Power House Creatives Contest: A chili recipe you can use to win a cook-off!

Here in the U.S., chili is a big deal. I would love to hear from you about what it's like in your area (U.S., elsewhere in North America, Central/South America or abroad), as to whether chili has cultural importance. Here there are chili cook-off events that you can take part in. The recipe I'm going to share with you here helped me win a chili cook-off at my job, among about 30 entries.

We like to gauge chili by its heat levels, but in my book heat is not what it's all about. The real deal is flavor. I do like my chili to have a "kick" to it, and I spice it up accordingly. But my feeling is that heat without well-rounded flavor is just not as enticing.

The Recipe

You can find the original recipe I used on Food.com in a recipe called "Not for Sissies: Red Hot Chili Crockpot Chil." But naturally, I made it my own. I add a LOT of spice. The secret to great chili, from my point of view, is lots of garlic, cumin, oregano and high quality chili powder. Note that the spice amounts in the ingredients listed below are approximations. I do not measure them, as you will see.

1 lb bacon, cut up in small chunks
2.5 lbs ground beef
3-4 (1 lb) cans kidney beans
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 or 2 cans of diced tomatoes
12 ounces tomato paste
2 onions, finely chopped
6 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tsp cayenne pepper (dry powder)
4 Tbsp garlic powder
4 Tbsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp oregano
1 Tbsp paprika
Hot sauce to taste
Salt to taste

Assemble Your Ingredients

Here are some pictures for what I pulled together (other than the bacon and beef). A lot of it was stuff I had in my pantry. In fact, I happened to have black beans but not kidney beans, so that's what I used. It turned out great.

The recipe is not fussy. And you pretty much can't mess it up!

Put It All Together

The steps are pretty simple using a crockpot:

1. Cook the beef, bacon and onions.
2. Put the beef, bacon, onions and beans in the crockpot.
3. Mix in all the tomato products and spices.
4. Start it up and cook on high for about 5-6 hours or low for 10-12 hours.

Spices!

Cumin!

Flavor Tips

As I mentioned, the spice amounts are approximations. It might seem like a lot of spice, but I find that it does take quite a bit to make chili really flavorful. I showed the pictures above so you can see what it looks like. I don't measure the spices. I just chuck a lot on and stir it in. And then, a while before I am going to serve it, I actually add more garlic, cumin and chili powder.

That last step is what helped me to win the contest. My chili was the most flavor-packed one there!

Thanks so much for checking out my recipe. And thank you to @zord189 for running the contest and allowing me a small grace period!

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