The Weather is Chili

It's snowing outside today. Yesterday was a dark, cold, rainy day. I was wondering what to make for dinner. As I was blogging and ran across a blog that had a photo of a cute blackboard with a dinner menu written on it. It said Chili & Cornbread. So, that's what I made. This is my good basic chili recipe. Last night I made it with some chicken I had previously roasted and then froze in a zip-lock bag. That made it even easier. You can make it just the way it is written, but often I will add more vegetables to it. Last night I added a shredded carrot, a rib of diced celery and some sofrito. Sofrito is a spicy mixture of chilis, onions, garlic and tomatoes, they cook with in Puerto Rico. I made sofrito last week for the first time last week and froze portions in small zip-lock bags. So I thought, "Why not throw some into chili." I don't know if it made a big difference, but it didn't hurt. Any way it's a good basic chili recipe. If you want to hide a few extra veggies in it for fun, go ahead and see what works for you.

Vickie's Chili

1 pound extra lean ground beef,
or cooked, shredded chicken
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 Tablespoon Worchestershire Sauce
1 can (15 oz.) Western style chili beans
1 can (14.5 oz.) Italian style diced tomatoes
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
2-3 teaspoons chili powder
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. oregano
½ tsp. dry mustard
1 bay leaf
¼ cup ketchup
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper
Brown the ground beef and the onion. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on medium low heat until heated through, about 30 minutes.