Red and green bell peppers.  Italian Sausage

Here's what went in this year's five pots:

50 lb. Round roast cubed by yours truly
35 lb. lean ground beef
35 lb. Hot italian sausage
40 lb. large spanish onions
15 quarts home grown fresh drained and pureed tomato
15 quarts home grown diced red and green bell pepper
20 lb.. dried kidney beans, made 40 quarts when soaked/boiled
2 lb. home grown Jalepenos
1 lb Chipotle pepper (dried and smoked Jalepenos)
2 lb fresh garlic
2 lbs kernel corn (for color)
Chili powder, Cayenne, fresh ground cumin, basil, oregano, Schaefer beer.
Home grown Habenero peppers

It made about 140-150 quarts.

One pot (mild) gets only grount beef, medium gets ground beef and sausage, medium2 gets ground beef, sausage and stewing beef.
Medium-hot and hot get sausage and stewing beef only.

It takes about 10 hours of preparation (everything is cooked individually) and a minimum of six hours stewing time.

A new trick this year was to drain the juice from the peppers and onions to speed the carmelization process. After the batch was cooked, a quart of water is added to the frying pan to boil off the residue.  THis is then later added to the chili.  The same process was used for the stewing beef.

To remove fat form the Italian sausage, we first boil the links in 30 quarts of water (3 batches). The skin is punctured and the grease escapes to the water.  The sausage is then seared and browned in a frying pan and is very lean.  Lastl, it is cooled and cut into 1/2" pieces and added tot he chili.

Although lean ground beef is used, we drain the frying pan after the meat is browned, then brown the meat some more.  As with he onions, a quart of water is added to the drained frying pan to make a gravy which is later added to the chili.
 

We keep six frying pans going for about five hours.  This year we cooked everythign but the stewing beef Friday.  Peeling and chopping onions and peppers  took about three hours, and cutting up stewing beef from round roasts, about 2 hours. Round roasts are very lean but become tender after cooking with the chili for five or six hours.

Onions and peppers before cooking

and after cooking....

Adding the stewing beef and gravy.

One for me, one for the chili.....gave me an excuse to have a beer at 9 am!

The tealamonstre