Homemade Chili

It was time for Chili again. Last night grocery shopping we had to decide what to do for dinner and Chili just sounded so good. We don't really have a recipe we follow but make it up as we go trying to find the best one we can make. It's like our own little chili recipe. Tonight was no different. And it turned out really good.

What we used was:
 - 1 lb of ground beef
 - chili beans
 - crushed fire roasted tomatoes with garlic
 - two medium sized cloves of garlic
 - just a small piece of white onion (because I'm not a big fan of onion)
 - bacon that we friend up before and chopped into pieces
 - chili spice
 - red pepper spice
 - cayenne spice
 - salt and pepper

We didn't have time to put it in the crock pot today because I forgot to buy tomatoes last night so I had to do it in a covered fry pan today when I got home from work but that worked too.

I started by frying up the meat and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I put in the onion and garlic and let that cook a little before I seasoned with red pepper, cayenne and chili spice (to each and everyone's liking, just remember the fire roasted tomatoes with garlic and garlic itself gives it a kick). One's it had cooked for a couple of minutes so the meat was done, I poured in the chilis and the tomatoes (and added just a little bit of fresh tomatoes that needed to be eaten), and the bacon. We stirred it for a little bit before we put the cover on and let it sit by itself for 15 min. You have to be careful though because it can easily burn when it's on the stove and not in the crock pot. We ended up sifting in half a tablespoon of flour to thicken up the sauce a little bit in the end.

This Chili actually turned out to be one of the best ones we've made. The bacon in there just made it perfect. Next time though we have some other things we'd like to put in there as well. It's always an experiment with us and chili. I really love cooking with E though because he always wants to try new things :)

This was the end result. I topped it off with a little sour cream (which was needed because it had some heat to it) and a little bit of cheddar cheese. E topped his off with blue cheese crumbles which he thought was great. Served with a piece of bread and a glass of milk it was a great, filling dinner. And it left leftovers for tomorrows lunch for both of us :)

Sorry my pictures aren't the best but I don't own a fancy system camera like everyone else :P