Saturday, October 6, 2012

Chili Time



Fall doesn't feel like fall unless the smell of Roasted Green Chili's permeates our car and house.
... and the season is not complete without a visit to one of the farms to get our chills for the year.

The fresh green chili is roasted at the farm and then put  in a big plastic bag while it is still hot so it can steam; this makes it easy to skin.    We take them home, skin them and put them in freezer bags for all the green chili we want through out  the year.

These are the pinto beans we grew this year.   I let them dry on the vine and  then they were easy to shuck... I don't know if that is the way it is supposed to be done, because I have never done them before, but they seemed to turn out fine.




Green Chili  is a favorite dish in our area, and something I like to make first thing when we get our green chilis home, but with  fresh tomatoes, garlic and onion and pintos from the garden, and freshly roasted chilies from the local farm, we have all we need for a wonderful almost homegrown pot of Chili (what we sometimes call Texas Chili)


The temperature dropped below freezing the last two nights and it has been in the forties the last two days.  Steve made a fire in the wood stove for the first time this fall... it is a little earlier than usual, but perfect weather for a bowl of Chili and nice warm cornbread.


 Chili

Ingredients

2 pounds ground beef
8 cups cooked pinto beans
1 cup chopped onion
3 15 ounce cans chopped tomatoes or approximate amount of fresh tomatoes skinned and chopped.
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup chopped green chilies
2 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon cumin powder or to taste
5 Tablespoons chili powder or to taste
Approximately 3 cups of water
salt and pepper to taste


Instructions

Brown the ground beef  and sauté onions with the browning meat.  Strain the grease.  Put browned ground beef and all the remaining ingredients in a stock pot.  Simmer on top of a nice wood burning stove for an hour or more.... I guess you can  use a regular stove if  you must...  :p  .  A crock pot works nicely if you want to put it on to simmer slowly while you spend the day in town.  If you are using fresh tomatoes, you will want to simmer a little longer;  until the tomatoes have cooked down.  I always watch, taste and adjust if necessary, can't imagine cooking without doing it that way.

Enjoy




11 comments:

  1. Dear Pam, yes life withour green chilis would be so sad! We love them so much we put them on most everything, The true smell of fall!
    Loved the pictures I felt like I could just about taste and smell the bowl of chili.
    Blessings, Roxy

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  2. 'Know How to Make your Daughter Homesick', is really what this post should be titled! :D The chili is the final straw! What makes it even more depressing, (for me) is that I was there this very time last year *sniff*!!! But this is EXACTLY what I was hoping you would post lol! Your pictures of everything make me feel like I am smelling the chilies and and cornbread right now. Those gorgeous red tomatoes are so pretty Mom! So thankful for our modern technology!! :)

    Missing you real bad!!!!

    Love you!

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  3. Oh my goodness! I'm sitting here having my chili, which up until I now I thought was very industrious and "home-made", but yours, with your own beans??? Wow! It looks fantastic!
    Love you!

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  4. Yep, it's definitely been chili-kind-of-weather here in the north! This looks super yummy. I have a recipe for buffalo chicken chili that we all absolutely love. Brad just asked me the other night to make it this week. And I really love that turquoise platter that you have the pinto beans on. It's beautiful! Have a blessed day, Pam! (And thanks for your sweet email! You're such an encouragement!)

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  5. Pam! (Hope I'm not leaving a double message...but strange things are happening since I've been a bit AWOL from blogland!) We LOVE chili too! Looking forward to trying your recipe as I've never used pintos or green chilies. Looks delicious! Hope all is well w/ you...I need to catch up on my blog reading! Have a grand day!

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  6. Yummy Pam, you are making my mouth water. What would we do without green chilies? We would be lost, I use them on everything! You make all your food look like a work of art. Love it!!!
    Amy

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  7. Mmmmm mmmm Mom!! You gave me such a cozy Colorado, windy, October day feeling! Sure gets me missing you really bad hearing you talk about picking chilies without me!
    Love all your fresh picks and AMAZING pictures!!!

    LOVE
    ~ Marie

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  8. I've never seen such a huge bag of chili's, oh my, Mr. C would love that!!! (I would too, of course!)

    Your chili looks so good!!! It is suddenly chili season, and we are like you, gotta have fresh baked cornbread to go with it.

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  9. Hopped over to this post due to Cinnamon's comment. Have to give this a try. Thank you for sharing...so long ago! XO

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  10. This was for dinner tonight. It was a hit all around. We have leftovers for Sunday. Thank you for sharing! XO

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  11. Making this again....a family favorite. I love coming here for recipes. It feels like a short little back door visit. Gladys is putting on some Corn Bread and we'll have this kitchen smelling delicious in no time ;-)

    ~Cinnamon

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