Just Chili-n: A New Recipe

I hope everyone had wonderful weekends, mine was full of birthday laughs, walks along Lake Michigan, margaritas and lots of fantastic food.  Taking top honors was our dinner last night at Girl and the Goat.  The restaurants serves up phenomenal, flavorful, non-fussy vegetarian, seafood and meat plates for sharing.  

While this recipe is certainly not on par with Girl and the Goat, it does originate in Chicago and is both easy and delicious aka perfect for a lazy football Sunday.  Here's a Turkey Chili recipe that I tweaked last week when the air got temporarily cool around these parts. 

Cast of Characters:

- 1 16oz can of kidney beans

- 1 16oz can of black beans

- 1 bag of frozen corn

- 1/2 onion, diced

- 2 cans (14.5oz) of diced tomatoes with chilies (I used one with chilies and one with herbs)

- 1lb of ground turkey, or ground beef or ground soy crumbles (I used turkey)

- 1/2 packet of Taco seasoning (I used Hot/Spicy)

- 8-10 oz of tomato sauce

- 1 tbsp of ground cumin

- 1 tbsp of chili powder

- 1 tsp of nutmeg (use whole nutmeg if you have it)

- salt/pepper/garlic power to season the ground meat

1) Rinse your beans in a colander to remove that canned bean residue. 

2) Add beans, tomatoes, corn, onion and tomato sauce to the crock pot.  Add cumin, chili powder, taco seasoning and nutmeg to the vegetables.

3) Season your ground meat with salt, pepper and garlic powder on both sides and add to the crock pot.  You can break up the meat if you want, I put it in whole and broke it up as it cooked.  

4)  Cover the crock pot and cook chili on high for 6 hours or 10 hours on low.  I went the high and fast route, and it was just perfect.  I stirred my chili every 90 minutes to break up my ground turkey.  

Ladle into bowls and serve with scallions, shredded cheddar, a dollop of sour cream and our favorite chili condiment, Frito Scoops!   I have to say this chili is our house's new go-to chili recipe.  It's really hearty, really flavorful and the best part?  Really easy, cheap and healthy.  I love pots of soup/chili for busy weeks when cooking dinner after work is just not a possibility.  It's also great for game day.  What do you cook up for busy weeks or football Sundays?