It's technically Fall, so time for some Chili making.......

Tonight I had Chili in mind for dinner. I use the brown bag for part of my ingredients and then add a few myself. This is the way I like Chili~~~~


And homemade cornbread made from Nora Mills yellow cornmeal, a local grainary.

And this is how I do it........take a medium to large onion.........

and dice up and add to 1 and 1/2 pounds of ground beef. I use my big pot which is really the bottom part of my presure cooker. I brown the beef in it and then add chopped onions and cook till brown. I add a little salt and pepper, but not too much because I'll add more salt later.

My other buddies here are tomatoes, I don't have to use the Chili Ready ones, but just chopped ones will do and 8 oz can of tomato sauce. Hunts is my favorite.

I also add a large can of red kidney beans, any brand will do ya.

and a little course ground pepper to taste. I don't get crazy with it because I add cayenne pepper later......

This is my brown bag goodies. It already has the seasonings you need. You can make larger amount of chili with 2 lbs of meat but I didn't want to get crazy with just the two of us here so 1-1.5 lbs will taste as good.

I brown the meat in my big pot with the onion I chopped and let them simmer together for about 10 minutes after they are brown. Cook it thoroughly.

I then add the tomato sauce, 8 oz can with 2 cans of water behind it. Stir, baby stir.

I add the large spice pack

then the can of chopped tomatoes

I taste it then. Add more salt from the packet. This is where I have to compromise. I love salt and Body Guard does not. Which is strange because I run low blood pressure and he has high blood pressure.........go figure.......LOL

Add the red kidney beans..............stir and cook over medium heat.

Cook a while, then add about half of that cayenne pepper, unless you want to sweat while you eat it.

Stir and smell that chili!!! It's looking good but needs to simmer about 30 minutes to an hour at low-medium.

While that is simmering, I start making my cornbread. The old mill in Helen Ga., Nora Mills has the best yellow cornmeal and grits that you will ever taste. I store mine in this container because it comes in bags and it just stores better that way. I measure out 1 cup of the yellow self-rising corn meal.I get out my other ingredients, 2 eggs, 1 cup of sour cream ( in my instance tonight I had about 2/3 cup) and preferably 1 8 oz can of creamed corn but I had the whole kernel corn instead. For this subsitution I will add 1/3 cup of milk at the end. Also need 1/4 cup of vegetable oil.

Beat well the 2 eggs. Just remember all those frustrations you have............

Stir and then add the 1/4 cup of oil.

stir in the sour cream, ideally 1 cup but I had about 3/4 cup.

Stir until creamy.

Then add your can of corn. Preferably creamed corn, but whole kernel will sub well and then just add a tad bit of milk to cream it better.

at this point, I sometimes add some finely chopped up, cooked bacon. But I omitted that process tonight.

add that little bit, about 1/3 cup of milk to it

and then pour into a hot, well greased iron skillet

tuck in the oven and cook at 400 for 20-25 minutes. Important though is to heat the skillet in the oven while the oven preheats and before you pour the mixture into it.

Shred some cheese or do it the fast way and buy it already shredded.

Add 3 bay leaves to the chili while it's cooking and the cornbread is in the oven. Simmer and stir.

And there you have it..........chili and Southern style cornbread. Some people like sweet cornbread but I do not add sugar, do not like it myself. I just like it with butter.

When the nights get cooler, I love to have chili and cornbread. Store the extra in the frig and it's actually better the next day for leftovers........or freeze in small containers for nights when you don't want to cook but you have a hungry meat and potatoes guy staring at you and the oven ...LOL. I digress.........