Polar Vortex = Cold Temps = Easy, Delicious Chili!

Are you in a part of the country that was affected by the Polar Vortex? If so, you know how cold it got! Schools across the country closed as well as businesses and government offices! Here in Western New York we had a blizzard! Things are clearing up now and the temperatures have risen, but the effects of the cold are still being felt...water pipes have frozen and burst, cars are still in ditches, etc!

Now is the perfect time to talk about chili. It's a great dish when the weather takes a turn for the worst and you can make just about any sized batch you'd like. You can feed just yourself or an army...whatever the occasion calls for! You can make it as spicy or as mild as you'd like, you can add lots of veggies or lots of beans...it's up to you to make it your own!

Recently, we've added spices and seasonings to MakeYourOwnatHome. Among those seasonings and spices, we've added an amazing Chili Seasoning Mix. Go take a look at our selection...I'll wait!

*queue Jeopardy music*

Did you check it out? Are you blown away by the amazing prices? They're rock bottom and most times, much cheaper than the grocery store!

Every year, when January rolls around, we try to focus on encouraging a healthy lifestyle by "making your own", which is the purpose of this blog post! We are going to give you an amazing chili recipe that uses our Chili Seasoning Mix!

First, let's learn a little bit about chili...

Did you know...Chile peppers were used in Cervantes's Spain and show up in great ancient cuisines of China, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Caribbean, France, and the Arab states.
Also, Don Juan de Onate entered what is now New Mexico in 1598 and brought with him the green chile pepper. It has grown there for the nearly four hundred years since.

Finally, Canary Islanders, transplanted in San Antonio as early as 1723, used local peppers, wild onions, garlic, and other spices to concoct pungent meat dishes - improvising upon ones they had cooked for generations in their native land, where the chile pepper also grew.

You can learn lots about the history of chili here.

Chili

Ingredients:
1lb. ground beef or turkey (your choice)
1 small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 cup frozen corn
2 - 14.5oz cans of diced tomatoes (if you want your chili extra spicy, get the tomatoes with the chili peppers in them. Or if you are looking for a more smoky flavored chili, get fire roasted diced tomatoes.)
1 small can tomato paste
1 cup beef broth
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can chili beans
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce, divided
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 teaspoons Chili Seasoning Mix, divided

Method:
Add ground beef or turkey along with the onion, garlic and bell peppers to a frying pan or skillet. Add 1 teaspoon of Chili Seasoning Mix along with salt and pepper if desired. Add 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce as well. Crumble and cook meat over medium high heat until no more pink remains. Drain meat and vegetables if necessary.

Add beef mixture to a stock pot. Add corn, tomatoes, beans, broth, tomato paste, remaining chili seasoning mix, remaining Worcestershire sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste if desired. Stir all ingredients and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Once a rapid boil has been reached, lower the heat to simmer, cover the chili and let it cook for at least an hour, stirring occasionally.

Depending upon your serving size, this pot will feed 4 - 6 people.

There are several variations that you can do to make it your own! Don't like green or red bell peppers? Don't add them. Want more corn? Add it! You can add other veggies as well, such as diced zucchini or eggplant. I've known a few people to throw some fresh spinach leaves into their chili! You could even remove the canned, diced tomatoes and use fresh diced tomatoes if you wish. If you prefer a thicker chili, you can omit the beef broth. If you prefer a more soup-like consistency, then you can add more beef broth.

You can garnish however you'd like as well. The most popular garnishes for chili are sour cream and shredded sharp cheddar cheese. You can add diced red onions, chopped fresh cilantro or parsley! It's up to you to make it your own!

And bonus...why not serve your chili in these beautiful green soup mugs? They're sturdy and versatile as well as dishwasher safe!

If you decide to make this chili or if you have another variation, feel free to leave me a comment! We'd love more chili ideas!

Once you make your own chili, perhaps you'd like to try your hand at making your own hot sauce! Our kit has everything you need and has received awesome reviews! Try it today!

Until next time...stay warm!

Making Your Own Hot Sauce...

Hello everyone! We're back with the much anticipated entry on making hot sauce! It's been a while since we posted and this entry was promised a while ago, but life sure has a way of throwing us curve balls and keeping us busy!

Here, at Make Your Own, we love researching and finding ways to make 'stuff' our own way. The hot sauce recipes we came up with have been tested, re-tested and tested again. We made mistakes and the end product is our Make Your Own Hot Sauce Kit, which can be found by clicking here.

Now, I'm going to hand things off to Carol, our resident hot sauce maker. She has some tips and tricks to making hot sauce and what to avoid!

Hi! I'm Carol, and I've been working at Make Your Own for several years now. Coming up with the hot sauce recipes was a fun time! I spent a lot of time testing the formulas and tweaking the recipes. Below, I've listed some things to keep in mind when making hot sauce.

The directions in the kit instruct you to mix the dry ingredients with the liquid, then heat the mix. The timing on that can only be approximate, because we don't know how much wattage your microwave has. Our ancient one here at the store takes about twice as long as the fastest one available now. (Would you believe almost 4 minutes for a cup of tea? Bless its little heart, slow but sure.) We tested the directions on a 900 watt microwave.

Anyway, the idea is to heat the mix to hot, but not so hot that you couldn't drink it. (Tip: don't consume the 'hot' hot sauce as a drink.)  That's around 125F. After you stir everything up again, heat the mix to ALMOST boiling, around 180F to 200F. Please let it cool down before bottling, if there's a spill, you really don't want almost boiling hot sauce on you or anything else.

If you decide to use fresh hot peppers in your hot sauce, good for you! Please send us pictures of the flames coming out of your ears! We put dried, ground peppers in the kit because we can control the "heat" and it's a lot safer.

           You MUST WEAR RUBBER GLOVES if you are chopping up fresh hot peppers.

We learned the hard way. We also cautioned a friend who is proud of both his garden and his Harley, and still got a phone call that evening, "My hands are BURNING. The emergency room said there wasn't much they could do...HELP!"

A pepper burn is a chemical reaction, an oil that sinks into your skin. When it starts to  "tingle" it's too late. (We tried original Dawn and mechanic's glop degreaser to ease the burn and get rid of the oil, but those only work if the skin isn't tingling yet.). The only thing you can do is soak the skin in cold water until it gets numb, about 10 minutes, take hands out until they start to tingle again, and repeat soaking. This is really annoying to do for 24 to 48 hours and it's hard to get any sleep.

Well, that's about it! The most important thing is to have fun! Doing it yourself can be quite rewarding and homemade hot sauce makes a great gift! Enjoy!

Thanks Carol! I hope you all enjoyed the tips and tricks above for making hot sauce! Our kit comes with everything you need to make 6 different types of hot sauce! You only have to provide measuring cups, mixing bowls and water. Don't forget to check the kit out here.

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