First Chili Test

To celebrate the kickoff of college football, BJ and I decided to cook our first batch of chili this season. BJ was pretty eager to tweak a recipe by Sir Alton Brown that he had tried before, so we chose his recipe and BJ went to work. The recipe predominantly calls for chilis, chuck steak, chili powder, and beef stock; I'll be happy to send you the whole recipe if you'd like. We decided to make some changes that seemed appropriate for us---namely, the reduction of steak by half (seriously, who wants that much beef in her chili?), the addition of pinto and kidney beans, and a doubling of the entire recipe to accommodate BJ's parents, who were our guinea pigs tonight.

Bottom line is, I strongly disliked the chili. It was way too flipping hot, and beyond the burn in my mouth, I tasted very little. This is the perfect kind of recipe for my kick-ass friends Heidi and Ty, who put the sriracha sauce on top of their "spice-level-5" pad thai. For me, not so much. Of course, everyone else at the table said it helped immensely to add cheese and sour cream to calm the raging burn, but of course I was out of luck with that one since the Cow is not George's friend. I sliced avocados, but they did not rescue me.

Everybody's grades for this batch of chili were as follows:

BJ: B
Terry: A-
Susan: C at best
Jenny: D+
I'm not giving a passing grade when I have to fix a sandwich for the remainder of my dinner!