There really is nothing like a warm bread bowl full of chili. Weather it's beef, turkey, chicken, veggie, bean loaded, or made with buffalo meat (which is what I used today), it probably is one of the most versatile foods out there. It's dirt cheap to make if you need to stretch the dollar, who in the world wouldn't like that aspect?
I admit, I took help from McCormick with chili seasoning, I wasn't in the mood to make my own this time, and I always try to make sure that I have seasoning like that on hand for those "I don't feel like it" times, which seems to be often enough to start kicking myself in the arse. Regardless, as I said up top, I used buffalo meat this time. Organic or natural meat at that (oooo...aaahhh), not by choice, it's just what they had, and I was in the mood to shake it up a bit (plus it was about the same price as lean ground beef!!).
But here is where the easiness of it for me stops. The hubby hates veggies and only wants meat and beans, I hate beans and want to load it with veggies, and so I won't have to make two batches again this time, we both took a hit. I made the beans on the side and cut up the veggies and left them on the side, all except some onion, you need to cook some onion down when you make chili, and we both agree with that. The biggest bummer for me though was that my sour cream had gone bad, so that one topping I wanted I had to do without. BOOOOO.
Since I only use 1lb of meat, and my canned 'maters I used were way to big to add both, I had to split em. I used the tomato sauce, but to add a little bit more flavor I also added some of those fire roasted 'maters. Funny thing is the hubby saw the can, but he didn't even say anything. I personally couldn't taste if it made a difference, but it's been years since I've made chili, so yeah, who knows.
I still think it's very good, the only two things I would change is to add a little bit of garlic and probably about 2tbls of the worcestershire sauce, while it may seem like a lot to most, we like a big added depth of flavor it adds. Definitely though, chili is so much better in an edible bowl (thank you Panera for saving me the time of making my own).
One of these times I'll take a picture and put it with a post, I don't think about it though. Usually it's "FEED ME SEYMOUR" in my head. Tomorrow I am trying a new recipe that involves chicken thighs, MMMM, so hopefully I will post how that turned out. I can't wait. I love chicken thighs.
How I like my chili though is in a bread bowl, with raw diced onion, sour cream, sharp cheddar cheese, and 'maters. Honestly...how can you go wrong with that? (though it would have been better if I could have thrown most of that in the same pot along with the other veggies I normally have, but eh, you get what you can get)
What's this?