I have 374 open tabs in 5 windows. Some from about a month ago. But more important than responding or reading them I need your suggestions, your ideas. I make great spaghetti red sauces. Ron and I love them. I make my base with three 28 oz (1 pound 12 oz) 794g cans of normally Dei Fratelli cans of tomato sauce but sometimes use Hunts if I can not find those. I find Hunts far sweeter, and we often don’t like our red sauce sweet. I never measure the seasonings I put in which includes the onion / pepper / celery that Ron chops to the size he likes for me to put into the sauce. Plus I use a lot of minced garlic. Often I start with three teaspoons of it to then after add another three as it cooks. Yes, we love garlic. We once used chopped garlic cloves that Ron chopped for me, but we found it was easier and more favorable to just get minced garlic from the store. That also includes the amount of hamburg he gives me to use, which might be between one pound and two plus pounds. Also I used to use ground sausage, which was a change from me peeling Italian Sausage links and slicing them. I would rather just put sage into the sauce than the sausage, as sausage makes a red sauce greasy. My red sauces often come out different each time due to all that not measuring but going on feel / smell / taste, which we both like to cook that way. We make a large amount every couple weeks, normally about four days or so from when we finish the last of it. Plus while we say each time this batch we will freeze some for later, we use it for other things and eat it too soon to do that. As I said we enjoy it and it is something in our budget we can afford. We use it to make many different things. This batch along with the pasta I cooked (because when I cook I make far too much as you might notice. Ron doesn’t complain because my former therapists say it is because of how often I went hungry, begged for something to eat, and once ended up in the hospital in critical care and then went into clinical death due to malnutrition. Sorry but while my heart stopped and nothing worked I did not see any gods, but I did feel a great sense of relief and lack of pain as it was happening. Which came back as I was being shocked and handled to return to life) Anyway this batch is already slated to be used with a large baking container of baked Ziti. Trust me, we will find something to do with the rest. Oh did I mention the 40 to 60 homemade meat balls Ron makes. He uses the small cookie scoop and they are about just larger than bite size and so grand. He makes so many because often he will go into the fridge when I am not looking and eat a bunch as a quick snack, and we both love them in hoagie rolls as meatball subs with my sauce. So all total it takes about 3 to 4 pounds of hamburger for each sauce I make.
Now with all that over information and long intro (I keep getting reminded / chastised recently that I am too long “winded”, that I use too many words to say what others could do shorter. Sorry that is me and I am not going to change, but if it bothers people they either shouldn’t read what I write or I shouldn’t comment to their blogs)
Anyway the reason for this post is I need your suggestions … for making a good chili. Every time I make mine I start it like a red sauce but instead of the those seasonings I use for that, I use more beef ones, like fajita such seasonings. I also add a lot of kidney beans, often three cans of them. I have tried making them thick and liquid juicy. And while they always taste good and we eat them, they lack what we get when we get a good chili when dining out.
Please don’t send me to cooking videos. I just can not get anything out of them. One of my favorite podcasters has a second cooking channel, yet when I try to watch his videos even though he was school trained and is a great / was a professional chef I just lose interest. I can not follow or remember and find my self more interested in his surroundings or cookware. When I try to tell Ron about it later, I can not explain how to cook the dish itself.
But I really want to make a good thick chili that is mild but able to be seasoned up with the individual hot sauce Ron and I use. I like Crystals myself. It is labeled as from Louisiana, but who knows? I am willing to make small amounts to try them. Ron and I have even resorted to eating a couple brands of canned chili, they are thick and brown rather than made with the tomato sauce base I use. But while good enough if I could recreate them and add my seasonings to them it would be better, yet I can not seem to recreate them.
So if you have a favorite chili recipe you like to make, please put it in the comments. I will give it a try. We love chili, and often went out to restaurants that we knew had great chili we enjoy, but since 2020 we have not been out to eat yet. Yes we should but …
Anyway this is my very long winded / typed request for all of you to send me your favorite homemade chili recipes. I will let you know if we try them. I am hungry just thinking of them. Hugs. Scottie