5+ Alarm Chili

I looked at several different grocery stores for chili powder and hadn't found any until now! I was really looking forward to making chili since it's a winter staple for us. And it is definitely winter here.

This should have been simple - ground beef, onions, tomatoes, chili powder, red beans. That's pretty much it. Red beans were only sold in dry form (no cans), but we cooked them the old-fashioned way for several hours and they turned out fine. So then we added the chili powder.

A little blurry, but under Chili, it says Poeder (Dutch) - Poudre (French)

Our best recollection is that chili usually takes 3 to 4 Tbsp. of chili powder so we add about 3 to 4 Tbsp. Okay, that looks like about enough. Then for some reason Jim decides to taste the chili powder. You may have guessed what's next.

Yep, our chili powder is cayenne. And our whole pot of chili now has 3 to 4 Tbsp. of cayenne pepper in it.

So Jim says, "It'll be fine, we can eat it". And I say, "No, I don't think we can eat this". One bite and our mouths are on fire, but Jim is still optimistic. So I decide I'll just "wash" it and it won't be so HOT. I take all the solids out of the liquid - discard the fiery liquid - and put it all back into some fresh water to simmer some more.

I guess the washing worked okay. I have to say it wasn't too bad. We had to eat it on rice along with a whole loaf of bread, but we ate it!