Chili is wonderful on a cold winter day, like some of the ones we've been having this winter season in Washington! I also love chili pretty much all year around, and it is wonderful with cornbread. (I have a great cornbread recipe coming soon, too!) Cooking chili in a Dutch oven or slowcooker makes the whole house fill up with the the mouth-watering smell.

If you love bacon and you love chili, this is the recipe for you! (please see my chicken chili recipe coming in a few days, if you are not a pork/bacon fan. This recipe contains both ground sausage and bacon and is definitely not the same without them). I came up with this recipe a few years ago, when my husband asked me to join a chili contest that his company was holding on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Having never made chili before, I skimmed through at least ten recipes online, trying to find one that would be amazing. But, all of them had some bad reviews for one reason or another. I didn’t want to show up to this chili contest with a chili I had copied from some website, especially if it didn’t even taste amazing! What was I going to do?

Well, I decided to make my own!

** Tip: A great way to begin to tweak recipes to make them your own is by finding a few online ones and reading the reviews. You can really get a feel for what worked for other people, and what additions or subtractions of ingredients led to the best results =)

After I re-skimmed some recipes, I made a list of ingredients I thought would go great in my chili that I had also seen on other recipes. I ended up with: corn, black beans, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, ground sausage, and bacon. The ground sausage had a really unique flavor, and I loved the idea of using that instead of ground beef (which is typical for chili).

** Tip: Any kind of pork meat – aka bacon, sausage, pork chops, etc. – has a high salt content. If you are substituting a pork product for any other type of meat, you don’t need to add nearly as much salt as the original recipe calls for. It will turn out way too salty (unless you’re really into salt!)

After I made the list of the ingredients that I wanted to use in my chili, I decided to play around with proportions of them. Since using whole cans of things is pretty easy, I started there by adding a can of this and that, until I thought I had a good base. Two ingredients usually essential to chili that were not on my list, are broth and tomato sauce. The tomato sauce serves to bind all the chunks of other ingredients together, and the broth makes sure it isn’t too thick. You can use beef broth or chicken broth, although they will produce different flavors. I use chicken broth.

** Tip: the reason you use broth instead of water to thin out the chili is because water dilutes the flavor. Broth is packed with flavor, so it doesn’t take away from the taste of the chili.

After I got the base down and added the cooked meats, I started with the spices. I just kept adding a little of this and a little of that, until I got it right where I wanted it. I was still very skeptical about how it really tasted though. Was I really making something worth eating?

The chili slow cooked for about three hours in my Dutch oven, and then I tossed it in my crock pot and headed to the military base – hoping that it wouldn’t get last place.

I am always early, so once I found my way to the conference room, I place my chili first on the line of three long tables with extension cords. I was beginning to freak out! How many people were making chili for this contest? Steven, my husband, kept reassuring me it would be fine and that I was a good cook. But, I had never cooked for anyone but my family before!

One by one the crock pots were placed on the line of tables. By the time all the judges, soldiers, and spouses showed up, there must have been fifteen crockpots lines up. To make it more intense, there were at least fifty people in the room waiting to take a stab at these crockpots full of chili.

The judges sat down at their own special table and were handed small bowls of each chili. Since my chili was number 1, mine was the first to be tried. The first judge tasted mine and grimaced. Oh, crud! I’m doomed! I couldn’t watch anymore. My cheeks were burning and I was praying they wouldn’t list off the contestants in order by the end of it.

As they tallied up the scores, I wanted to run out of the room. The first judge didn’t like my chili…why would any of the rest of them! The head of the get-together stood up in front of everyone to announce the winner and the losers. I braced myself for the worst.

“And…drum roll please...the winner of this contest is…chili number one.”

What? Did he say number one?

“Who made chili number one?” everyone was looking around to see who would claim it, but I was too shocked to speak.

“That would be my wife!” Steven declared, walking over to me and raising my hand up. Everyone clapped while I blushed and the main judge handed me a plastic trophy.

That plastic trophy sits in my kitchen as a constant reminder that you can make something that tastes great even without being an experienced cook. It starts by following recipes, and then your skills improve as you learn how to tweak them. That being said, if you make my recipe and decide you later want to "doctor it up" to make it your own, feel free! I love it the way it is, but maybe you'll like to add a little of this or subtract a little of that. I can't guarantee that it will taste the same if you do, however. Cooking is about pushing the limits, experimenting, and putting a piece of yourself into the masterpiece you’re concocting. Whether it's following recipes or making your own, sometimes you will get it right away and other times it takes a few tries to get it down. But remember, anyone can cook if they practice.

Enjoy!

SAUSAGE & BACON CHILI

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours (Dutch oven) or 5 hours (crockpot)

Yields: 4-5 servings

INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground Mild Italian Sausage

½ lb Bacon (the fattier the better)

2 (14.5 oz) Cans Tomato Sauce

1 (14.5 oz) Can Diced Tomatoes

2 Cups Frozen Corn

1 (14.5 oz) Can Kidney Beans, Drained

1 (14.5 oz) Can Black Beans, Drained

1 Large Onion, Diced

4 Cloves Garlic, Minced

2 Cups Chicken Broth

¾ Cup Brown Sugar

1 Tablespoon Honey

3 Tablespoons Chili Powder

1 ½ Tablespoons Oregano

1 Tablespoon Garlic Pepper

½ Tablespoon Dill Mustard

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Paprika

½ Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (optional)

Garnishes: Shredded Cheese, Sour Cream, and Chopped Green Onions

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse and drain both cans of beans, then add to a crockpot or Dutch oven. Next, add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, corn, chicken broth, and brown sugar.

2. In a large sauté pan, cook ground sausage until there is no more pink in the meat. Fold a few paper towels enough to cover the bottom of a medium sized bowl. Dump the meat from the sauté pan on top of paper towels in the bowl. Let the paper towel soak up the grease from the meat for a few minutes while you work on step 3.

3. Lay all the pieces of bacon out together on a cutting board. Then, slice across the strips to cut bacon into squares. Toss bits of bacon in to the sauté pan and cook until crispy. You will need to break up the bacon as it cooks.

4. Once the bacon is cooked, take it out and add to the Dutch oven/crockpot, but DO NOT dump the bacon grease. Leave the bacon grease in the pan.

5. Sauté onions in the bacon grease oven over medium heat until translucent (4-5 minutes), then add garlic and sauté for one more minute.

6. Add onions, garlic, and drained sausage to the Dutch oven/crockpot, and stir well. If the chili is too thick, at this point, add more chicken broth.

7. Add spices, mustard, and honey to the chili. Stir well.

8. If using a crockpot, cook on low for around 5-6 hours. If using a Dutch oven, cook on low/simmer for 2-3 hours, but make sure you check on it every once and a while to stir it. Do not let it bubble. I prefer a Dutch oven, unless I am too busy to check on it. Either way, the flavors really come out the longer you let it cook. “Low and Slow” is a good motto!

9. Serve with shredded cheese, chopped green onions, and sour cream =)

#Recipe #sausage #Bacon #Chili