Southwest Mountain Soul Food Chili Recipe

After the Thanksgiving celebrations are over, you might want to return to more familiar cuisine. If that familiarity arises from living in the Southwest, this heartwarming chili recipe is for you. When days in the Rockies are cool and the nights are downright cold, you'll welcome the heat, both thermal and spiced, from this easy to prepare recipe for body and soul.

This recipe is my own. Although I've made it my own from countless other chili recipes, I've added a little of this a lot of that to tailor it to my own particular tastes. Feel free to do the same if there's just some stuff in there you just can't abide.

You've got to do some planning ahead with this recipe, because it starts with dried beans. Before you go to bed, take half of an 8oz. bag of dried black beans and soak the beans in water. Do the same with half a bag of red kidney beans. Use two different bowls. That is, don't mix the two beans together while soaking. And rinse them a few times before you retire for the night. While you sleep, the beans will be soaking and softening up.

In the morning, rinse the soaked beans well. The waters will be dark. You will have discarded the flatulence-producing substances out with the rinse water. Family and friends will thank you.

Put all the beans in a large pot, cover them with water with about half an inch of water above the beans. Add a teaspoon of salt and cook for an hour. (If you're cooking at altitude, you'll need the full hour; less if you're not in the mountains.)

Add the following ingredients to the pot and cook for another hour.

1 onion, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
2 big garlic cloves, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon ground cumin
1 heaping tablespoon chili powder
1 bunch of fresh cilantro, leaves only, stems removed
dash of ground pepper
dash of Tabasco sauce
1 28-oz. can of diced tomatoes

The veggies are now soft and the flavors have melded together. Let the pot cool a little. Spoon about half of the mixture into a blender, choosing more veggies and beans than the liquid. On the lowest setting possible, puree the mixture and return it to the pot.

Pan fry 1 lb. of lean chop meat, breaking the cooked meat into small pieces. Drain off any fat and put the cooked chop meat into the pot with the chili mixture. Optionally here, you can add 1 24oz. jar of your favorite prepared tomato-based pasta sauce. I recommend doing so. (I use Classico's Italian Sausage with Peppers and Onions pasta sauce. Oh, gosh. Can I say this? It's not a promotion. Use the kind you like or none at all.). Cook all for a few more minutes until all ingredients are heated through and piping hot.

If it's not dinner time yet, you can let the pot sit on the stove. Reheat when the dinner hour arrives. The recipe serves many, but don't ask me how many. It depends on the size of the appetites at the table.

Serve several heaping ladles of chili over cooked brown rice with a little green salad.

No cowboys or cowgirls will go hungry tonight!