The French roux is pronounced "rue," and in cooking terms, it is a thickening agent. It is typically made from oil or fat which is melted or liquefied and then combined with an equal amount of flour until it is mixed thoroughly, creating a paste. The roux is then added to a food either as a sauce or simply as a thickening agent for a sauce that already exists. Adding roux to chili gives the chili a thicker, smoother texture. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Brown the ground beef that you will be using in the chili in a skillet. Heat the ground beef on medium, until it is thoroughly cooked.


• Pour the liquid fat from the ground beef into a microwave-safe bowl.


• Add an amount of flour equal to the amount of melted fat to the bowl.


• Place the bowl in the microwave and heat at 1 minute intervals, stirring between each timed heating, until the roux is a brownish red. Make sure that it does not contain any lumps.


• Add the roux to the chili, as you begin the cooking process.

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Chili recipes call for several spicy ingredients that bring heat to the meal. Using too much of these spicy ingredients will produce food overwhelmed by the taste of the spice making it unappetizing. If this happens, instead of throwing away the entire batch, adjust the level of heat with by adding a few spice-reducing ingredients that won't seriously compromise the flavor of the chili. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Add 1/4 cup of sweet corn bread to every 2 cups of chili and stir it until it fully dissolves. Place a lid on the pot of chili and allow it to simmer for 30 minutes on low heat.


• Taste the adjusted chili and if it continues to burn at too high a temperature, cool it down further by adding 1/4 cup of sour cream to every 1 cup of cooked chili. Stir the chili for a minute or two until the sour cream has fully blended.


• Taste the chili and if it continues to be too spicy, squeeze the juice of an entire lemon into the batch. Stir the chili until the lemon juice has been fully incorporated and taste the chili again. If the taste is good, but still too spicy, add the juice of another lemon; be careful not too add too much lemon though as it can ruin the flavor of your chili.


• Sample the chili and if it's still unbearably spicy, add one can of crushed pineapple. Stir the chili for a few minutes and allow it to simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes on low heat.


• If it's still too spicy, serve the chili topped with shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream to cut the spice. Bring extra sour cream to the table for any extra adjustments.

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When you want to throw together a meal in just a few minutes, this can seem like an impossible task, and many of us just resort to throwing a frozen dinner in the microwave, making a quick sandwich, or perhaps just pouring a bowl of cereal. As it happens, though, there are quite a few tasty dishes that require very little time in the kitchen, but taste just as good as anything you've spent hours to create. When it comes to quick recipes for spice lovers, you just can't beat this garlic chili that takes just ten minutes to cook. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Peel and chop the onion and the garlic cloves. Slice open the chile and remove the ribs and seeds before mincing if you don't want all of that heat--if you really like spicy food, though, you can just go ahead and mince the chile, seeds and ribs and all.


• Brown the ground beef in a skillet. Stir in the chopped onion, garlic and chile and cook until the onion is soft.


• Drain and rinse the kidney beans, adding them to the skillet along with the tomato sauce and water. Stir in the chili powder, salt, black pepper and cayenne.


• Bring the chili to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes.


• Serve the chili hot. You may top it to taste with sour cream, chopped onions, shredded jack or cheddar cheese, pickled jalapenos, or any other chili toppings you enjoy. If you want to give it a little more substance, you can serve the chili over saltine crackers or tortilla chips or even ladle it over cooked rice or noodles.

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Nearly every fan of this soupy meal swears by their own take and preference on how chili should be made. Some even incorporate a secret ingredient into the mix. Finding the perfect recipe for chili starts with lining up the ideal ingredients. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• The heart of any chili dish, meat provides the base for any soup.The first chili recipe was used by Texas cowboys in the 1840s. The men would pound beef fat and dried beef with chili peppers and salt. They would then boil the concoction together for food on the trail. Many chili recipes use hamburger or ground chuck, but other styles are also popular. One blue ribbon winner at a chili cook-off took home the $20,000 prize by blending two and a half pounds of lean ground chuck with a pound of ground lean pork. Other people use deer meat, especially during deer hunting season. Vegetarians do not have to feel left out at the dinner table. Many vegetarian chili recipes implement meatless ingredients like soy burger substitute and wheat. Others play up the beans, cooking up a variety of bean types for additional flavors.


