Chili

I've liked chili all my life. As I was growing up we always called it "chili soup." That most likely was because the way my mother made it was with a lot of tomatoe juice in it. As a youngster I didn't eat at restaurants much but I remember a trip to Chicago that the Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter from our high school took. We ate our supper (that is the evening meal where I come from) in a little diner. I ordered chili and was quite surprised to hear the waitress call out my order to the kitchen, "Bowl of red!"

We always put saltine crackers in our chili but a few years ago some friends were having a gathering at their home and asked everyone to bring chili and cornbread. I rather thought that was a bit strange, but, you know what? We have been eating ours that way for some few months now and it is really good.

Chili varies greatly from one maker to another. My wife's chili is quite good but not overly "hot," most of the time. There was one time a number of years ago that she made HOT chili. Earlier she and my daughter had made some hot sauce from some hot peppers we had been given along with tomatoes from our garden. After cooking for quite some time it had not thickened as they wanted so they dipped out quite a bit of the liquid, which Connie canned to be used later. However, she wasn't thinking about how hot that liquid was and put a full quart into a pot of chili. WOW!

Usually one has to plan ahead when they wish to enjoy a good bowl of chili. Ground meat has to be available freshly ground or one must remove some from the freezer to thaw for some time before it can be cooked and the rest of the ingredients added. The whole pot then needs to cook for a period of time. Connie has been able to speed up the process. She makes a huge pot of chili, puts it into quart jars and pressure cans it. We can decide on the spur of the moment to have chili. It is then only a matter of opening a jar and heating the contents for a few minutes. We did this one day last week when we returned from doing some shopping and wanted something to eat that didn't take a lot of time. In a matter of minutes we were eating our bowls of chili.