It’s that time of year, after all. I usually wait until Halloween to make my first pot of chili, but this year, I just couldn’t wait. I’m just willing the snow to start falling, don’t ya know? 
So, tonight, I’m making it. It won’t be ready to consume until tomorrow — it HAS to sit over night and marinate in it’s own juices and get things all mixed in real good! I’m making it tonight so it will be at it’s best on Friday when Chris comes home from Atlanta - - he loves it. I’ll pick up a big, fresh loaf of French bread from the bakery on Friday — and have it waiting for him when he gets home.
Everyone is different in what they put in their chili. I’m usually not all that picky - - but the two things I cannot tolerate in chili are green peppers and maccaroni. I think putting maccaroni in chili must be a northern midwest thing. What do you think? I’m originally from Texas and you won’t find maccaroni in the chili down there - at least I never did! I also don’t use hamburger - - though I will if I’m in a pinch. I use sirloin tips, instead.
So here is my basic recipe:
1 1/2 - 2lbs sirloin tips
2 medium sized onions -finely chopped
3-5 cans of Bush’s chili beans in hot sauce
A whole bunch of chili powder
A couple or six dashes of curry
A couple or six dashes of cumin
More than a couple of dashes of cayenne pepper
A few or ten drips of tobascco sauce
Some salt
Some black pepper
A couple of dashes of beef boullion
Couple, two or three or ten, dashes of Worcester Sauce
A can of beer (yep, beer - the darker, the better)
3-4 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2-3 big cans tomatoe sauce
Fry up the sirloin in a cast iron fry pan with the onions. Throw in some of the spices into the meat just to season it. In the biggest pot you can find - add all the rest of the ingredients and start simmering. When the meat is done - - drain it, and add it to the pot. Let sit on a low, low, low burner FOREVER! Continue sneaking taste tests and then add spices as needed until your hair is on fire.
THAT’S when you know it’s done. When your hair is on fire.
Serve with fresh french or italian bread and cold beer.
10:57 pm on October 20th, 2004
Ugh. Macaroni? Quel scandale!
Texas, huh? No wonder I love ya.
I’m so printing this recipe and I’m gonna try it! Thanks.
10:57 pm on October 20th, 2004
I tell ya, great minds think alike as I am going to be making crockpot chili at my Halloween get together on the 29th! I have never ever heard of maccaroni in chili and I have lived all over. Sounds like Chili Mac which to me is completely different than chili. Weird. I have never heard of beer in chili either - that sounds interesting. I may have to try that.
11:09 pm on October 20th, 2004
Chili Mac - my mom used to make that with the left over chili!
She also used to make something that has no name lol She’d fill a bowl half way with Fritos© - then smother them with leftover chili and top it with shredded cheddar. It was SO good when I was a kid - - I wonder if it would taste half as good these days??
Enjoy your chili on Halloween, Lori
11:11 pm on October 20th, 2004
Hey Margi
Texas, eh? Birds of a feather . . 
I wonder if the maccaroni thing is specific only to Wisconsin? Because I’d never seen it until we moved up here and started eating other people’s chili. I remember thinking.. “Noodles in chili?? This ain’t chili! This is soup!” lol
Bleh!
11:28 pm on October 20th, 2004
Macaroni in chili no thank you. I’ll have the cheese with that one I believe.:razz:
12:15 am on October 21st, 2004
Mrs. Jib makes a great chili, too, but if you could reason with her on the elbow pasta, I’d appreciate it. There ain’t no place for noodles in chili.
I suspect the macaroni is a German thing. My Norwegian grandma didn’t use macaroni, but almost every German family I know does.
1:35 am on October 21st, 2004
Yay! No green Peppers! I’ll give your recipie a try!
thanks!
-L
2:13 am on October 21st, 2004
Lisa - that’s a Frito pie, highly popular amongst the peewee football crowd 20 years ago. It’s even better with melted nacho cheese instead of shredded.
