We’ve had colder weather this week than we did last week. Fortunately, it hasn’t dropped down to freezing, so all of the blooming flowers and bushes are doing just fine. It has, however, been cold enough to warrant making some soups and general comfort foods.Chili is one of Nick’s absolute favorite foods, so it seemed like a good time to make a batch of chili. This recipe is based mostly on my usual recipe, which you can find here. On a side note, I posted the original recipe over six years ago. It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long. Some of you have been visiting that entire time, or very close to it. Thank you to all of you who visit and comment. I enjoy your online company.
Anyway, back to the recipe.
The biggest modification I made to this recipe was with the meat. I’m not sure about where you are, but meat seems to be in very short supply here. We’re in the western part of the state, and my sister is in kind of the middle of the state, and she said it’s the same there. We have a chest freezer, and I tend to shop sales and stock up anyway, so we were actually in pretty good shape going into this, without panic buying. However, it does seem prudent to try and stretch things a bit more now. It seems like every time a new restriction goes into place there’s another round of panic buying, and I just don’t think we’ve reached the height of our social distancing yet. So, again, I think it’s prudent to go ahead and get a little creative now instead of being forced to get super creative later.
We had three leftover grilled hamburgers in the freezer, so I decided to use them instead of a package of ground beef.
I defrosted them and chopped them up into very small pieces, and used them in place of the usual ground beef.
I browned the onion (half a yellow onion and half a red onion that were in the fridge leftover from other meals) and pepper (from the freezer) in a small amount of avocado oil. We happen to have a large bottle of avocado oil at the moment, so that’s why I chose it. I really think whatever your usual oil of choice is will be perfectly fine.
I added everything to the Crock Pot, and just stirred in the taco seasoning, chili powder, and cumin since they weren’t cooked with the meat. I left it on low, and it was ready for dinner.
We ate it over macaroni noodles and topped it with shredded cheese and sour cream.
It was delicious! This turned out to be a very good recipe modification. The grilled meat really added a depth of flavor to the chili. Nick said it was the best chili he has ever had. I think I may try to keep some grilled hamburgers in the freezer for chili in the future.
I highly recommend giving this a try if you happen to have any grilled hamburgers on hand.
So what about you? Do you enjoy chili? Are you modifying any recipes due to lack of availability of certain items?
