Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Not-From-Texas Chili Pie. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.  The original recipe can be found over at Woman’s Day.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by Paula (who also submitted the Kung Pao Chicken from last week!) Every year around this time Fred (who loves him some chili) starts mentioning that it’s time to have chili, and so Paula’s submission came at a good time.

Ingredients, all lined up and ready to go:

Ground beef, onion, garlic, chili powder, flour, black pepper, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, Tabasco sauce, kidney beans, diced green chiles, corn chips, scallions, and sharp cheddar.

Of note: the recipe calls for cumin, but I don’t do cumin if I can possibly avoid it (it smells like dirty gym socks, YOU KNOW IT DOES), so I left the cumin out and used some extra chili powder in its place.

Firstly, brown your ground beef. Mine was still frozen in the middle because I didn’t take out of the freezer soon enough to completely thaw. Luckily, that doesn’t matter.

When the ground beef is cooked through, drain off the fat, add onion and garlic, and cook for another five minutes, stirring every now and again. Add the chili powder, flour, cumin (if you’re using it), and pepper, and cook for about 1 minute.

Add the (undrained) diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, and Tabasco and simmer 15 – 20 minutes, ’til it’s gotten nice and thick.

I was standing stirring the chili, waiting for it to get thick, when I got a visitor.

He sniffed everything on the counter, gave me a dirty look for making something that, once again, was off-limits to kitties. I bet MY kitchen is going to get an F minus on the kitty cooking blogs.

Then he was like “Oooh, bread. I BELIEVE I’ll EAT SOME OF THIS!”, and tried to eat the bread (homemade, thank you very much – and yes, one of these days I’ll do a post for the bread, which is SO FREAKIN’ GOOD). I ejected Inspector Silvio from the kitchen for that. Keep your lips off my bread, cat!

I added the beans and chiles to the skillet, and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

The recipe says to use a 2-quart broiler-proof baking dish for this next step. It seemed pretty clear to me that all that chili was NOT going to fit in my 2.5 liter dish, so I got out a big bowl. I can’t swear to it, but I’m 99% sure that’s a 4-quart bowl.  And thank god I did, because it fit perfectly (I think a 9×13 pan would work, too.)

Dump the chili mixture in a broiler-proof baking dish, top with corn chips, and then top those with scallions and then cheese.

(That’s a pink Gooseberry Pyrex dish, which my mother passed on to me. I LOVE it. I have the whole set, and I use them all the time.)

Stick it under the broiler for 3 – 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Then let it cool off for a little while or you will burn your lips right off your face, and I don’t want to hear about it, ya big babies.

The verdict? Two thumbs up from Fred, two thumbs up from me. But we both like chili, and so I’m not surprised that we both liked this. A LOT. We both think it could have used one more can of beans, but that’s just a personal preference. We like us some beans.

Also, the fact that it involves corn chips means that I didn’t have to make a pan of cornbread to go with it, so additional points for that.

A++, will make again – thanks for the submission, Paula!

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Nance’s Take:
I like chili. But let’s face it…it’s pretty much just a beans and beef soup. Cow chowder? Steer Stew? It’s just not that big of a deal in my world. I like it, I make it, I eat it. I will never understand chili cook-offs and all that shit because in my world there is no such thing as bad chili. And there is no such thing as award-winning chili. It’s just a hearty meal for a cold day.

Which is why my soul died when I saw this recipe and it made me announce my feelings to the world…OH HELL NO. I refuse to stand there and measure out 10 million ingredients in order to make chili for this dish. I did make my own easy version that everyone in my family actually likes and will eat without complaint.

2 lbs. ground beef
3 Tablespoons A-1 Steak Sauce
3/4 cup chopped peppers
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
3 envelopes Great Value Mild Chili seasoning (WALMART Brand)

I browned my ground beef. You can add pepper if you want, but I don’t since all of my seasoning comes from those groovy little envelopes. Drain that shit because you don’t need all that grease in your chili. Yuck.

Throw in the peppers and onions. See how small these are diced? That’s because there are a few of us that like the flavor of these things, but have no appreciation for the texture. And also, ew, vegetables. Using small pieces also means there’s yummy goodness in almost every single bite. Yummy goodness that a lot of people (children) won’t recognize. It’s a win no matter how you look at it, so take a minute to dice those bitches up small. Or, do what you want. It really doesn’t matter to me unless I’m coming to your house to eat.

Secret ingredient. Throw that in there and for some reason people think you know some shit when it comes to making chili. I have no idea when I started doing this or why, but I make sure that I do it every single time I make chili now.

I use three of these bad boys and I make sure that my brain doesn’t think about the sodium because it would surely explode.

Even though there is only one can in the picture make sure you use TWO cans of diced tomatoes. The vegetable haters in the family don’t mind diced tomatoes for some reason. Maybe because tomatoes are really a fruit. Only one can of kidney beans because two is just too much. Just open the cans and throw it all in, but make sure you drain those kidney beans first because bean sludge is gross.

Throw it all together and cook on medium heat (with the lid on) for about a 30 minutes. Stir it frequently to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan because who the hell wants that cleaning nightmare? Adjust your heat as needed. The real purpose of this is to cook those freaking kidney beans because nobody wants to gnaw on a squeaky un-cooked bean. I make this chili in the morning and turn the whole thing off once the beans are cooked. Then I basically re-heat the chili for dinner. It’s even better the next day.

I didn’t bother to use a casserole dish, but for the purpose of this recipe I put my chili in an oven-proof dish.

Action shot!

I eat my chili in a bowl with saltine crackers so this is kind of weird for me.

Per the recipe, I added cheese. This is getting even weirder.

You will never see scallions in any recipe that I make so we’re gonna just pretend the scallions happened. This is what it looked like after I broiled it. The entire family loved it (of course, FRITOS and CHEESE).

I didn’t get any pictures of the animals the day I made this so here is a picture of my grandbaby. Her name is Khaleesi and I sorta kinda forced her on Alex and Cheyenne. Cheyenne has been wanting a kitten and Alex was the brick wall asshole that was stopping it from happening. When I saw her, I picked her up out of the cage and handed her to Cheyenne. Of course she was adorable and I offered to pay for shots and spaying. Alex never had a chance. But guess who loves the shit out of the cat and talks all about her? Alex Michael.

She comes here every Sunday for dinner.