Day 12: The Other Chili!

We have two types of chili that we eat here in this house. One has elk and bacon and beans. Then there's this one, whom I blame on Dragon because if he didn't spend a majority of his life in Ohio, I wouldn't have even known about it.

The Other Chili

Ingredient round-up: 

* 1 lb (or so) of ground beef

* Can of tomato paste

* Packet of Cincinnati Recipe Chili mix

For those of you wondering, yes, this is what Ohio-ans usually refer to as Skyline Chili. 

It took me a while to get used to it, honestly. I'm used to thick, stew-like chili, full of beans and meat and deliciousness. This chili is... well... watery. But what it lacks in viscosity it MORE than makes up for with amazing flavor. Seriously. 

 

Packet in the stew pot, combined with the tomato paste. It's definitely not the most appealing look, now is it?

But if you take a whiff of it right now, you'll be able to smell all the spices they put in there. Especially the cinnamon.

Originally, I said to Dragon that cinnamon has NO BUSINESS being in a chili. It is an abomination, I said.

I was wrong. It is awesome. Trust me.

According to the directions, here's how it goes down.

You put the mix and tomato paste in the pot. Mix it together. Add 6 cups of water (yeah, see, that's why I said it's more watery than what I'm used to) and blend it all together.

THEN you add in the uncooked beef. This was a step that had me kind of meh. I'm used to precooking the meat and THEN adding everything in. But given how long this stuff cooks? Yeah, uncooked meat is the way to go. It absorbs all those delicious spices and gets super tender and very tasty.

Now then, the secret to Skyline Chili is how it's served. The back o' the packet has suggestions, but it all starts with a base of pasta.

As we are...mostly healthful with our grain choices, we stumbled across this little gem. -->

It's a hearty, yet delicious pasta that is just chock full of veggie goodness. It cooks in about the same amount of time as a regular pasta does (8-10 minutes or so) and tastes like regular pasta.  So there you go. Healthy-ho!

Put the pasta on to cook. When it's done, divvy it up.

Pasta in the bowl. Followed by a ladle or two of the chili, and smother that stuff with low-fat cheddar cheese. (Or regular cheddar...I happened to grab the wrong cheese by accident and it still tasted fine.)

Trust me when I tell you there will be enough leftovers to do the Chili-dog thing with, or to just heat and eat as you wish.


~Snarkstress