soup club: rob's chili (apparently, it's the greatest in the world)

I have to admit, this chili is solid, and it just so happens to come from everyone's favorite bachelor, Rob. As you can see, Mr. S. Parham has a funny way of writing recipes (which includes adding musical sidebars), so I'm going to skip copying and pasting it here this time, and just give you my thoughts and notes.

This recipe is meant for a crockpot. I do not own, nor have I ever cooked in a crockpot. Essentially, from what I understand, they are designed to cook recipes low and slow... a dumbed down way of describing "braising". Knowing this, I figured I'd get the same result keeping the chili on the lowest heat setting on one of my burners, and I did. That being said, we have an electric stove (the worst) and it can be pretty hard to control the heat on the burners, and my chili was DEFINITELY done in 6 hours vs. the 9 he recommends. Had I left it on any longer, it would have turned to total mush, so it's a good thing Cheech woke up at 3 am for a bottle (something she doesn't always do these days). And on that note, for those of you who also don't own a crockpot and are a little weary of leaving your stove on all day while you're not home, you can always braise overnight, and warm up your dish for lunch or dinner. Rewarmed Chili is especially fantastic, for some reason.

The funny thing about crockpot recipes, that I never realized, is that you basically throw a bunch of raw ingredients in a cold pot and let them cook themselves. This goes against everything I've ever learned/known from working in professional kitchens, so I have to admit I was really worried that this week's Soup Club was going to be a total bust. Normally when I've made chili, I've browned my meat and spices, sauteed all the veggies, and THEN added the beans and liquid and let the whole mixture reduce. Besides chopping the veggies and browning the meat, there's really no actual cooking going on here. It's kinda genius, and now I feel like I might have missed out all these years that I haven't bothered to use a crockpot. Something to think about, for sure.

Alright, here are my notes...

- I would have loved to use venison, like Rob suggests, but my butcher doesn't always have it in stock. I used one part ground grass-fed sirloin, and one part ground pork instead.

- Like I mentioned last week, I can't make things too spicy because we've started feeding Cheech the same food we eat. I do want her to get used to some foods having a little kick, though (she is half Mexican, after all), so I cut the jalapeño measurement in half, and removed all the seeds. I also skipped "Da Bomb". Although, I may have chosen to keep it out more for its name than the fact that it might bother Cheech. Sorry, Rob. I doused my portion with a healthy amount of Cholula, and that seemed to give it enough heat for me.

- Personally, I think cannellini beans are great for chili. They add a nice creamy texture that you just can't get from other legumes, so I used them instead of black beans.

- I used fresh cilantro, because WHAT'S BETTER THAN FRESH CILANTRO?

- I like a fried egg on my chili. Never tried it? How sad for you.

- After finishing my batch of chili, ladling it into a bowl, topping it with my fried egg and cholula, and taking my pictures, I realized that I COMPLETELY forgot to add the corn. Funny thing is, I was super looking forward to the corn in this dish because I thought it would be a nice addition. Doh!