It's Chilly

It's been quite chilly lately.  It's warming up some during the day, but most mornings and evenings it's quite chilly.  I thought that it was time for a nice quiet night at home with Chili and TV time in the pajamas.   That sounded like a pretty good Thursday to me. 

Here's our Chili Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb. ground turkey (we use ground beef sometimes too)

1 can of tomato sauce

1 can of stewed tomatoes

1 can of chili beans

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic

Chili Powder

Cumin 

Salt and Pepper

Greg got me a Cast Iron Dutch Oven for Christmas and it is the best thing for making chili.   I turn it on and add a little oil to the pan.  I do this especially if we are using ground turkey because there is not a liquid in it.  Once the oil is heated I add in my chopped onion.  I like to let them cook for a few minutes and get some color and build that flavor.  I then add in about two cloves of minced garlic.  You know a recipe is good when onion and garlic are your two starters.  I then add in the ground turkey.  Cook all of that until your turkey is done. If you have a lot of liquid, drain some of it out.

We then add our spices.  We like a lot of chili powder.  I think I probably used about 1/4 cup last time if not more.  I just shook it in there until it looked and smelled how I like it.  I added a few shakes of cumin.  I added some salt and lots of pepper.  Then we added the two cans of tomatoes.  I like using one can of the tomato sauce and one can of the stewed tomatoes.  I like my chili to not be super thick so the sauce works well for that.  Most people would add the chili beans now.  You can definitely do that.  I'm not a big bean person, so most of the time I leave them out.  If I do use them, I will normally do about 1/2 to 3/4 of the can.  We let it simmer on medium-low to medium for about 30 minutes or so.  The longer it simmers the better.  It just depends on how long you want to wait.  

We serve this over some Fritos Scoops with shredded cheese and some sour cream.  Add whatever toppings your little heart desires.  It's your dinner, have fun!