Possibly the Best one yet… |

Fair evening to you my fab fans and followers.
Tonight was my first adventure in Chili and as the title suggests…it was a great success! Yay!!!!!
I was somewhat apprehensive about this one never having tried making chili before. We’re also not big (read; hardly EVER) chili eaters so that put a little more pressure on. Well…the pressure has been relieved.
“This may be the very best meal you’ve made yet” is my wonderful husbands’ opinion on the matter. And you know what? I’m good with that!

I’m NOT a fan of beans but darn it, this has got a great bean-to-everything else ratio. It’s quite good indeed.

Now…let me warn you. There is a bit of prep before you can dump & ditch but…it’s quite worth it. And while the prep takes awhile, it’s not labor intensive nor is it anything you need to really pay much attention to which scores big points in my book!
Also…I did make a couple of adjustments to the recipe which are noted in parenthesis as usual. So here you go……

Slow Cooker Red Beans and Beef Chili

Servings: 8 (I got 6 servings)
Ingredients

1 cup dry red beans or dry red kidney beans
1 tablespoon olive oil (omitted)
2 pounds boneless beef chuck pot roast, cut into 1-inch pieces (I used 2lbs lean ground beef)
1 cup coarsely chopped onion (Mo special-the dried minced strike again…)
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 14-1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers, undrained
1 14-ounce can reduced-sodium beef broth
2 to 3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, finely chopped plus 2 teaspoons adobo sauce* (I used a tablespoon or so of Hatch Roasted Green Chile)
2 teaspoons dried oregano, crushed (since I don’t own measuring spoons, this was eyeballed as usual)
1 teaspoon ground cumin (I added a teeny bit more than what I approximated as a teaspoon)
3/4 cup finely chopped red sweet pepper (I used 1/2 of a red sweet pepper and 1/2 of a yellow sweet pepper)
1/4 cup snipped fresh cilantro (omitted)
*I added about 1/4-1/2 tsp of chili powder and 1 2.25oz can of sliced black olives

Directions
1 Rinse beans. Place beans in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add enough water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover; let stand for 1 hour. (In an effort to assure the thorough cooking of the beans I let them boil for approx. 2 mins before reducing the heat. I then simmered them for 12 mins and let them stand for 3 or 4 mins longer than the 1 hour.)
2 Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add half of the meat and the onion; cook and stir until meat is brown. Transfer to a 3-1/2- or 4-quart slow cooker using a slotted spoon. Repeat with remaining meat. Stir tomato sauce, undrained tomatoes, broth, chipotle peppers and adobo sauce, oregano, and cumin into mixture in slow cooker. Drain and rinse the beans; stir into mixture in cooker. (Not that it matters I’m sure but, I added the tomato sauce, olives, then meat, seasoning, tomatoes, chiles, broth, sweet peppers, and then beans while mixing thoroughly.)
3 Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 10 to 12 hours or on high-heat setting for 5 to 6 hours. Top individual servings with sweet pepper and cilantro. (I topped ours with shredded cheese and served to rave reviews. I also served crackers for those (my hubby) that wanted them.)