Wihongi Nearly-Award-Winning Chili

Source: Rachael Ray (modified by me)

Servings: A lot?
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes (or more, if cooking in Crock Pot)

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 pounds ground hot (or mild) sausage
• 2 tablespoons grill seasoning (recommended: McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning)
• 1/2 pound (10 oz.) baby Portobello mushrooms, chopped
• 1/4 pound (3.5 oz.) shiitake mushroom caps, sliced
• 1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 4 to 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 3-4 canned chipotle peppers in adobo, chopped, with an additional 1 T. of the adobo sauce
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 bottle beer
• 1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained
• 1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (15 oz.) can tomato puree
• 1 cup beef stock (8-ounce box)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
• 2 bay leaves
• dash of chili powder
• grated cheese and sour cream

Directions:

1. Heat a deep, large skillet or a pot over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and the sausage. Season it with grill seasoning and sear it up, browning and crumbling it, for 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer sausage to a plate and return pot to stove.
2. Reduce heat to medium-high and add another tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. Add the mushrooms and begin to brown them before adding the other veggies. After 2 or 3 minutes the mushrooms will begin to shrink and soften.
3. Push the mushrooms off to one side of the pot and add all the remaining veggies to the opposite side of the pot surface. Once the onions, celery, peppers and garlic have been working for a few minutes as well, mix the veggies with the mushrooms.
4. Add the sausage back, season with Worcestershire sauce, chipotle in adobo, and cumin. Add in beer to deglaze the pot, scraping up all the pan drippings. Reduce the beer by half, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the black beans, tomatoes, puree, stock, thyme, bay leaves, and chili powder to chili and simmer 10 minutes for flavors to combine. (For this step, we just threw everything in the crock pot and let it cook on low for 2-3 hours.) Taste to adjust seasonings.
6. Remove bay leaves from chili. Top bowls of the chili with cheese and sour cream.

Comments:

This recipe was created for Scott's Hillcrest Junior High Chili Cook-Off. We found a recipe we liked by Rachael Ray on Foodnetwork.com (here's the link for the original recipe), made a few modifications, and came up with one amazing batch of chili! We didn't take first place (although many people said we should have), but we still like ours best, which works out great for us!

One of the modifications we made was substituting hot ground sausage for the ground sirloin; definitely a good choice, but using regular sausage definitely would cut back on the heat a bit. We also added the tomato puree (since the original recipe looked more like stew than chili), yellow bell pepper (for color), and more of the chipotle peppers with adobo sauce (since it's such a yummy ingredient). Keep in mind, that's 3-4 individual peppers, not 3-4 cans of the peppers!

I realize that there's over 20 ingredients in this chili, but you won't be disappointed. . .it's SO good!