Texas Championship Chili (Southern Living 1981)

We were due for another cold snap on Monday (read 70 degrees and shorts on Sunday, 30 degrees and snow hats on Monday), so I thought a chili would be warm and filling for Monday night's dinner. This chili sounded interesting because it calls for boneless chuck, chopped instead of ground beef. I've never had chili without ground beef so I wanted to give this one a try. Also, I thought the boys would like it because it DOESN'T HAVE BEANS. Beans, along with most vegetables and some fruits are among the world's vilest things. In boy-land at least. Also potatoes. But that's another story for another day.

Back to the chili.

Here's the original recipe:

 

I didn't do much to change it. I used two cans of tomatoes (one fire roasted one regular), threw in some green pepper as well, used about 1/2 cup of water, didn't use the masa...that's pretty much it. Well I also used what I assumed to be 1 1/2 ounces of chili powder because I've never seen chili powder in a can.

The meat and veggies browned up nicely.

I put all of the ingredients in the crock pot (as is my custom). 

Y'all. This. Smelled. So. Good.

The Hubs got home and commented on how good it smelled. So I tried it. 

How can something that smells so good be absolutely devoid of flavor???

I had The Hubs try it. It then became his mission to somehow infuse flavor into this flavorless chili. We added tomato paste. No change. More tomato paste. No change. We immersion blended diced tomatoes and added that. Tiny change. We added rendezvous seasoning (our obsession) no change. WHAT?!? Yup. No change. The Hubs tried Teriyaki seasoning. No change. I tried Worcestershire Sauce. SOME change. We moved it to a pot on the stove to increase the temp more.

It ended up being best by adding TONS of cheese to the top. 

The boys both REALLY liked this. Yes. The boys who-do-not-like-any-soups-casseroles-vegetables-or-fruits liked this chili. I was shocked. Pleased, but shocked. 

We even ate it again (reinvented with pasta) on Tuesday night. It got spicier overnight, but was still pretty good. 

If we make this again, I will just use the meat/tomato concept and stick with our traditional chili flavoring blend.