Trunk or Treat and Chili Cook-off

This afternoon at Church we had our annual Trunk or Treat and Chili Cook-off. I love having the Primary children go from trunk to trunk with their costumes. Sophie Childs was Sleeping Beauty and Grace was an East High Cheerleader (but she told everyone she was an Ephraim High cheerleader because her Great-grandpa Steck lives in Ephraim. The cutest family costume was the Spencers. The dad, Peter, came as a beekeeper and the mom, Erin came as a garden of flowers. Sam, their 20 month old son, came as a bee. It was really fun to see the good turn out and spend time with ward members.

The really embarrassing part came with Chili Cook-off. Last year I submitted my mother's chili recipe and won one of the prizes but this year there was only a first, second and third prize given. I always enter because I have been to too many ward potlucks where there have not been enough main dishes. So I always bring one - no matter what. I knew that we would probably be running around all morning and Mom's chili would have made it necessary for me to stay home. So I looked online and on the Betty Crocker website, I found a 'Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Chili'. I WON! First of all it was super simple and really the ingredients are not that expensive. If you are using a big slow cooker then I suggest that you double the ingredients but here is the prize winning recipe! I would imagine this freezes really well.

Betty Crocker Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Chili
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons chili powder (because we live in New England and people have a hard time with spicy food - I halved the chili powder)
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 pounds stew meat (I doubled the recipe but used three pounds of meat with really good results)
2 can (15 ounces at least each) kidney beans, drained and rinsed if desired (we actually added 5 cans in all for our 6 quart slow cooker)
2 cans RoTel tomatoes (I pureed these in the blender so there were no chunks of tomato or pepper - it was basically spicy tomato juice)
1-2 Tablespoons dried minced onions
1/2 cup water

In a 12-inch skillet drop the chili powder and the cumin in the dry skillet and stir until fragrant. Add the Tablespoon of oil and the stew meat. Brown the stew meat all over for about 5-6 minutes. In a 3-4 quart slow cooker, pour in the beef mixture. Stir in the beans, the Rotel tomatoes and water. Cover and cook on low 8-12 hours on low. Stir well just before serving.

Note: I just dumped the packages of stew meat in the skillet but if I was going to do it again I would probably cut the pieces so they were all uniform. I am not sure how this tastes. Neither Clyde nor I got to even have a taste! I am assuming since it won that it must have been Okay but I am thinking that the reason it won was because of the big chunks of beef hanging out in it. In fact several people told me that was their favorite part!