MAIN Cooking Chili

There's nothing more nourishing, versatile, economical or savory as a fresh bowl of chili.

Serve it extra hot to warm up a cold winter's night, or mildly spicy for an easy week night dinner, at your favorite sports party or after-school get together, or as an easy make ahead meal.

What? Never cooked chili before?

Here's a basic recipe to get your started enjoying your own homemade chili from scratch. Later you can experiment with different flavors and variations such as turkey chili or Tex-Mex.

Add grated cheese, a dollop of sour cream or cilantro, and you're well on your way to creating your own signature dish. Of course, there are practically as many chili recipes as there are households.

Have fun experimenting, and enjoy!

Basic chili recipe

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. ground beef
3 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans kidney beans, drained
1 small onion, diced
2 tbsp. chili powder *
Garnish **

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. In a large saucepan, cook ground beef over medium heat until well-browned.
2. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the onion is soft.

Serve over rice, with tortilla chips, or Southern style cornbread. Makes about six servings.

* Experiment with how much heat to put in your chili by starting out with chili powder, then graduating to the milder peppers available in your local produce section such as Anaheim chili, or the poblano chili,  If you like, step it up a notch by experimenting with the medium-hot chilii peppers like jalopeno or chipotle. Five alarm? Try extra-hot varieties such as cayenne or the Serrano chili, but warn guests beforehand!

* Garnishing chili is an art in itself. Sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced avocado, chopped tomato, chopped onion or scallions, chopped cilantro, and lemon wedges are only a few of the sides you may provide so hungry family or guests can help themselves:

also see in the Chiff Recipe File -> Chunky Beef Crockpot | Super Chili | White Bean Chili with Chicken

More about chili recipes around the Web:

Around the Web, check out a host of sites offering complete ingredients and instructions for the home cook's favorite one-pot meal :

Food.com Chili Recipes - Find more than a thousand chili recipes (and counting), with visitor-submitted favorites - including beef, bean, chicken, pork - or search by category including main dish, Super Bowl party, and vegetarian.

Chili Recipes - Wikibooks - Here's a good collection of recipes for chile con carne, black bean, New Mexico or Texas style -- and the Easy Chili is one of the easiest we've seen ...