Smokey Hot Chili Topped with Cheddar & Onions

3 pounds ground beef chuck

1/4 cup olive oil

2 diced onions

2 red bell peppers, diced

3 jalapeno’s, seeded and diced

1/4 cup tomato paste

3 cans (28 oz.)diced tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped garlic

1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder (optional)

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

1 12oz. bottle beer, medium ale preferred

8 oz. clean water (Kangen water preferred)

3-15 oz. cans of pinto beans

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

To taste Kosher salt

To taste black pepper

To taste Tabasco™ sauce

1-8 oz package of sharp Cheddar cheese

1 sweet onion, diced small for garnish

Heat a large cast iron skillet to high heat and add your ground beef chuck. Sprinkle with some salt and black pepper. Continue to cook until the beef is fully cooked and has rendered off it’s fat. Place your cooked beef into a colander and drain off the fat.

In a separate soup pot, heat your olive oil to medium heat and add your diced onions, red bell pepper and jalapenos. Cook until the vegetable are shiny in appearance then add your garlic, chipotle powder, chili powder, oregano, smoked paprika, tomato paste,salt and black pepper. Cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the following: diced tomatoes, beer, pinto beans, water, Worcestershire sauce. Bring just to a boil and turn down to a gentle simmer for 30-40 minutes. Adjust your seasoning with salt, pepper, Worcestershire and Tabasco™.

Served in a large soup bowl and top with grated cheddar cheese and diced sweet onions.

Gauge "feel"

The second image, with the pinkie finger curled up, shows to the touch a “rare” doneness.

Feels like a rare steak

The next image, with two finger curled up, shows medium rare.

Feels like medium rare

Three fingers curled up feels like medium and four fingers curled up feels like a medium well.

Feel like medium doneness

And this feels like a medium-well doneness

Oh and if by this point you need and understanding of what is well-done, just touch the bottom of your shoe to get and idea of what overdone feels like!:-)
So how it works is like this. When your grilling a piece of meat, let’s say a fine beef filet and you want to cook it to a medium-rare doneness, curl up two fingers on your hand like in the second image, bounce your other hands finger on the meaty part of the hand to get a good reading of what medium-rare feels like. Then go to the grilling beef filet and do the same bouncing motion on the meat. When it feels similar to your hand temp indicator, give a go and try it.
Note: this is a skill and like any skill, once you have the mental instructions on how it works, it takes continued practice to get better at it. Also, you’ll learn through practice that different cuts of meat have a slight different feel. So keep on practicing and don’t worry about not finding that instant read thermometer!

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