Chili Con Carne

Doing food reviews is personal to me and my tastes. I know that everyone is not going to agree with my opinions and that's okay!!

I was asked for this recipe by Jennifer so I decided to post this not so original recipe as an alternative to the canned Chili that Jennifer uses in her recipe. This recipe has been in our family for many years and I've made it with tomatoes like this recipe or with canned tomato soup and ketchup which is much quicker. Either way it is a basic that I made especially for my husband and I haven't made it much since his passing. Since I did this recipe from memory, I almost forgot to add the red kidney beans to the recipe. That would have been disastrous since without the beans it's not chili.

My son who lived with me did not eat beans of any kind and I would divide the tomato mixture before I added the beans so that he would eat it. Since he passed away in the Spring of this year, I can now make it the traditional way with the kidney beans.

Cook Time

Ingredients

• 1# ground meat
• 6-8 tomatoes, cleaned and chopped
• 1 can tomato paste
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• chili powder, to taste
• 1 can Red Kidney Beans

1. Clean and cut the tomatoes into small chunks and set aside.
2. Chop the celery, green pepper and onion into a medium size pan.
3. Add your ground meat and pan fry while stirring to break up the ground meat. .
4. Add your tomato paste and stir into the meat and vegetable mixture. Spoon off the grease
5. Add your tomatoes to the mixture and simmer to cook through. If your chili is too thin for your liking, you can add a can of condensed tomato soup to thicken it up and add additional flavorings.
6. Drain the kidney beans, add to chili and simmer until the beans are tender. Add your seasonings and chili powder to taste.

Alternative

Life moves on and the stores have greatly improved their selections. You can now purchase your chopped onions, celery and green peppers on the shelf which save time.

You can use large cans of chopped tomatoes instead of tomatoes out of the garden. If you buy the tomatoes, I suggest doubling the amount of tomatoes and using plum tomatoes.

Comments

Laura L Scotty (author) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 13, 2016:

Thank you for your comments on the recipe. Enjoy :)

Pennington on November 04, 2016:

Looks very tasty. I never put celery in my chili, definitely will try this recipe. Thanks for sharing.