let's talk about chili!

I love chili! And it's soo easy to make. In college I looked up a recipe for chili because I had no idea what I was doing. The recipe I found called for a packet of onion soup powder mix, which tastes awesome in chili (but that stuff is too expensive in the DR). My mom likes to put Reese's peanut butter cups in chili, but I feel this is a waste of Reese's peanut butter cups. What are your CHILI SECRETS? Tell me them.

Here's a super basic vegetarian chili recipe. I just made it yesterday with what I had lying around. It was delicious! The recipe is nothing special, but it's a place to start if you've never made chili before.

Ingredients:
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 onion
some garlic
hot sauce to taste (I use three or four good shakes)
pepper to taste
(At home, I loved to put celery in chili! But celery is hard to find in the DR.)

First, chop the onion and garlic and sautee them together in a little bit of oil.

When the onions turn clear, take them off the heat. Dump all the ingredients into a pot. Don't drain the beans or tomatoes, just pour the liquids into the pot too. I don't add any water besides the tomato and bean juice.

Yumm. Bring it up to a boil and let it simmer for like half an hour. Stir it occasionally or it will burn to the bottom of your pot. Trust me :( Anyway, that's it! You made chili!

But wait! There is the question of chili TOPPINGS. Some people say sour cream. Others, shredded cheese. Or corn chips. Of course, none of these are terribly healthy. Nutritionally speaking, your chili is better off without any of those things. Whatevs! Here's my new favorite chili topping:

 

QUESO HOJUELITAS. Hojuelitas ("little sheets/pieces") are this awesome snack food that for some reason is not widely available in the US. It's basically a combination of a Cheeto and a Frito. And they are perfect on chili.

Yum!