Many of the recipes in the recipe box are for things I never remember eating. A number of them are for things I recall sampling once or twice and then never tasting again as Mom moved on to the next thing she came across that tempted her palate.
Not so, chili con carne. My mother made chili almost as often as she made fish...which...in my house growing up was very nearly EVERY Friday.
I know for a fact she LOVED chili, because I can actually tell you the story of the first time she ever tasted it. I recall her telling me that that she first tried it, was at a chalet after a long, cold day of skiing. She swore she had never eaten a more satisfying meal. It really was one of her all-time favourites and she always ate it with a piece of white bread and butter.
Cara called me a couple of weeks ago with a rare request for kitchen assistance...wanting to know how I make chili. After numerous creative but pretty dissatisfying attempts to make some really SOUL satisfying, gourmet chili over the past few years, I resorted to telling her what I remembered learning to make as a teenager at home.
I promised to have the recipe posted that day...and true to my nature...was taken away from the task. Also true to my nature, it has bothered me since...so here, for Cara...is Grandma Winnie's Chili Con Carne.
It was, without fail, always created in the big, steel frying pan that was at one time (before I can recall), electric...but had long since had the guts and wires removed...
I know the recipe started out with the basic recipe on the back of a can of Libby's Kidney Beans, because it's taped to the inside cover of her old Purity Cook book (so... not REALLY from the recipe box because I couldn't bear to remove it and store it in the tin.) The Purity Cookbook with all it's frayed corners, ripped cover and notations, is almost as sacred as "the box."
Here is what I refer to as the "base recipe" from Libby's label:
Brown 1 cup of chopped onion, 1/4 cup of green pepper (which, for the record, I NEVER remember seeing in any version of mom's chili), 1 lb of ground beef in 2 tablespoons fat (Also something I never remember her adding. I would just skip the fat.) Add one 14 oz can of Libby's Kidney Beans,1 and 3/4 cups Libby's Tomatoes,(Libby's might disagree...but I'm pretty sure you can use any kind of beans...or tomatoes, for that matter.) 1 to 2 tablespoons of chili powder,1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper and 1 tablespoon of vinegar. (Plain, white vinegar) Simmer for one hour. Makes 4-6 servings.
Beside this recipe, on the inside front cover of the sacred book...mom wrote the following. I'm not sure if she preferred it this way or if these were just substitutions for when she didn't have all of the ingredients in the cupboard...but here is what it says.
Double recipe only 2 teaspoons salt
1 14 oz can of tomato soup
1/4 - 1/2 cup Heintz "Catsup"(Winnie always called ketchup "Catsup") instead of canned tomatoes 28 fld oz.
Mom faithfully simmered this chili for at least an hour. Clearly, she was prepared to make some substitutions (eg. green peppers) but she was NOT prepared to sacrifice the simmer - even for a starving teenager.
When I was a kid, we didn't have a microwave, so I remember eating this cold...right out of the fridge the next day...and I think I almost liked it better that way.
