The making of a deer chili. A chili thread complete with pics.

The recent rash of chili threads combined with the cold weather put in my head the idea to go home and whip up a pot of venison chili last night. I did not want to go to the store and stock up on chili fixings, so I decided to just see what we had on hand and work with that. Also I wasn't shooting for gourmet chili. I wanted a quick, 1 hourish basic chili. So here goes:

First step is to go to the freezer and find some venison stew meat: (Authors Note: the bag says "cut stew meat". I keep my cat stew meat in the other freezer)


After I make sure I have some stew meat, I stoe it back away for a future stew. Then I retrieve approx 2lbs of ground venison and 1 lb of venison sausage. I also get out a half gallon of crushed tomaters I had put up from the summer (tomater pics to come).


Beer. I need beer to make a damn chili. And not just good beer to drink, but a crappy dark beer to put in the chili. Thankfully some hippy had left me a supply of crappy dark beer. So I popped the top on BMC's finest and set to scouring the kitchen for chili supplies:



After a quick survey I see the only glaring missing item is a green pepper. No a huge deal though cause the wife has an assortment of colored peppers, so I choose half a red and half a yellow. We're in biness:


The meat has been defrosted under cool running water and it's ready to brown. So, I commence to browning it.


While it's browning I look for seasonings. For quickness sake I was hoping I had a chili kit on hand (2-Alarm, Wick Fowler ect), but I didn't. No biggie, I had a MeXene can and decided to use the helpful recipe on the back. Plus a few additions. Here were my seasonings:


Now that the meat is browned I have to strain the greese. Acutally I'm sure I don't have too, especially using lean venison. But I did anyway on account of that's how mom taught me. I put most of the meat in the stainer, leave a little bit of oil and sautee down the onions/pepper/garlic:


Once the veggies are done, I have another beer and add the meat back to the pot. Then I add the seasonings. I didn't use the Mexene proportions to a T because I was working with more meat (twss). So I pretty much tripled the recipe that's on the back of the can, with my additions, and add it to the browned meat/veggies. (No photo of this step).

Now it's time for Tomatoes. I like a tomatoey chili. Some don't, which is fine. I will eat chili however anybody makes it. I'd even plow into a bowl of Powerman's chunky/peppery chili- stew. I'm not picky. But if I'm making it I like ground meat and tomatoes. I grow a lot of tomates in the summer so I have to do something with them. One thing I do is food process, vacuum seal and freeze them. Another thing I do is make various tomato sauces and salsas. Lots of it. Below is a jar of sauce consisting of tomatoes, various chilies, bell peppers, and garlic I put up for the purpose of making chili. Also a freezer bag of crushed tomatoes:


Interesting tidbit: My ancestors inventing canning. Most jars you still see today still bear our last name. The singular version of it anyway. We later added an "s" to the end:


Anyway, dump all that tomatoey goodness in a pot, plus the Flat Tire beer, and let it perculate for about 30 minutes:


Then make the kids a couple chili dogs (forgot pics) and yourself a bowl of chili:


Total time from walk in the door to supper time 1 hr 22 minutes. Fine meal on a Monday.