Give me your best chili recipe.

[self biased]

no wine? no cilantro?

[SlowwHand]

No chili powder?

[Tuberski]

I don't think it's available on the east coast.

We just recently got it in San Antonio, but they don't sell the hot version.

Only original and cheddar cheese.

I grew up with Nalley's.

ACK!

[KrazyHorse]

no wine? no cilantro?

Nope.

Did forget one thing, though: a 6 oz. can of tomato paste

[Imran Siddiqui]

2 lbs of meat (you pick - though beef and sausage are nice)
3 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes (fire roasted if you can find it)
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
2 15 oz cans of beans (either black, pinto, or kidney - recommend the first two though)
1 large onion diced
1 green bell pepper chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic chopped
4-5 jalapenos (or 2 jalapenos and 3 serranos - or 3 jalapenos and 1 habenero)
salt, black pepper, red pepper, cumin, chili powder
beef stock (if necessary)

Garlic and olive oil in the pot until fragrant. Then brown the meat. Put in the tomatoes, give it a stir. Then throw in the vegetables & beans and then the spices.

Cook on low in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours. Throw in some beef stock for the last half hour or so if the liquid looks too low.

[SlowwHand]

Too much tomato. Too close to being spaghetti sauce. The rest,

[Dinner]

no wine? no cilantro?

No chili powder?

I've always used wine but as I said mine was never stand out. I do wonder what type of chili doesn't have chili powder in it though.

[SlowwHand]

Chili powder is kind of basic. I know some spruce chili up by adding things, like wine, but leaving out chili powder is like leaving water out of ice.

[Dinner]

I know my mom used to throw a bay leaf into the pot while the chili was simmering.

[SlowwHand]

I've seen that in many recipes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Too much tomato. Too close to being spaghetti sauce. The rest,

In a slow cooker the liquid tends to cook down.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

If you fancy a change, try going for Piccadillo instead of Chilli.

There are a thousand variants. My preferred one is to cook it like you would your favourite chilli, but ditch the beans. In their place, add chopped green olives, a handful of raisins and some ground almonds.

[KrazyHorse]

Chili powder doesn't add anything other than heat to the chili, as long as you have cumin to add separately. I like just using more jalpenos (or other fresh pepper) instead of getting heat from the chili powder.

[Boris Godunov]

I have the slow cooker going right now. I ended up hashing together my own concoction:

1 lb ground turkey
1 lb smoked turkey sausage slices
28 oz diced tomatoes
6 oz tomato paste
8 oz(ish) of beer. I used a Bavarian dark heff
1 16 oz can of kidney beans
1 16 oz can of pinto beans
1 large diced onion
3 medium-to-small diced bell peppers (I used one each of green, red and orange for color)
1 small can of diced green chiles
Spices: chili powder, cumin, salt & pepper, some tabasco and worcestershire sauce, garlic, cayenne pepper.

I started the slow cooker an hour before leaving my condo today, it will spend 8 hours on low. It was already smelling pretty good when I left.

We'll see how it tastes tonight. My friends are pretty transparent about whether or not the food is ****...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Sounds like a good recipe. Chili is always great when you experiment. Have used beer in my chili before and it definitely imparts a nice flavor.