Chilly Night Chili
What an exciting day this is! We, your gracious hosts, are linked up together on 18 blogs to bring you
Blogger’s Best
Chili Cook n Share!
You can find a link to all of the recipes after my presentation of
You know I love to spin a story so you can’t just have my recipe without the history behind it.
Chili was one of my mother’s specialties. Still is at 90 years old. She taught me to make it and it was one of the only things that I was able to make from scratch and from memory. It is a great one pot meal and definitely a Chilly Night favorite!
Over time, I tweaked it to my tastes and it remained fairly constant over the past 30 years until we had dinner at our friends the Yowell’s home last year. She made chili that took all day long to cook. Ours took 20 minutes. She had a lot of different toppings than us and some different chili ingredients. So after making her version at least 3 -4 times last winter, this fall I have combined the best of hers with the best of mine and am really excited to pass it on to you!
Oh and by the way, you know how mistakes can sometimes lead to great discoveries?
Well, that happened with my chili. My friend Gloria used both beef and pork in her chili and I was reminded of Bev’s Famous Meatloaf (my all time favorite recipe) that also combines the two meats and it is amazing.
So the first Chili I made for this season, I had my beef and my pork sausage. I started unpacking it to brown. Suddenly I realized I had ground pork instead of beef. So that chili was all pork! It was so good and I can tell you that the texture of the meat is much softer and you cannot tell that it isn’t beef. Pork, the other white meat, is also a healthy choice!
Ingredients ( I don’t measure, I taste, so season to taste though I will give a guess)
1 lb ground sausage
1 lb sage sausage (found by the bacon in the meat case oh and you can use Italian or Maple too!)
1 large can chili beans ( sometimes I combine cans of white too)
1 large can tomato sauce
1 large can diced tomatos
1 large can tomato paste
1 can diced green chilis
1 can Rotel tomatoes
2 cans Mexican Corn ( here I used Chipolte white corn here)
1/2 cup ketchup
1 onion diced
1 green pepper or other color diced
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons (at least) Tabasco or Hot Sauce
3 – 4 tablespoons Chili Powder
2 tablespoons Cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Water to thin to consistency desired
(optional…1 teaspoon sugar, or molasses, beer instead of water, 1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard)
Directions:
Brown the meat and drain
Meanwhile combine remaining ingredients in a large pot.
Add meat and stir.
Heat to boiling and then simmer on low for 20 minutes minimum or as long as you like. Taste after about 15 minutes to determine heat (spice) or sweet or salt and tweak to taste! I like mine spicy, my family not so much.
(Corn not stirred in yet.)
Now I was going to share my favorite Cornbread Recipe but family tradition trumped.
My kids grew up with our grilled cheese on Chili Night and we dipped them in our chili…YUM!
So in case you have never had a REAL GRILLED CHEESE, here is that recipe.
Ingredients:
White Bread Preferred (we had to use wheat for ours this time)
Velvetta Cheese Original or Mexican ( again depends on your taste buds)
Soft Spread Butter
Directions:
Heat your flat pan up to med-high
Butter one side of a piece of bread with a nice thick spread
Place butter side down in hot pan and lay a 1/4 in slice of Velveeta on the unbuttered side plus another half slice
Top the cheese with a piece of bread butter side up
Flip when browned, depends on the heat
Brown the other side and there you go!
Toppings:
Totally maker’s choice. Here are a few of our faves~
Chopped Onion
Sliced Jalapeno
Shredded Mexican Cheese
Sour Cream
Soup Crackers
What’s for dessert?
Well Happy Apples of course! I buy mine at Walmart, Carmel, nuts and Granny Smiths.
Here’s the deal. We have 18 Blogger’s Recipes below. This also introduces you to some great new sites and people to get to know. We invite you over the next 4 months to try out these recipes. That would be….eating chili about once a week until Feb 28th, when we will host a link party for you all to come back and share what your favorite of our recipes is. Yep, this IS a Virtual Chili Cook Off! You can also share your own recipes at that time.
