Soup's on!

So hey, everyone! Sorry to disappear (again! I know!) on you like that. We've had some crappy weather lately and so I have been busy making soup!

Let's see... last week I made Portuguese Soup, this week I made Loaded Potato Soup, and just tonight I made chili for what I think is the first time ever!

My mom makes an awesome and very Yankee-fied chili that is similar to Cincinnati style but with kidney beans and without spaghetti. I have never tried to make it, though, and DH is allergic to beans. I've used the Wick Fowler's mixes for meat-based chili in the past, but this is the first time I've ever made it from scratch!

Anyhoo, what I did was cut about 2 lbs. of beef (I honestly can't remember what cut I used -- it was a cheap, heavily marbled roast of some sort) into a small dice and brown it in a big pot. Then I tossed in a chopped sweet yellow onion and three big cloves of garlic (minced). Once the meat was brown and the onions had sweated out a bit, I dumped in an assload of chili powder, some cumin, a little oregano and some salt. Then I added a big can of crushed tomatoes and a bottle of beer (Abita Turbodog, yo). I brought it to a boil and then let it simmer, uncovered, for about 2 hours before serving it with cornbread and some shredded cheese and sliced green onions on the side.

It was pretty good but a little too tomatoey and not nearly spicy enough for my taste. If I had it to do over, I'd use a bunch of dried chili peppers or maybe mix in some chipotles in adobo or something. It just wasn't peppery enough, you know? It was tasty, though!

I'm getting a little sick of soup so tomorrow will be something ... not soup-like. Stay tuned!