Who doesn’t love chili con carne? I grew up on canned chili, but trust me, once you get used to eating chili made from scratch, you’ll never want to go back to canned.
Chili con carne is an amazingly simple dish to prepare. It’s also an easy way to use up leftover veggies, so Rosie would have approved. Chili tastes great on its own, or on top of a hot dog. The following recipe is one I put together through trial error and tweaking other recipes. One nice thing about chili con carne is that there really is no way to make it wrong.
Gayle Martin
CHili con carne
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced *
- an 8 ounce can tomato sauce
- a 4 ounce can diced green chilis
- a 16 oz can red kidney beans
- a 16 oz can pinto beans
- 1 cup water or broth
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tablespoons cumin
- 2 tablespoons hot wings or Tabasco sauce
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
- 1/4 cup water or broth
- salt and pepper to taste
Brown the ground beef, onion and garlic in a small stock pot or kettle until the meat is cooked all the way through. Stir in canned green chilis. Add tomato sauce and 1 cup of water or broth. Stir in the canned beans and add seasonings. Stir cornstarch and water in a small bowl and pour into the chili mixture. Mix well. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for approximately 20 minutes. If desired, top with cheese, sour cream or chives. Serve.
For those who prefer, ground chicken or turkey may be used instead of ground beef. If using ground chicken or turkey, add a tablespoon of cooking oil.
* A tablespoon of garlic powder can be substituted for the minced garlic.
Imagine the government telling you how much meat or chicken you could buy, or how much sugar or flour you could have. Strange as it may seem, at one time it actually happened. During WWII, the United States government devised a food rationing program to help insure that every family would have enough to eat. Rosie’s Riveting Recipes gives readers a glimpse into life on the WWII home front. A cookbook and a history lesson in one Rosies’s Riveting Recipes includes more than 180 economical, back-to-basics World War II ration recipes and short tales of life on the American home front interspersed throughout.
Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.