Full.

[swestrup]

Its been cold and wet lately and as a direct result I've been craving chili. Now I love chili with beans, but taxlady is not very fond of beans. Besides, they're high carb. Even soy beans (which I've bought, but not yet tried) are not that low carb.

So, tonight I cooked up a Texas Red Chili which is beanless. I made a few modifications to the original recipe, and I'm likely to make a few more as I tinker, but I think it was very satisfactory. Enough food was made for three people and although it wasn't exactly low carb either (at 80 carbs total), it was a fair bit lower than any chili with beans that I've ever made. Besides some of the obvious ways to reduce the total carbs were not tried this time around as I wanted to know what the base recipe gave in terms of taste.

My only complaint was the time it took. At 4:00 pm I walked to the health-food store to pick up some garlic because we were almost out. I started cooking when I got back and the food wasn't ready until almost 9:00 pm. Of course, having to simmer it for 90 to 120 minutes accounts for a good deal of that time.

So, now I'm sitting here full, with my chili craving pretty much sated for now, drinking a glass of wine. Life is good.

Comments

[lasher.livejournal.com]

I have to say as a Texan that I have never heard of putting a lime in chili. That would really change the flavor.

Some tips to consider for "Texas" style chili...
Try using cayene pepper (fresh or powdered) instead of pablano peppers. Pablano is one of the mildest peppers you can get (after bell peppers) and doesn't really add much to the chili in terms of heat or flavor after its cooked for a couple of hours. If you want LOTS of heat... add some habanero or serrano peppers if you can find them up there. "Texas" chili is known for its heat.

Also, you really don't need any flour in "Texas chili"... and since you are trying to save carbs... what it gives you isn't worth it. You might like tinkering around with adding a little Mexican oregano too (not italian oregano) if you can find it.

[swestrup]

Oops. Somehow I managed to reply to me, in this thread, instead of to you...

[swestrup]

Yeah, the lime was a last-minute extra. Somehow I got two chili recipes confused and ended up with adding lime to the Texas version. I kind of liked the result though.

I'm not actually sure that I was using poblano peppers in the chili, but they were mild. Its actually almost impossible to find any hot peppers here in Montreal, so I had to make do.

I do have a very limited supply of some habaneros but I've only ever found them once. Besides, the chili turned out reasonably hot anyway. (Certainly not scorching, but I wasn't really trying for that.)

On the other hand, powered cayenne is easy to get here as its used in many French Canadian dishes, so I could use that. I usually do put some in my chili-with-beans but I was sticking to the recipe (or trying) on this one.

And yes, I think I'll leave out the flour next time. I don't really see that it was necessary to get a thicker chili, as one could just as well add less water.