Slow Cooker Chili

Have you noticed I've been slightly MIA again? I hang my head in shame because already I haven't been able to keep up enough with my blog, editing it A LOT of work. More than even writing a book perhaps and to top it off, I decided to start another blog for my writing to keep my hopefully soon to be readers up to date on me. There's not much going on over there yet, but feel free to check it out here and please feel free to drop me a line saying so. I love hearing from all of you.

But let's get back to the important stuff...like food or better yet like that delicious bowl of chili I have pictured above. Truth be told a few years ago chili was not my thing, but it gradually grew on me. I was ultimately sold on chili when the husband and I had chili at Robinson's Tea Room, this unbelievable quaint and cute tea house in my area. I even got to do a restaurant review for them through Patch, a company I occasionally freelance for. It was a great experience and the owners there are just lovely, wonderful people. (See drinking tea brings out a new side of me using words like lovely and quaint!). Anyway, there chili is top notch, they have huge (tender) chunks of flank steak mixed in with chopped meat, jalapenos and beans making for an amazing bowl of chili. I wanted to replicate it and though mine was nowhere close to theirs, it was pretty darn good and we had leftovers for days!

I made it in the slow cooker which is great because I quickly browned up the meat in the morning, tossed all the ingredients inside and 8 hours later when we both returned home there was a steaming pot of chili waiting for us. I tell you, it doesn't get much better than that.

Now I researched a ton of recipes but nothing was exactly what I had in mind so I decided to just kind of wing it. Sometimes you just have to go for it and not be afraid to take a different path, I was very happy with the results (hubby was too) and all you need to do afterwards is top it off with a little sour cream and cheese and you're good to go.

Slow Cooker Chili

Yield: 8 Servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes     I     Cook Time: 8 hours

Ingredients

• 3 pounds ground beef
• 1.5 pounds flank steak (or similar) 
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can pinto beans
• 1 small onion (minced)
• 1 - 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

Start off by browning your ground beef in a large frying or saute pan until it is about halfway cooked. Pour all the ground beef into your slow cooker and then brown the steak until it has a nice sear on both sides (do not fully cook it). Cut the steak into one inch pieces, (kitchen shears work great for this since you don't need to be fancy about it) and put all the steak into the slow cooker giving everything a good stir.

Next put all of the rest of the ingredients inside the slow cooker, stir to ensure everything is nicely incorporated and that's it. Set your slow cooker to cook 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high and that's it. I recommend cooking it for 8 hours since chili tastes best when cooked low and slow.

Top with a nice dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheddar cheese.