Culinary Quest

I have very little experience in the cooking arena.  A typical meal that I cook consists of pasta from a box with sauce from a jar.  I have made a couple of “chicken helper” meals as well.  Outside of that, cooking is a foreign concept to me.

Because today is Super Bowl Sunday, I wanted to have chili to keep in line with tradition.  After some time spent searching around the web for an easy chili recipe, I found just the one.  It had the fewest ingredients, people raved about how simple it was, and there was a general consensus that it tasted great.  I was sold.  Did you know that some chili recipes call for cocoa?

After a trip to the grocery store, I was ready to begin.  Prior to today, I had never sliced an onion before or prepared any type of red meat.  It turns out that the old phrase, “If you can read, you can cook,” is true.  The chili was delicious, especially with the cornbread I made from a box.  Here’s a photo of the end result:

For the sake of completeness, here is the recipe that I found at allrecipes.com:

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 4 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
• 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans

Directions:

1. Combine ground beef, onion, and garlic in large stockpot. Cook and stir over medium heat until beef is brown. Drain.
2. Stir in chili powder, oregano, tomatoes, and tomato sauce; break up tomatoes while stirring. Heat to boiling, reduce heat to simmer, and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour.
3. Stir in beans. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes; stir occasionally.