2009 Silly Chili Triathlon

More photos are posted to this slideshow.

The Run.  13 starters.  All finished.  When we met at Griffin gym, it was pouring, but the rain mercifully stopped for an hour as we did intervals on Mosquito Creek trail.  Keegan Freeland was the speedster of the group.

The Swim.  17 starters.  Nobody drowned.  After a few laps, most of us played pile-on the plastic raft and Dads against the dudes.  At one point there were 5 kids and 4 parents on-board.

The Chili Cook Off.  It was a full house this year with well over 35 people and 15 fabulous chilies.  (Regrets to those who were turned away... no more room in the kitchen!) 

The competition was stiff and the variety was pleasing to any palate.  Vegetarian.  With beans.  No beans.  Beef, pork and buffalo meat and possibly a cat or a skunk and lots of cold beer to douse the fire. 

There were no 3rd degree burns reported this year nor were there any prolonged visits to the facilities.  ("Trash talking" Machray, the most infamous chili-eater in these parts was conspicuously absent.  Maybe substituting pepper vodka for white wine in a recent wine tasting scared him off?) 

Bragging rights go to last years' champs Rick and Debbie for "Where there's smoke, there's fire".  Congrats to all and many thanks for a wonderful evening!

Sibylle and Ean

Lost and Found: A few items were left behind. Please email Sibylle if one of them is yours: black leather gloves, black shawl, small glass bowl, small white and black bowl, 2 identical forks, 1 tablespoon (Reagan, this one matches the little one you took home, must be yours ;-).  

Contestants (first three were top three, all others are listed in no particular order)

Chili Cook	Chili Name	Top Three Scores
Rick Arikado	Where There's Smoke There's Fire	1 - 7.83
Eileen Bistrisky	All About Orange	2 - 7.5
Patricia and Hannah Jensen	Mighty Bean Chili	3 - 7.3
Louise Arronson and Tim Maguire	Burning House
Sibylle Tinsel	Chocolate Chunk Chili
Ean Jackson	Jackson's Boys Buff Chili
Craig Moore and Ethelyn David	Fl/uke Organic Chili (vegetarian)
Colin and Kirsten Freeland	Freeland Veggi Chili (vegetarian)
Steve Deller	Forever Late
Karl Jensen and Lorraine Suomi	Flatulent Fool
Wendy Montgomery	Road Kill
Claudia Bulligton	Eric's Saturn Veggie Chili (vegetarian)
Jill Warland and Matt W.	Soup of the Devil
Reagan and Carter White	El Paso Especial

Recipes

Please send us your recipes and we will post below.
 

Karl and Lorraine's Flatulent Fool Chili

Rick's Where There's Smoke There's Fire

Meat, peppers and spices ONLY! No beans, no "fillers", no tomato products.

6 dried Ancho chilies
6 dried red New Mexican chilies
6 dried Chipotle chilies
1 fresh Habanero pepper, finely minced
4 cups boiling water
1 quart jar roasted sweet red peppers, drained, seeded
2” to 3” long cinnamon stick
2lbs boneless beef cut in 1/2" cubes
2lbs boneless lean pork cut in 1/2" cubes
2 tablespoons peanut oil (or other high-smoke temp oil)
1 large cooking onion, chopped
6 cloves minced fresh garlic 1/2 cup Jack Daniels whiskey (or more )
1 cup low sodium beef broth
3 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, ground
1 sweet red pepper
2 tablespoons honey
Powdered dried Chipotle peppers
Powdered dried Cayenne peppers
1 bunch fresh cilantro, stemmed and roughly chopped
Juice of half a large fresh lime

Remove and discard all stems and seeds from dried chilis. Place chilies in bowl or flat cake pan, pour boiling water over, cover to soak. Let stand for 15 minutes. After chilis have softened, puree  in blender or food processor with habanero, roasted red peppers and enough of soaking water to help process. Reserve  the remainder of the soaking water.

In a separate small pot, boil the reserved soaking water with the cinnamon stick until liquid is reduced by half. Toss out the cinnamon stick when done.

Brown the meat in oil in a large cast iron frying pan, in small batches to ensure "browning". Move batches to large pot as they are done. Sauté onions for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, add garlic the last few minutes. Take care not to burn garlic to cause very bitter taste.  Deglaze pan with Jack Daniels and half a cup of the reduced soaking water.  Stir, reclaiming all the brown bits from pan bottom.  Pour into pot with meat.

Stir in cumin, oregano, coriander and beef broth, bring to a boil then simmer.

 Add the pureed chili paste and simmer for hours until thickened to desired consistency.  Taste, adjust smoke flavour and/or heat by adding Chipotle powder (smoky heat) or Cayenne powder (heat).

Just before serving, stir in chopped fresh cilantro and fresh lime juice.

Note: We use very little salt in our home cooked food, so none is shown other than what comes in the beef broth. Others may find they need to add to taste.

