Ali & Alyssa’s Chili Recipe

This is the perfect chili for a rainy day, a day full of sports games, or a day of apple cider making. Basically any day that you have time for the chili to stew away in the pot while you are working on homework, watching a movie, or doing chores around the house.

Most of my recipes are named after a specific person or story that make it unique – whether it’s whoever always requests it or the specific reason I make it (ex: a holiday, a TV show, etc.).

This particular chili recipe is mainly made off of my mother’s recipe but I added a few suggestions from Damaris Phillips recipe that you can find at food network.com. I will note with (Phillips) after ingredients/directions that come from her.

This chili recipe was named after my friends Ali Gibson and Alyssa Martin of Oregon State’s women’s basketball team. I think that the first time we had this chili recipe was when we were all out making homemade apple cider. We had been slaving away over the apple press for about 3 or 4 hours before a basketball game was on TV and were more than ecstatic when we walked into the house to the smell of delicious chili. This is the kind of chili whose aroma pervades the entire house and makes your stomach grumble. It’s the kind of meal that everyone will show up for a family dinner because nobody can wait to eat it! On that first day, we pulled the kitchen table all the way out of the nook into the middle of the kitchen so that we could eat and watch the Stanford women’s basketball game against Tennessee. Ever since then our family has referred to the chili recipe as  “Ali & Alyssa’s Chili”. For another classic Ali & Alyssa visiting the farm story check out the Tall Tales category for “The Deer Carcass”.

Alyssa Martin (#24), Ryley Croghan, Ali Gibson (#14) and myself

Hope you guys enjoy it as much as we do! Please don’t mind that I am very bad at using measuring utensils; I just go for it.

Ingredients: 

• Splash of vegetable oil 
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound ground turkey (my own addition)
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 medium onion; small dice
• 1 large carrot; small dice
• 1 red bell pepper; small diced (Phillips)
• 4 cloves of garlic; minced
• 1 can tomato sauce; 15 oz
• 2 cans diced tomatoes; 14.5 oz x2
• 1 can black beans; 15 oz
• 1 can kidney beans; 15 oz
• 1 can pinto beans; 15 oz
• 1 can garbanzo beans; 15 oz (Phillips)
• 1 package of taco seasoning; 1.25oz
• 1 can vegetable broth; 14.5 oz (Can be mushroom stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, heck even chicken stock! Whatever you have on hand!)
• Cayenne Pepper
• Paprika
• 16 oz. dark beer (Phillips also uses this but she suggests leaving it open for a while) – Doesn’t matter, I just grab whatever is left over from my male-roommates poker nights.
• 1 cup of corn kernels
• 2 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter (Phillips)
• Sour cream

In Demaris Phillips recipe she suggests adding liquid smoke at the end but I didn’t adopt this. Why? Because as a college student I can condone buying a bottle of liquid smoke just for one or two recipes; I would need to be using it more often. Phillips also suggests using Greek Yogurt instead of sour cream. I have never tried this, but I can see how it would be pleasant if you made this chili with an extra spice too it to cool off your palette. Another addition that you can use is fresh cilantro as a garnish but, again, my college budget cut that from my ingredient list.

For shopping my roommate Katie and I split up the grocery list. Since she gets her gas at Safeway we look through for the best deals on the Safeway For You deals. We ended up getting the beans and the sauces for about $1.00 a jar. I got the meat at whichever store was cheaper either Winco or Safeway. The corn we already had in our freezer since we stack up on frozen vegetables and fruits when they are on sale.

Directions:

1. Since I store my meats in a freezer I set the meat up one by one to defrost in the microwave. While that was happening I diced up the onion, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic.
   
   

   Diced onion, red pepper, and minced garlic.

2. With a LARGE pot on just below high heat I splashed in some vegetable oil and, once it was hot, I added in the ground meats to begin browning. I threw in four pinches of salt and two of pepper. Do not brown the meat all of the way since it will be cooking in the stew later; remove it when it has some pink and place on a paper towel covered plate to soak out the grease.
   

   After the splash of veg. oil gets hot; start browning the ground meats.

    

   

   Brown until there is some pink and then remove to a paper towel covered plate to drain off the grease.

3. LEAVE the grease and juices from the meat browning in the pot and add in the diced onions. Cook until translucent.
   
4. Add the diced red bell pepper and carrot and cook for a couple minutes until they begin to soften.
   
5. Add in the minced garlic for about one minute.
6. Pour in the can of tomato sauce, stir and allow it to heat to a slight boil.
7. Pour in both cans of diced tomatoes. Stir well.
   

   As you can see I just use what’s on sale!

   

8. Open up the beer but leave it sitting!
9. Let the can opening begin! Open all four cans of beans, drain, and rinse. Add them all to the pot and stir well.
   

   All on sale Safeway brand beans – cheapest option.

   

   Lots of beautiful colors being incorporated.

10. Add in the package of taco seasoning, the can of stock and then slowly pour in the beer. Stir well.
11. Sprinkle over a dash of cayenne pepper and about a tablespoon of paprika – you can skip this step if you don’t like your food to even be remotely spicy.
12. This is the fun part! After bringing it down to an excited simmer you can either put a lid on or not (I like to put a lid on but leave it propped up to allow steam to get out), but let it SIT for about 2 hours.
13. Before you serve add in the peanut butter and the corn. Cook for 10 minutes.

The longer it goes the better it will taste but you can open it up for eating at whatever point. The best way to keep myself from trying to eat it too early is by going outside and doing some work OR going into another room where the smell isn’t so enticing and do some homework. 

To serve, ladle into a bowl, add a “dollop” of sour cream and ENJOY! Be prepared for people to want multiple helpings! You can add to the meal by making some box cornbread as well.

Finished product!