I love my crock pot. Working full time I get
home and have about 20 minutes before I need to get dinner on the table
and feed my ravenous boys. Needless to say without any prep work I
would hardly be able to manage anything outside of
a bowl of cereal on a daily basis. Chili is a staple in our house and I am a big fan of
pre-soaking dried beans beforehand rather than spending the extra cash
on the canned ones.
The chili recipe below should just be used as a
guide, every time we put it together it comes out a bit differently but I
figure that is part of the fun. I have also been trying to cook a bit more
vegetarian food recently so did not include
meat below but you can easily add ground beef, ground pork (our
favorite!) or ground turkey, I would just suggest precooking it before
adding it to the pot.
What you need:
- Around two 14oz cans or 3 cups of diced tomatoes
- 4 good sized handfuls of dried beans soaked overnight (I use garbanzo beans, black beans, kidney beans and red beans)
- Around half a head of crushed garlic
- 1 – 3 tablespoons of chili powder depending on how spicy you want it
- 1 tablespoon of salt (more to taste as needed)
- 1 medium sized chopped onion
- Whatever veggies you happen to have, my usual choices are carrot, celery, pepper (whatever color), broccoli and eggplant
- A bit of grated cheese as a tasty garnish
Throw everything in the crock pot and give it all a good stir. Cook it on low for around 8
hours, stir it every few hours to make sure it does
not stick to the pot. If it seems to be dry I usually add about ½ a
cup of water to help. Serve with rice and a bit of grated cheese! This
will make a ton of chili so we always have leftovers, for whatever
reason it usually tastes better the next day.
