It’s been cold, so we felt like having a batch of chili. Two pounds of ground turkey and a bag of small red beans and a bottle of Rogue Mocha Porter later, among other things, we had a big pot of tallasiandude’s special-recipe chili. Yum!
And because we are both nerds, and both thinking about how to save money on food, we tried to figure out how cost-effective this chili really is. So far we reckon it’s about 10-11 person-meals’ worth of food, and it cost us $21 to make. That’s $2.10 per meal. If you also count the accessories (plain yogurt, brown rice, cheddar cheese, toast, and corn chips), that’s an extra $5 to the total… leaving the per-meal cost still pretty damn low, at $2.60.
That’s not too shabby, considering we used expensive beer and kosher meat and organic vegetables (for the most part). It’s a good meaty chili, flavorful and filling.
Saute 3 roughly-chopped onions and 1/2 a head chopped garlic in 2 tbs butter (or bacon fat if you have it). Add the turkey and cook through. Chop half a head of celery, and saute in 1 tbs butter in the soup pot. Stem and seed 6 serranos and 3 anaheims (or whatever chiles suit you), chop and add to celery. Dump the turkey and onions into the pot with the chiles. Add 1 lb of small red beans, previously soaked (or quick-soaked), and 1 large can of whole tomatoes, plus half a can of water and a bottle of dark beer. Add 3-5 mini Hershey bars and/or dark chocolate mini squares, whatever you have around — unsweetened chocolate does tend to make it too bitter though. Add chili powder, cumin, black pepper and salt to your liking. Stew the heck out of it for a few hours on low heat. Serve hot with toast or rice, topped with cheddar cheese and/or plain yogurt and a tangy hot sauce if you want a little more than the mild oomph the fresh chiles give. Tortilla chips are nice with it too.