Eileen’s All About Orange Chili Recipe 

Ingredients:

3-4 tablespoons olive oil
2 organic yellow onions
1 bulb of garlic
3.5 lbs extra lean ground beef
1 beef bouillon cube
2 cups water
1 cup pumpkin ale
1 yam
3 organic carrots
Squash
Herbs de provence
Chili powder
Celery salt
3 156 ml cans of tomato paste
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
Brown sugar
Ground nutmeg & Ground cloves

Directions:

Chop onions and garlic.  Chop equal portions of carrots, yam & squash into small cubes. Depending on the size of your pan, you may want to do part one in batches.  They can be added to the pot one at a time.

Part one:

In a very large pan, heat olive oil (medium high heat).  Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are translucent, stirring frequently (about 8 – 10 minutes).  Add beef in batches and stir, breaking up the beef until brown.  Stir in herbs, chili powder, celery salt, and tomato paste.

Part two:

While onions & beef are browning, bring two cups of water to a boil.  Add beef bouillon cube & stir.  Add to big pot along with 1 cup beer.  Add carrots, yam & squash.  Heat to boil, then simmer.

Add beef from part one into part two’s pot and stir.  Continue stirring and add Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, brown sugar, ground nutmeg, and ground cloves to taste.  Continue simmering and stirring until you feel it’s done.

Wendy's Road Kill

Ingredients

7 lbs beef, trimmed and cut into 1inch to 2 inch cubes (they will break up during cooking) -- your choice of cut --
Approx 7 cups beef broth (4 14-1/2 oz cans)
3/4 cup olive oil
15 cloves garlic -- finely chopped 
3/4 cup flour or masa harina
1 bottle beer
3 oz tequila -- if of legal age, 4-1/2 oz
3 oz blackstrap molasses
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
2 tablespoons cumin
1/3 cup chili powder (to taste)
1 dash ginger
1 dash nutmeg
1 tspn salt
1 tspn ground black pepper
1 tspn white pepper
1 tspn cayenne pepper
5 oz jarred hot jalapeno peppers and juice or equivalent quantity of sliced fresh hot jalapeno peppers.

For the six-alarm version, also add a similar quantity of sliced jarred habanero peppers, or
fresh ones.

Directions

Place beef in a Dutch oven or similar large pot in the olive oil and cook low heat until browned.  Add 3 oz tequila and stir -- if using the legal age variant, drink the other 1-1/2 oz tequila. Stir in garlic.  Slowly add a mixture of the flour (I used masa harina) and chili powder, stirring constantly to blend in evenly. Add beer... stir. Add molasses... stir. Add cumin and oregano by rubbing them between the palms of your hands... stir. Add peppers and remaining spices... stir. Add all but one can (all but approx. 2 cups) beef broth, stirring. 

Bring to a slow boil for a 1/2 hour or so, stirring often, then lower heat and simmer for a while, stirring occasionally.

Do not be worried if it sticks a bit to the bottom of the pan, just make sure to scrape those parts up when stirring (a wooden spoon is good for this)... those bits add flavor  ;)

At some point a couple of hours into the simmering when it's cooked away a good bit of broth, remove from heat and allow to come to room temperature, then place in fridge for a few hours until cold (if you are in a hurry, this step can be skipped, but I think it helps).

Anytime within the next 12 hours after chilled, resume cooking over low heat. When nearly at chili-like consistency, add the remaining beef broth. Cook until at proper chili consistency again, and serve with rice.

Sibylle's Chocolate Chunk Chili

1kg beef - cut into 1.5cm cubes
10 garlic gloves - chopped
1 large cooking onion
2 red bell peppers - chopped into small strips
1 green bell peppers - chopped into small strips
10 fresh red hot chilies - chopped
6 tomatoes - diced
2-3 tbs cocoa powder
50g dark chocolate chips
1 tblsp ground coffee
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
2 tblsp honey
1 bottle beer
dried whole oregano
1 tblsp vegetable oil
2 tblsp masa harina or cornmeal

Day before: Brown the meat in cast iron skillet, add onions, garlic, red and green bell peppers, chili peppers and cook for 5 min.  Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients.  Simmer on low for several hours.  Refrigerate over night.
Day of: reheat slowly, adjust spices to taste.  Serve with sour cream and fresh green onions and or coriander

Sibylle's Cornbread

Jackson Boys' Buff Chili

• 1.5kg )3 lbs) lean buffalo meat cut into about 1cm cubes
• 50g (6 tablespoons) chili powder
• 3 tablespoon ground oregano
• 6 cloves garlic, minced (I used fresh garlic from our garden)
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
• small can of chipotle peppers
• 950-1400 mL water (1-1.5 quarts)
• 1.5 tablespoons salt, or to taste
• 50g masa trigo, masa harina or cornmeal

• trim fat from edges of roast. Render enough fat from trimming to cover the bottom of a cast-iron Dutch oven
• remove pieces of fat, then sear the meat in hot fat until meat is brown and most of the water given up by the meat during cooking has boiled away
• add chili powder, cumin, cayenne and about 1/2 can of chipotles. Stir well to coat meat
• add water even to level of meat. Stir well.
• bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 1 to 1.5 hours until meat is tender. Stir occasionally and add more water if needed
• make a thick paste by stirring water into masa or cornmeal. Stir to remove lumps. Add to chili
• simmer another 30-45 minutes to thicken and reduce the chili to desired consistency
• add salt, more chipotle, cayenne or chili to taste