Mom’s Chili

As I’ve mentioned in recent posts, growing up in my household meant that you spent your childhood years thinking that well known dishes (for example pancakes) were meant to taste one way, only to be rudely awakened by the way it “normally” tastes when trying it in a restaurant or friend’s house for the first time. Chili was no exception to this rule. For me, chili is supposed to have crunchy wheatberries, be comprised mostly of chunky tomatoes, have little to no meat in it…basically, picture Skyline Chili and now try to think of the most opposite style of chili imaginable…that’s what I grew up eating.

I feel it’s important to mention that I am not at all upset by this discrepancy. I LOVE my mom’s chili. It’s delicious AND nutritious. The only downside is that whenever I want to eat it, I can’t just walk into a restaurant and order a bowl of chili. The fact is, over the past 22 years, this has limited me to only getting to eat this delicious dish when I was home and manage to convince my mom to make it. Well I decided I needed to do something about this during my last trip home. I forced my mom to teach me how to do it myself…and now that I know how, I can share it with all of you! So, with out further adieu, I’m proud to present my mom’s famous chili.

Side Note: When I make this dish, I make it as a vegetarian chili, but it’s very easy to make it into a chicken chili. I’m going to describe the dish below with the chicken, but if you want the vegetarian version, all you have to do is leave out the meat (I guess that was kind of obvious…).

What you need:

• 1 large white or Spanish onion (diced)
• 2-4 large cloves of garlic (minced)
• 2 cans light red kidney beans
• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
• 2 14oz cans diced tomatoes
• 2 pounds ground boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 ½ cups wheatberries, uncooked
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tsps brown dijon mustard
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup red wine
• juice from one lemon

What you need to do:

1. Cook the wheat berries in the rice cooker. You can to add two times the amount of water as the wheatberries (for example, this recipes calls for 1.5 cups of wheatberries, so cook them in 3 cups of water).
2. Sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil.
3. Add the canned tomatoes to the pot.
4. Add the kidney beans, bay leaves, mustard, worcestershire sauce, red wine and lemon juice.
5. Chop/grind the chicken breast to the consistency of group beef (I recommend using the cuisinart). Brown with butter and garlic salt, then add to the chili sauce.
6. Add the cooked wheatberries when they’re done (this can be at almost any point along the process).
7. Simmer the chili for 45 minutes to one hour.
8. Enjoy!

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