Dad's Chili

I haven't made this recipe in a LONG time, and it's really a good one. My dad put this recipe together over a few years of tweeking it. I have a funny story. So I was making this chili for the Packers playoff game. It calls for chili powder and I ran out of my homemade concoction. See quick chili powder. While at an Indian grocery store earlier in the week, I picked up what I thought was regular chili powder. (The red coloring should have tipped me off, but it didn't.) As I put the powder in, my eyes watered a little and I thought to myself, "Hmmmm, maybe the Indian chili powder has a little kick." Is that an understatement! It turns out instead of regular chili powder, I bought red chili powder. And not only that, but EXTRA HOT red chili powder. Come to find out, that's ground up hot chilis! YIKES! Needless to say, this just about burned your mouth off. Since people were on their way over, I used every googled tip I could find...(using slices of raw potatoes to soak up the heat; cutting the heat with a couple tablespoons of honey, using a little baking soda) but nothing really worked. I did add a 28 ounce jar of tomatoes, 2 more cans of beans and a 15 oz jar of tomato sauce. This helped tone it down a bit, but we still needed huge dollops of sour cream to actually eat it. Interestingly, one of our friends asked for some HOT SAUCE to add to his!! He loved it! (They got most of the leftovers.)

So....be careful when going to an ethnic grocery store and read the fine print on ALL labels! This chili recipe is really good when you make it right!


Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz) can light kidney beans
1 (15 oz) can dark kidney beans
1 (15 oz) can spicy chili beans
1 quart crushed tomatoes
2 large red peppers, diced
1 large onion, diced
3 T minced garlic
6 T white vinegar
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne
4 T light chili powder
6 squirts Worcester
2 T brown sugar
4 squirts Tabasco or other hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste


Instructions:

• Brown the meat
• Using the juice of the meat, let the onions and peppers simmer until tender and soft
• Place meat in crock pot and add peppers and onions (after draining meat juice)
• Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together in slow cooker
• Cook for 4 hours on low or 2 hours on high

Enjoy!