Aaron’s Crock Pot Chili (o DOOM)
Filed Under: recipe on October 30, 2009
The other night, I made my special crock pot chili (o DOOM). This is a favorite in our house, especially when the weather turns cold. It’s very easy to make and requires only basic ingredients that you’ll likely have in your pantry anyway.
For this, you’ll need:
- 1 to 2 pounds of ground beef
- 1 onion
- 1 cup diced green chilis
- Cheyenne pepper (to taste)
- 1 quart jar tomato preserves or 4 fresh tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 3-4 cups of re-hydrated kidney beans (or 2 16oz cans)
- 3 cups water
- Optional green peppers or long chilis, to taste
Once you have the stuff, you literally just dump it all into the crock pot. Run it on high with the lid in place for about two hours, then turn it to low and leave it for another six to eight hours. Stir occasionally and ad water if you prefer it to be soupier. If it’s too soupy, ad more beans to soak it up.
Let’s look at the details, then.
The beans, if they are dried, should be rehydrated. I usually just put them into a container overnight with twice as much water as there is beans (4 cups water for 2 cups of beans). Leave it on the counter overnight and in the morning you’ll have beans ready to go.
The tomatoes, if jarred, can be poured directly into the pot. In this case, I usually subtract a cup of water from the recipe and let the tomato juice take its place. Fresh tomatoes should be cut into 
quarters or eighths and thrown in. Don’t worry about dicing them, by the time this is cooked, they’ll be falling apart in there anyway.
The chilis need to be diced before being thrown in. Same with the onion. I am lazy and usually use the blender to do this for me, but you can do it by hand or with a food processor as well. Smaller is better with those chilis, but the onions can be large.
I shake in the pepper and cumin and make a guess as to taste. Cumin is the real secret to that “chili taste” we all know. So use a fair amount of it. If you use too much, you can drown it out with extra beef, onion, and/or pepper. I added red and green peppers from the freezer because we had them and I like this to be spicy and have vegetable chunks floating around in it for looks and extra nutrition.
Using a wooden spoon, I stir about every hour during the day, but if you go to work, you can leave this running on low all day and just stir it before you leave and when you get back.
Enjoy!
