Tasty Tuesday: Family Slow Cooker Chili

Family Slow Cooker Chili

1 pound ground beef
1 large can tomato juice (or tomato vegetable juice, spicy or regular or low sodium)
2 cans kidney beans
1 onion chopped
garlic powder to taste
2 teaspoons chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Brown ground beef, drain off the fat.  Put into slow cooker, along with tomato juice, kidney beans, onion, garlic powder, chili powder, salt and pepper.  Cook on LOW for 10 hours.  If you are going to be home all day, you can also throw everything into a large cook pot on the stove and cook it on LOW for around 10 hours too. 
Serve with sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and tortilla chips.


Macaroni Chili:  Cook 2 cups of elbow macaroni according to package directions.  Spoon macaroni into a separate bowls, and spoon chili over it.  Do not add macaroni directly to chili to cook, or else it will turn mushy.

The lovely thing about this chili is that any kind of cooked meat can be added to it while it is in the slow cooker.  This is just a basic recipe.  We also cook chorizo or linguica and throw that in, too.  Or cut up pieces of leftover steak (beef or buffalo).  It freezes wonderfully, so I generally try to double or triple the recipe whenever I can.  I then put it into the fridge to cool off, and after it has cooled, put it into separate serving dishes and freeze.