• Tomatoes pack a prominent punch in chili recipes. The best mouth-watering varieties would be lacking without the tomato sauce that holds all the other ingredients together. Many recipes use tomato sauce, diced tomatoes or tomato juice as a foundation ingredient for the chili. Add salsa to give your chili an extra spicy tomato kick.


• Some like it hot while others prefer the medium variety. Chili is one of the few meals that has the potential to satisfy anyone's taste bud level. What spices you use depends on the desired effect. Chili powder, cayenne pepper and even black pepper give more kick to each bite. Other recipes splurge on a dash of hot sauce into the chili mix. Use as little or as much as you like, and taste for preference.


• Because chili is such a deeply personal dish, the most important ingredient is one you add yourself. Adding something sweet offsets much of the spicier ingredients. Some examples of secret ingredients for chili include honey, brown sugar, pickle juice, cornmeal, baking cocoa and many more. Supplementing your own twist on a basic chili recipe may be a trial and error process, but once you have the right recipe down, you will use it time and time again. Pretty soon, people will be asking you how to make a great pot of chili.

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Many meals need just a bit of added zing. Having a basic chile paste on hand allows you to spice up a dish without hindering other flavors in it. Or once you have a jar of chile paste, doctor it with other flavors just before you add it to a recipe. Control the heat factor with the type of peppers you use and how many seeds you keep. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Wash the chiles, then pull or cut the stem off of each chile. Slice the chiles in half, and remove seeds if you want to lessen the spiciness.


• Put the chiles into the mortar. Mash them with the pestle. This is the hard part and can take some muscle to mash the chiles. Or put the chiles in a food processor and pulse several times until they are mashed.


• Add one clove of garlic or a 1/2 to 1 tsp of minced garlic.


• Add a teaspoon or so of sugar. Add a dash of salt. Pour in a teaspoon or two of distilled vinegar. Mix well.


• Continue mashing or processing the ingredients until the consistency is to your liking.


• Wash your hands after preparing the chile paste.

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Many people enjoy a good, spicy chili with plenty of hot peppers. Cooks often learn the hard way, however, that a bland chili is much easier to spice up than chili that's too hot is to unspice. If you have overspiced your chili there are a couple of standby tricks that will bring help you it back down to a more palatable condition. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Add water to your chili and more beans and vegetables or other non-spicy materials. This will dilute your chili slightly, but potentially reduce its spiciness drastically.


• Peel a potato or carrot to expose as much surface area as possible. Slice it into a few large chunks and add it to your chili, then simmer for several minutes. These starchy vegetables will absorb some of your chili's spice. Then remove the potato and carrot pieces and serve them on the side for spice lovers, or simply discard them.


• Serve your chili with plenty of shredded cheese and sour cream on the side. Capsaicin, the flavorless compound that makes food hot, is soluble in dairy products. Some cheese, sour cream or plain yogurt added to the top of your chili will reduce its apparent hotness. The fat in these dairy products helps lessen the heat, so avoid any reduced fat or no-fat versions.


• Add a small amount of sugar to your chili. Add enough to taste so the sweetness does not interfere with the overall savory flavor.


• Add an acidic fruit to your chili like lime juice or crushed pineapple. Tomatoes also will help dissolve the heat from the chili peppers without interfering with the flavor.

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According to most historians, chili first came to America in the 20th century by way of the destitute population who found it a tasty way to stretch the beef and make it last. Nowadays, chili is found in all kinds of households and is served as a main dish, appetizer or snack. To make chili with fresh, Roma tomatoes requires a few more steps than using canned tomatoes, but true chili connoisseurs will advise that it is worth the effort. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Place the tomatoes into the pot of boiling water until the skin begins to break. Quickly remove and transfer to the bowl of cold water.


• Remove tomato skins and tops when the tomatoes are cool.


• Scoop out tomato seeds using the melon baller and discard.


• Heat the oil in the pan and add meat and spices. Cook for about five minutes on a high flame or until the meat begins to turn brown.


• Peel and dice onion and the remaining parts of the tomatoes.


• Add onion, tomato paste, kidney beans and tomatoes to the meat and stir.


• Cook mixture for about 20 minutes on a medium flame, stirring frequently, until the onion is soft.