Let’s get cookin’!
18 Blogger’s Best Chili Recipes
*****
Thank you so much for reading my recipe. As a bonus to you, I have included a Free Printable Recipe Card for Chilly Nite Chili!
Sometimes a mistake can be the best thing ever. I haven’t put pork in my chili but this sounds so yummy. Thanks for sharing.
I highly recommend trying it, it absorbs the flavors well and is just a more tender meet than ground beef.
Amazing…such a beautiful presentation. Can’t wait to try your chili with pork…something different.
Can’t wait to get your feedback Denise. Thank you!
I am so amazed at the difference in all of these chili recipes. It is such a treat to them all together as a collection. I plan to make them all during the winter. Thanks so much for organizing the group. I’m sharing out your delicious recipe now. XO Susie from Chelsea Project
Susie, you are the sweetest! I am delighted that so many wanted to participate. I love chili and am thrilled to get to have a new recipe for the next 4 months!
This looks delicious! Especially with the grilled cheese, and the Blue Moon! Blue Moon, especially harvest varieties, was my favorite before I developed gluten intolerance. But, at 7 months pregnant it’s off the menu anyways, lol. Looking forward to trying your recipe! I love sage sausage. We use it in our Pumpkin Sausage and Kale Soup!
I have to avoid Gluten as well, and I did not drink it but I just thought it sounded too good not to photograph as a suggestion!
I have never heard of putting corn in chili! I can’t wait to try your recipe…isn’t it great how oopses turn into greatness?
That was one of the additions from my friend Gloria’s recipe. I just love the corn.
This looks amazing. Your pictures are so pretty and cozy. I want to come shop at your house. I have also made a mistake buying what i thought was beef on sale only to find out it was a mixture of beef and pork. It really ended up quite good. I will have to go hunting for some of the ingredients, Canada isn’t as Mexican food friendly as our southern friends stores are. It will be fun. Leanna
Leanna, my canned corn is just in there with the regular corn and the only other Mexican item is the canned chopped green chiles which are always right there near the taco supplies, so I bet you can find it.
Nice! I’m so excited to try all of these recipes! I think I’m going to try yours with beer as I’ve never done that. Thanks so much for arranging this party! Great job, as always!
Thank you Melony, but thanks to Susanne for saving the day of launch. The beer was in the fridge and I thought that sounds good!
What a precious time you must have had being taught by your mum to make this yummy recipe!! Sounds delicious and I can’t wait to try it! 🙂
Right, Sam, having recipes that have been passed down make for memories for generations.
Yum! Grilled cheese and chili! The perfect combination. Your recipe looks so good, I think I need to give it a try!!!
Nothing better than dipping in the hot steamy chili!
That looks so tasty and comforting! I have some recipes that I’ve made for a very long time, like banana bread, and recently tasted one that I love almost better than mine…. almost 🙂 It’s great that you are confident enough of a cook to incorporate some of your friend’s recipe into your and your mistake turned into a perfect hit. Pinning for later and I’ll surely be making this as part of our Chili Cookoff 🙂
Thanks Toni!
This looks really tasty!! I love the idea of dipping grilled cheese! That is just genius! Can’t wait to give it a try!!
You know, Heather, I was totally going to do my really yummy cornbread but everyone had a revolt…I want grilled cheese! Even my son-in-law who evidently does not care for chili had 3 grilled cheese and just put chili on top!
OH MY !!!!! Debbie, this sounds amazing! I can’t wait to try it with the maple sausage.
I was going to that this past time, but went with the sage and had opportunity to buy yesterday and all of the flavors were gone 🙁
Hi Debbie, this sound delicious, never have tried corn in chili before, love to try it out.
Thank you so much Melony!
This sounds amazing, Debbie! I have never tried sage sausage and I can’t wait to try it! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
thank you Lynne…I have never really noticed the flavor of it, but I suppose it is melded in there somehow!