Chili Part #2 – Springfield Chilli

Let me start by saying that I didn’t misspell Chilli in the title.  From what I read in Cooking Light, where this recipe was adapted from, there is a version of chili from Springfield, Illinois where they spell it with two Ls.  If anyone from Illinois is reading this please enlighten us!

So, I’m sure some of you are dying to know how I’m doing on my list of ten.  Well I would give myself a solid B-. I’ve pretty much hit all the goals so far with the exception of everything to do with getting up early and eating less and exercising.

I’m actually really disappointed that I haven’t kicked myself back into gear.  I’m doing my old habit of, “I’ll get around to it tomorrow”.  I’m a bit concerned because I’m not good at focusing on too many things at one time.  I was focusing on working out and the blog, but now I’m focusing on the new restaurant, family and the blog.  I’ve been here before.  I’ve lost weight many times only to have it all reappear over the next year. This time has to be different though.  No excuses, I just need to hunker down and do it!

Oh well, let’s move on.  We are in the throes of writing our business plan right now.  Nancy and I went out to a casual dinner tonight and literally spent two hours making a list of the items that we need to discuss.  Forget about discussing details, we just spent the time coming up with a list of discussion points.

We are asking ourselves questions like – What is our concept for the new place? What does the new menu look like? How many different types of cookies and baked good items are we going to have? Are we open from 7am to 5pm or 7am to 6pm? Weekends? Different hours on the weekends? different menu on Saturaday morning? Full breakfast each day? What is lacking in the surrounding area? What do our current customers like? What don’t they love? What new items will we add? How many people do we need? What are the positions? Does the restaurant look like the current restaurant? Does it have comfy seats? Modern seats? Holy cow, fun but nerve racking at the same time! Lucky for us we actually already have a restaurant to go by.  I don’t know what we would do otherwise.

This weekend we are headed to San Francisco to do some research.  I grew up in the Bay Area so I always love a trip to the city.  Tomorrow night we are making a list of all the places we want to visit to get more inspiration, menus and design ideas.  We are not really telling any friends that we will be down there because we hope to visit as many places as we can.  I will post the list on my next blog entry.  If you have any ideas for fun breakfast/lunch places in the city, please pass them along in the comments!

So on to the chili.  Rather the chilli. This was a great recipe.  I found it along with the Chicken Chili I made recently in Cooking Light.  I adapted a few things, but nothing major.  Both Randy and Jacob are self proclaimed Chili haters and they both had seconds, see picture below.  Haha.

If you like some kick you could add a tablespoon of Tabasco, but overall I thought the chili was excellent.  The bacon added a nice sweetness to the flavor and well, it had cumin, which I love right now!

Both this recipe and the Chicken Chili were excellent and both were loved by the kids and Nancy. You can’t go wrong with either!  Here is the recipe for the cornbread, which I followed, but both of the boys like sugar so I added two more tablespoons!

Springfield Chilli (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 2 bacon slices, finely chopped
• 2 1/4 cups finely chopped onion (about 2 medium)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 3/4 pound ground beef
• 1 (12-ounce) can beer (pale ale worked well)
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (we like Tillamook Sharp Cheddar)
• Oyster crackers
• Sour Cream

Cook bacon in a large Dutch oven over medium heat 5 minutes or until browned. Stir in 2 cups onion; cover and cook until onion is tender (about 5-7 minutes). Uncover and stir in garlic; cook for 1 minute.

Increase the heat to medium-high and add the turkey and ground beef to pan. Cook 5 minutes or until browned, break up with wooden spoon while cooking. Add beer; cook until liquid is reduced to 1/3 cup (about 7 minutes).

Stir in chili powder, Worecestershire, salt, cumin, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or until mixture thickens. Stir in beans; cook uncovered for 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Ladle chili into your bowls, top with cheese, sour cream, crackers and 2 teaspoons onion. Devour!