make your food too hot before you get any pepper flavor.