Chili

Well today was the Chili Cook-off at church, and for the second year in a row I made my "Kevin's Irish Chili". And though a fan favorite, and did not win.... but I did get a couple requests for the recipe so here we go... Now understand that I don't measure anything so there will be almost no exact quantities listed here.... If anyone does make the chili and has any ideas or tries anything new I would love to taste it or at least hear how it came out.

1st thing I did was take about a pound and a half of chuck steaks and cut them up into about inch cubes. I threw the beef it into some tupperware andded a bottle of Guinness and about 2 ounces of Jameson Irish Whiskey. I then added a little chili powder, cyanne powder, onion powder and garlic powder. mixed it all up and let it sit for around 2 hours.

On to the vegetables. I diced up 1 yellow onion, 1 green pepper, 4 stalks of celery, 4 cloves of garlic and a handful of baby carrots. I then took out a couple handfuls of the vegetables set them aside and sauted the rest with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Once the onions were starting to brown and the rest of the vegetables were getting soft I dumped them in the crock pot (which was on High). Then the couple handfuls of veggies went back into the pan with a little more olive oil and then I added the beef (very just a little of the marinade). As the meat cooked I added a can of pinto beans and a half can of black beans, followed by 12 oz of diced tomatos and about 12 oz of tomato sauce and stirred it all up. As far as spices go I added cumin, chili powder, cyanne powder, onion powder and garlic powder.

I let the meat cook to where it was on the very rare side and then added it to the crock pot. I then topped off the the crock pot with a bottle of Guinness and another couple ounces of Jameson. I let everything cook for about 10 hours, about 5 hours on high, 5 on low. At the end of the day I threw it in the fridge and let it sit overnight.

The next day I got up and dumped the crock pot into a large pot and put it on the stove to heat it up quickly. In another pan I cooked about 6 strips of bacon until they were crispy then cut them it to small pieces. I dumped the majority of the bacon grease out, but left a little and threw in a couple handfulls of diced potatoes seasoned with a little chili powder, cyanne powder and salt and pepper. While waiting for the potatos to brown I added the bacon to the pot and stirred it in. Once the potatos were browned and fork-tender I added them to the pot as well and gave it another stir.

I put the chili back into the crock pot, shreaded a small block of aged Irish cheddar cheese and stirred it into the chili. I let the cheese melt and gave it another stir and the tasted it to see if it needed more spices. For my taste it did so I added a little more chili powder and cumin and let it cook for another 2 hours. After that its ready to eat!

I know this is kind of hard to read so I apologize. If you have any questions please ask!