How to Kind of Make Chili

Not to toot my own horn but I am a great cook. I believe that I inherited this gene from both sides of my family but I cannot recall because my dad likes to clean more than cook and my mom now cooks once every blue moon. My Uncle Marc is probably one of the best cooks in the whole world (we are not blood related but it doesn't matter); my cousin and I keep encouraging him to have a cook show on YouTube where he can talk about his belief in the fourth dimension and play a song at the end on his guitar.  My number one, win ANYONE over recipe is my chicken parm (I don't even like cheese THAT much and I know it is good.)

While I am on the subject, here are other things I am great at:

1. Parallel parking
2. Organizing
3. Layups (and only layups) playing basketball
4. Tying bows
5. Speaking French (but not writing it!)
6. Being tan

Things I need to improve:
1. My baking skills
2. Applying sunblock
3. Listening to my voice mails
4. My yoga moves
5. Nothing else, I am pretty close to perfect.

Obviously with the New Year here and the world ending in December, I decided it was really important to have some resolutions. Of course, I am always thinking "save more money", "eat healthier", etc, but I am pledging to cook or bake one new recipe a week or every two weeks (I can't put too much pressure on myself or I will crack.) My thought process: I will save more money and eat healthier if I learn to cook more. Because I really do not like dessert, this really will not hinder my health.

Yesterday, my friend emailed me a simple chili recipe from scratch. See Below:

Ingredients:
1 large white onion, coarsely chopped
2 bell peppers (any color), cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
2 teaspoon packed brown sugar
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice
1 (19-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup water
2 cups cooked turkey, cut into 1-inch pieces


Preparation:
Cook onion and peppers in oil in a heavy medium pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Add spices and brown sugar and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes with juice, breaking them up with back of a spoon, then add beans, water, and 1 teaspoon salt and simmer, covered, 15 minutes.

Stir in turkey and let stand, covered, until heated through, 5 minutes.


What I ended up doing:

Ingredients:
1 large white onion, coarsely chopped
1 1/2  bell peppers (any color), cut into 1-inch pieces (because too many green pepper is sick)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (more or more)
3 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoon chipotle chile powder (this is what I searched Stoppies for!)
3 teaspoon packed brown sugar (so it wouldn't burn my roommates mouth!)
1 big pinch of salt

1 big pinch of pepper

1 VERY BIG PINCH of pepper flakes

1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice
1 (19-ounce) can chick peas
1/2 cup water
1.5 pounds of ground beef

1/2 a cup of flour, maybe more.

Preparation: 
Cook ground beef with all the pinches of salt, pepper, and pepper flakes for about 13 minutes on a greased pan.  Do not overcook, it will cook more in the pot!
Cook onion and peppers in oil in a heavy medium pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
Add ground beef with spices and brown sugar and let simmer for about two minutes

Add whole tomatoes, water, and chick peas or whatever bean your heart desires.
You will notice that it is very watery so add some flour to thicken it up a little.  (I think I added a little too much flour but my roommates still ate it AND brought seconds to work.)
Stir for a while so nothing is clumped together and let it sit on a low flame for about 15 minutes.

You can serve with cheese or sour cream if you would like to (but keep those resolutions in mind!)

I really wish someone could have witnessed my actions the past 48 hours. I hiked with my mom on New Years day, ate Burger King that put me into a seven hour coma, watched about eight episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Yesterday, I forced myself to be productive by running for an hour, went to crazy town at Rite-Aid and almost cried when they did not have any agendas, walked around Stop and Shop for about 30 minutes looking for a special type of Chili powder, painted a toe nail then it fell off, ate almost a whole bag of frozen raspberries, watched more Law & Order, and called it quits around 10:00 pm.

Happy New Year :-)