I know my Mom always made chili with beans in it, and my Grandmother did, as well. People in Grandmother’s day had big, hardworking families, and a bowl or two of this chili with a slab of from-scratch iron-skillet corn bread could provide sustained energy for a day’s labor.
Beans grew very well and were a great addition to any home garden because the bean plant extracts nitrogen from the air and fixes it in the soil where it eventually becomes fertilizer for other plants, especially heavy feeders like corn and squash. Beans were also easy to dry and store. In this state, if well sealed, they have a very long shelf life, and don’t require processing and canning.
My mother and grandmother always made their chili with beef, which was much less expensive then than it is today. But chili is excellent even when made partly or wholly with less expensive pork sausage, as I often have to do now. Cattle herds are in recovery and until that gets back to normal, and we get a break in the drought and on energy prices, we are going to have to be tight about how much we can buy. Unfortunately, it takes some time to raise cattle; there is no such thing as instant gratification when it comes to big grazing animals. I miss the beautiful herds of Hereford cattle that used to dot the hills back home.
My mom and grandmother also made their chili with fresh celery, bell peppers, garlic, and onion, in addition to dried chili peppers, cumin, thyme, bay leaf, and an incredibly tiny, wild hot bird pepper from Oklahoma that was only about as large as a black-eyed pea, but packed a pretty good punch. Grandmother put those little surprise peppers in her soup and if one found its way into your bowl when you least expected it, it really perked you up.
A big batch of this chili can save a person a lot of time because it gets better the second and third day. You can wing it, according to taste, adding more of your favorite ingredients, but a large whole chopped or diced cooking onion- not a sweet type- is mission-critical.
I use canned mixed chili beans, and while my mom usually just used dried pinto beans. If you use dried beans, remember to soak them overnight, discard the soak water on a favorite plant, and give the beans time to cook in fresh water all the way through with a few bay leaves before adding additional ingredients.
* 1 lb spicy pork breakfast sausage and/beef
* 1 large diced onion
* 1 large diced green bell or poblano pepper
* 1 cup chopped celery
* Handful of fresh garlic cloves, crushed and minced, or garlic powder
* 2 or 3 bay leaves
* Chili powder
* Smoked paprika or chipotle
* Ground cumin - a fair amount, usually 3 times as much cumin as chili powder
* Fennel or anise seed, crushed- optional
* Black pepper
* Salt
Toast the seasonings then brown the meat and sauté the chopped onions, celery and peppers. Lastly add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
2 quarts of bone broth, any kind
6 cans of your favorite chili beans (or 1 lb of dried beans, pre soaked and preferably precooked )
1 or 2 cans of Italian stewed tomatoes, or Rotel crushed tomatoes, or fresh tomatoes if available. (Always add tomatoes at the end because the acid in tomatoes can keep beans from getting tender.)
Lastly, add to your taste :
Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce or salsa (great way to use leftover salsa)
Tobasco or habanero sauce
If it needs salt, try adding beef bouillon cubes or a few spoonfuls of “Better than Bouillon” paste.
Remove the bay leaves.
You can always kick it to another level:
Serve with sharp cheddar shreds and sour cream over corn chips, or serve with corn bread. (Corn and beans balance each other nutritionally.)