Gameday Chili

Wake Forest football wrapped up its largely disappointing 2008 campaign on a high note last Saturday with a convincing 29-19 win over Navy, avenging its earlier loss to the Midshipmen. The inaugural edition of the EagleBank Bowl started at 11 AM in the morning. Needless to say, we were glad when both the game and the season were over. It's too bad the most successful senior class in school history did not get a better sendoff game.

While the game was going on, I had a slow cooker full of chili cooking to greet us when we got home. I used a recipe called "Colleen's Favorite Chili" from the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook as the basis with a few minor variations. Here's what went in.
- 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
- 1.5 lbs ground beef, browned and drained
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped
- 29 oz. canned diced tomatoes
- 30 oz. canned light red kidney beans, drained
- 8 oz. canned tomato sauce
- 1 heaping tbsp chili powder
- 1 tsp. ground cumin
- 1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 tsp. dried basil
- 1/4 tsp. Beau Monde Seasoning
- Ground pepper and sea salt to taste
- Pinch of allspice, cinnamon, garlic powder and cayenne pepper

I browned the meat with some of the diced onions the night before the game and chopped the rest of the onions and green pepper to save time in the morning. Make sure you remove the seeds and membrane from the pepper unless you want quite a bit more heat. Everything went into the slow cooker for 8 hours on low just before 8 AM. The picture above is what it looked like before cooking.

By the time we got back from the stadium, it was just about ready to eat. Everything breaks down quite nicely and leaves a good hearty chili with tons of flavor and not too much heat. Everyone seemed to enjoy it so I will definitely make it again. I forgot to take a picture of it before people started grabbing some so here is what it looked like minus 4 or so bowls of chili. Also pictured is Sally's prepared bowl.