Quick and Dirty: The First Chili

Being transplanted to the South from the frozen wasteland of Minnesota, my wonderful husband has decided that now that I'm here I need to be turned into a proper Southern Belle. And that includes cooking like one. It's not that hard; add sugar to the tea, cheese to the grits and flavor to everything else. I've mastered the sweetend iced tea and have learned a few tricks for grits. I'm still looking for a good cornbread recipe, and I've now started on chili.

The problem with chili is that I loathe red kidney beans. If I'm a guest or at a resturant I'll eat them, but if I'm at home I'll pick them out. And I can't handle anything too spicy; it makes my mouth hurt. That and even though I know that I've made chili when I was growing up, I can't remember seeing a recipe for it and don't think I consciously know how to make it. So I threw a bunch of things that looked like it'd make a chili-like soup-stuff into a pan and cooked it. The carrots didn't work out too well (so I omitted them from the recipe) and I wish I'd had garlic and more mushrooms (so I put more below). Otherwise I think it turned out delicious.

Quick and Dirty Chili

1 lb ground beef
1 onion
3-4 mushrooms
1 can pork-n-beans
1 can spaghetti sauce
3 spoons full sour cream*
worchestershire sauce*
red wine*
salt&pepper
sage
chili powder to your taste

Fry the beef in a large pan; when it's half done add the vegetable and let them fry in the beef grease. Drain off excess grease when it's cooked. Add spices and stir; add worchestershire and wine. Let the achohol cook off and add the pork-n-beans, spaghetti sauce and sour cream. Let simmer over low heat for about half and hour. If you have time, throw it in the crock pot and let sit on low heat all day.

*optional (if your budget allows for extravagance once in a while, otherwise just skip it.)
Happy Cooking!

--Zizi

P.S. Heartburn... -- Nick