Chili Night and Recipes

This year's holidays seem to be week long extravaganzas.  For starters, since Halloween was on a Sunday this year, we celebrated Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  On Friday we went to a church with some Mormon friends, on Saturday we went to a party at the house of some family friends and on Sunday we did the more traditional trick-or-treating.  For Thanksgiving this year we will take part in not one, not two, but three family Thanksgiving dinners (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)!

Having had a rough pregnancy and then having the normal fatigue that comes with a newborn in the house, we haven't done too much of our own entertaining this year.  So, last week before my husband left to go on his work trip, we invited friends and family over for chili.  I had been inspired by the over 20 chilies at the Mormon church Halloween dinner/trunk-or-treat and wanted to try my hand at making a few chilies.  Without intending our food to be so color-oriented, we ended up having Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili with Chocolate, White Chicken Chili, Chili Verde, my Dad's Yellow Cake Cornbread, and Brownies for dessert.  Someone even brought a 6-pack of beer with "white" in the name.

It sounds like a lot, but it really wasn't too much work since I made the chilies the day before and put them in the crock pot the morning of our party.  The house smelled delicious and i got to sit down and enjoy our company.  The Chili Verde was the best I've ever had!  Here is where I found that recipe.  It wasn't too spicy and it had amazing flavor.  Do try it if you are even remotely interested.  It was delicious.

For the Black Bean and Sweet Potato with Chocolate recipe, I sort of had to improvise and combine a few recipes along with some little tricks I've discovered or been shown over the years.  Here's that one in case you're interested:

Black Bean and Sweet Potato with Chocolate Chili

1 sweet potato, washed, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

olive oil

2-3 tablespoons brown sugar

1-1/2 pounds lean ground beef

26.5 ounce can, black beans

1 large yellow onion, chopped

15 ounce can, diced tomatoes

6 ounce can, tomato paste

water (a quart or less depending on how thick you want it)

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon (hot sauce, chili sauce or Tabasco)

1 Tablespoon chili powder (or more if you want)

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon marjoram

1/2 teaspoon coriander

2 teaspoons salt

dark chocolate squares (2-6 depending on size and desired chocolate-y-ness)

habanero sauce

1. Cut sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes
2. Drizzle olive oil in a bag, and coat lightly with brown sugar
3. Lightly brown sweet potato mixture in pan, set aside
4. Cook ground beef and onion until meat is cooked
5. Drain fat
6. Add black beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, water, vinegar and Tabasco (or other chili sauce) and sweet potato
7. Spoon into crock pot
8. Stir spices & salt together in small dish and stir into chili along with chocolate squares
9. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours
10. Serve with Habenero Sauce (for those who like spicier chili, the sweetness of this chili pepper compliments this chili well)