Chili! Chili is a great food that is a soup but also hardy enough to stand alone. It warms your soul. I am not a huge fan of soup. I find it a waste of time because it is a side item to me (same as salad). Most soups leave me wanting to chew something afterward. A sandwich, grilled cheese, something! But chili is the exception to that rule.
Chili is stick to your bones. Chili reminds me of days when you are out for hours shoveling snow, bone cold, exhausted, not sure you can go on, not sure if you even have strength enough to lift your arms to eat. You come in to a pot of chili that was made hours ago (when you had energy), letting the flavors soak into one another, each ingredient effecting the others. Time makes chili better. You grab a bowl and a scoop of the spicy stuff and plop in a chair. With that first spoonful, the magic happens. You start to come alive again. The spices wake you up. The heat starts to thaw your core. The heat starts to radiate out. As you reach the bottom of the bowl, your body has thawed out, you might even break a sweat. But even more than that, your very soul is renewed.
Chili, however, is not an exclusive winter soup (but it feels like one). Spicy foods actually help people in hot weather. Something about the spices open the body's circulation and helps cool the body.
Another benefit of chili is that it is a group food. For a little effort, a lot of love and simmer time, you can feed a big crew. One of our family's great friends actually made chili for us on a hot summer day while a big group of us were helping fix my grandma's house. She made it ahead of time and let it cook in a cockpot for hours while we worked. After reaching the point of hot, sweaty exhaustion, the last thing I really wanted was hot chili, but it was there, free, no effort needed. So I had some...magic! It was amazing! Cheese melted on top, tortilla scoops...no spoon needed! It was one of those meals I remember and was everything I needed at that moment.
My dad's family tends to put a bunch of ingredients together that are around the kitchen and the recipe changes each time. This is a great method to create a meal out of leftover odds and ends. We all have those leftover canned veggies; maybe some hamburger in the freezer.
My mom was never a fan of beans, so chili was not a favorite since most recipes involve beans. So her side of the family has not passed on any chili recipes as of yet.
My best friend has a magic chili recipe that I have been sworn to secrecy never to tell. She has her recipe all in her head (most of her recipes are filed there). I swear she just goes into autopilot while making it.
I have taken her recipe and tweeked it a bit to fit my family's tastes. But I am not going to publish a recipe for this being that chili recipes can be found everywhere or just wing it.
Some universal tips for chili making that I have found to get you started:
1) Chili is a tomato based soup (except white chicken chili), so key ingredients would be tomato sauce, tomato paste, diced tomatoes. Maybe just one or all three.
2) I like using the premade chili spice packets. Chili powder, cayenne pepper, and cumin are three main spices used in chili.
3) Time. Low and slow. The longer it simmers on low, the better the taste.
4) Chili is pretty forgiving. This means you can hide a lot of things in the chili without hurting the flavor too much. Corn, squash, mushrooms, etc. I have even heard of chocolate being added.
5) An onion or two is also found in most recipes.
With most of the country going through a cold streak (even in South Florida), go out and make some chili!
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