Being another Texan (they’re everywhere! they’re everywhere!) I prefer stew meat and no beans in my chili. “If it has beans, it ain’t chili; it’s stew.”
2:20 am on October 21st, 2004
GASP! No Beans??
~wandering off aimlessly trying to imagine it~
3:18 am on October 21st, 2004
I’m with you, Vickie - no pasta in my chili!!
Beans, yes (glancing at Dana) - but NO pasta!
5:51 am on October 21st, 2004
My mom made chili with macaroni when we lived in Wisconsin when I was a little girl…must be a far north midwestern thing?
7:41 am on October 21st, 2004
Can’t stand Chilli or Macaroni, nor Frito’s and for some reason melted Cheese (same with Choclate) That Frito pie thingie almost made me vomit just thinking of it…
9:13 am on October 21st, 2004
Please whip me up a batch, freeze it and FedEx it to my attention at once. Thank you.
10:34 am on October 21st, 2004
I think I’ll try your recipe next time Lisa, it sounds good except I’ll have to nix the beans. Not a bean fan. I usually use lean ground sirloin in mine.
Lisa & Dana, I still make frito pies with my leftover chili! Love, love, love it!! It makes me feel like a kid again.
12:24 pm on October 21st, 2004
Pasta in chili? Never heard of such a thing! It’s beans all the way! Also, we squeeze fresh lime juice in ours (
ala martha).
I’m just waiting for some cold weather to kick in so I can fix ours! It’s still in the 90’s here!
7:04 am on October 22nd, 2004
Pasta definately not, but we sometimes have it with rice over here (like you’d have with a curry).
Can’t imagine it without beans. Green peppers - yuk yuk yuk!
No garlic?
7:25 am on October 22nd, 2004
Rice, in chili? Hmm . . that rates right up there with pasta.
Garlic, sometimes - not always, and not usually. It’s Texas chili - not Italian Chili
7:58 am on October 22nd, 2004
Give me Sausage, Mash potato and Heinz baked beans and I’m a happy camper….
8:15 am on October 22nd, 2004
How long have you been away from the UK …?
8:55 am on October 22nd, 2004
Too damn long!!!
I immigrated Feb 2000, I have not been back yet. Food is what I miss the most (apart from the family of course), Sausages, Marmite, Baked beans (Heinz), bacon, fish and chips, curry, crisps, sweets / candy with out peanuts or peanut butter…. man now I’m hungry! I used up my Marmite supply this week, I will have to go to the “European Gourmet” shop, a small jar costs $7.49
8:57 am on October 22nd, 2004
Funny . . . I have a jar of marmite sitting here on my desk.
Chris loves the stuff.
He also eats baked beans for breakfast — with toast and eggs.
What’s up with that?
9:10 am on October 22nd, 2004
Mmmmmmm beans on toast…. man this a bad subject while I’m stuck here at work! Marmite is the best, have a some on toast for me! how long has Chris been away from blighty?
9:20 am on October 22nd, 2004
Chris has been in the states since ‘95
I’ve never tried the marmite, actually - - maybe I should?
9:40 am on October 22nd, 2004
Oh please do, spread it thick!
9:43 am on October 22nd, 2004
My Mate, Marmite.
11:38 am on November 22nd, 2004
Time to clear up the pasta revelation. It’s strictly a “Wisconsin thing.†I have lived in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois – Wisconsin people are the only ones who do it. Even just across the border to Minneapolis, people think it’s ludicrous to put pasta in chili. Wisconsin folk claim that chili is just soup if it doesn’t have pasta. BTW, when the author is talking about macaroni, she is really referencing elbow noodles, which is most popular in Wisconsin.
11:40 am on November 22nd, 2004
That reminds me. Most Upper Midwest recipes mostly have celery in them — disgusting if you ask me, but still very popular in this region. Any thoughts?
11:54 am on November 22nd, 2004
Pasta in chili? That’s even worse than mushrooms in chili (a constant argument with mrs. knight who obviously doesn’t really know how to make chili).