Beejer and Me

Cupcakes, doughnuts, caramel corn, oh my! Our ward Halloween party tonight was sweet indeed. I won the chili cook off! Ha!

(The expression on my face looks just like one my brother Donny would make. Love you Don.) 

Ellie was a...

Strawberry! And we decided that we were not cowboys. We were strawberry farmers. It's a good business to be in when your crop is this terrific.

Halloween Sweet Chili recipe:

2 lbs. ground beef

2 lbs. Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage

2 (15 oz.) cans red kidney beans

2 (15 oz.) cans chili beans (I used all of a 32 oz. can instead. Chili beans? I had never heard of em.)

2 cups V-8 juice

6 teaspoons chili powder ( I didn't have this so I used 4 heaping teaspoons of smokehouse flavored pepper and 2 heaping teaspoons of bbq chicken spice stuff.)

2 Tablespoons butter ( to cook the meat in)

1/2 cup water

4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons worcestershire (try saying that 10 times fast. or once for that matter.)

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons vinegar

and here it is people... my secret ingredient. When I had it finished according to the recipe I felt like it still needed a little more texture besides just the beans and meat. So I sauteed up some yellow, orange, and red mini bell peppers. Just sliced em up real nice and cooked em in some butter, salt and smokehouse pepper.

All you do is cook the meat in a big pan with the butter. Drain off the excess fat. Add all the other ingredients, and simmer for one hour. Pretty darn delicious.

I made it this morning so the flavors could have time to mingle. In the span of this time the pepper became pretty pronounced, so by the end of the night it had quite a kick. Cut back on the pepper if you don't like things a little spicy.