Cowboy Chili

To me, chili is the perfect food. It's good in the summer. It's good in the winter. That right there is enough to make me love it.

 I've been making it this way though for the past year or two.

Take one large yellow onion and on green bell pepper and chop them up.

Brown 1lb of ground beef.

Add the pepper and onion. Cook until the pepper and onion soften a bit.

Add some BBQ seasoning...about 2tsp or so. I use this stuff because it's amaaaaaazing.



A big ol' can of chili beans.

Mix it all together and it should look something like this:

Next, add some baked beans. I used 2 cans.

Tomatoes. You can used crushed or diced.

Here's the good stuff. Beer. Add about 2/3 of a bottle. Or the whole thing. Whatever floats your boat.

Sprinkle in about 1/2 of a packet of chili seasoning. I only add half because the chili beans are already seasoned.

Then....BBQ sauce. I use a generous 1/2 cup. Hickory style.

And that's pretty much it. You can make this an hour before serving or 6 hours before serving.  The longer it simmers the better it tastes though.



Instead of serving it with the traditional saltines and cheddar, I use Ritz crackers and shredded Jack cheese. It's great with a plop of sour cream mixed in as well.

Good stuff.

As for leftovers, mix it with a box of mac & cheese

( I love the thick and creamy shells) and you're left with a rockin' chili mac.

The (almost) Perfect BLT

I love BLT's. They're easy. They taste AMAZING. They're cheap.

So why do I say that these are almost perfect? Because I couldn't find a good avocado at the store to save my life. An avocado is (in my opinion) a necessity to complete a good BLT. But sadly I was without such goodness. They still rocked though.

OK. I'm not even going to show the ingredients because....well because you pretty much already know what these bad boys consist of.

First, toast up a nice fat sandwich roll. Just butter it up and throw it on the griddle for a few minutes.

Let it cool and then spread on some mayo.

Bacon. Bacon. Bacon.

Lettuce.

Tomato.

Cheddar cheese. If you've never had a BLT with some cheddar, do it. Now.

I promise you won't regret it.

This is where I'd normally add the avocado...but, yeah. Not so much this time.

So that's it. Easy, easy, easy.

Soooo satisfying.