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Crock-Pot chili allows you to put the ingredients into the slow cooker in the morning and have a warm, hearty dinner ready when you return home from work. Though nearly effortless, you still need to plan to prepare the beans the night before and to add the other ingredients in the morning. Adjust the spices as needed and feel free to omit the meat for a vegetarian version of this pinto bean chili. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Cover the pinto beans with the boiling water in the Crock-Pot the night before. Set the slow cooker on high for 1 hour. Turn it down to low overnight.


• Drain the cooking water from the pinto beans, but leave the beans in the slow cooker. Unplug the Crock-Pot while preparing the meat to prevent burning the beans.


• Heat the skillet over medium high heat, then add 2 tbsp. of oil carefully to the hot skillet. Add the meat, onion and garlic into the skillet and cook until the meat has completely browned and the onions and garlic turn soft and translucent.


• Add the contents of the skillet to the pinto beans in the Crock-Pot. Pour the remaining ingredients---corn, tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper and oregano---into the slow cooker and cover.


• Plug the slow cooker back into an outlet and set to cook on low for at least 8 hours or on high for 4 to 6 hours.


• Serve the chili hot with cornbread or rice if desired.

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Chili made with ground beef, beef chunks, chicken, turkey or pork requires a liquid to tenderize the meat and finish cooking the beans. The flavors all meld together in that liquid. Chili is served over rice or pasta or mopped up with bread so liquid is an important part of the dish. Beer is often used because it adds its own taste component. While the alcohol in the beer evaporates during the cooking process, some people would rather not use it. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Cowboys don't normally carry along a bottle of beer for their chili. Even if they did have the beer, it's doubtful they'd prefer adding it to the chili pot rather than drinking it themselves. What they do have is coffee. Brew a pot of strong coffee to replace the beer in equal measurements. The taste of the coffee won't be recognizable. The dark color adds a richness to the chili.


• Chicken or beef broths substitute for beer and add flavor. If it's a vegetarian chili, use vegetable broth cubes. If you don't have any, make your own vegetable broth. Chop two carrots, two stalks of celery, an onion and a bunch of spinach, parsley or leafy greens. Cover with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for an hour. Drain and strain.


• Purists would argue that tomatoes have no place in an authentic chili. However, many chili recipes do call for chopped canned tomatoes. If that's the case for you, substitute tomato juice for the beer. If you're out of juice, dilute tomato sauce in a 1 to 1 ratio. In other words for every cup of sauce, add 1 cup of water. Tomato based vegetable juices may be used as well.


• Save the liquid that the beans have cooked in when you drain the beans to add to the chili. If you're using canned beans, save the liquid in the can. Use that as replacement for the beer. The cooking or canned liquid has some flavor.


• If you don't have anything else, 1 cup of water flavored with 1/4 tsp. of salt will replace the liquid the beer provides, but other than the salt won't add any flavor. You might want to spice it up a little, literally, by adding a 1/4 tsp. of cumin, oregano or red pepper flakes for every cup of water you add.

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A bowl of thick, homemade chili is the perfect way to warm up after a cold day. Chili is often relegated to the soup category at restaurants and not always considered an actual meal. However, a bowl of chili can be an entire meal if made thicker and heartier. Whether you are using a crock pot or a stove top, any recipe for chili, with a few simple tips, will become easy to make deliciously thick. Add this to my Recipe Box.

• Use less water than your recipe requires. Typically, halving the amount of water will thicken up your chili sufficiently.


• Use more of whatever your base substance is in the chili--whether ground beef, turkey, tofu or beans--than the recipe calls for. Instead of using less water, use the same amount of water as the recipe calls for, but add more meat or beans, and your chili will also become thicker.


• Drain your tomatoes or beans if you are using canned items. Ideally, if you have the time, use dried beans and fresh tomatoes as simmering them with the rest of the ingredients will cook them sufficiently, and they will absorb some of the liquid.


• Combine a tablespoon of cornstarch, corn flour, corn meal, masa harina or even regular flour with a quarter cup of water and stir into your chili.


• Cook your chili on a lower temperature for a longer time to give it extra time to thicken.


• Add tomato paste. In some recipes this works better than flour as it keeps a tomato-based taste but is a thickener as well.


• Add cheese, sour cream, crackers or chips to the chili before serving.

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