Chili

'Tis the season for chili. I made the best pot of chili ever today and thought I'd share. Unfortunately, I didn't measure anything so it's all approximate. Taste as you go.

Chop the stems/tops off of enough tomatoes to fill a 6 qt sauce pan. Bring to a boil, cook until soft, and use a blender, food processor, or immersion blender to grind up the remaining chunks. Dump into a large crock pot or whatever you like to use for chili.

Add beans. I like black beans. I boil the beans for a bit, rinse, and add as many as I want to eat in the soup. This is usually about 3/4 of a bag. That's probably 2-3 cans.

Chop one onion and toss it in.

Cook ground beef. The beef we use doesn't have a lot of drippings so I don't drain it before adding it. I also think drippings add flavor so I almost always use the grease unless it's some sort of ridiculous amount.

Now for the spices. I like to add paprika, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic and cumin.

I cooked the chili on low in the crock pot for about 7 hours, however, I usually cook it on the stove for 1-2 hours.

Here it is all written out:

1 lb ground beef
6 quarts diced tomatoes or tomato sauce
1 large onion, chopped
salt, to taste (I used around 1 1/2 tsp of salt since everything was fresh)
pepper, to taste (I used 1/2 tsp)
1 heaping tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic
1 Tbsp paprika
a few chopped fresh tomatoes for good measure