Thursday, January 05, 2006

It's Chili By George


When I read the title of this recipe, "It's Chili By George," I wondered if they meant that it was chili that George made, or if they meant something more like "it's chili, by jove!"

Regardless, this recipe had all of the earmarks of success. Namely, it had many, many five-star reviews. I found this recipe where I find most of them nowadays: Allrecipes.


Why is this my favorite website when it comes to recipes? There are several reasons.

First, there are a lot of recipes from all over the country. In my mind, quantity = variety. That's not always true, but in this case, I'd say it is.

Second, the people who run the website review each recipe that is submitted prior to putting it on the website. They make sure that it is reasonably written, not missing any steps or ingredients and that there isn't another identical submission of the same recipe.

Third, while they don't post the same exact recipe, they will publish many variations, giving you more choices and ability to find a version you'd like. I mean, I can take one look at a mac n' cheese recipe and tell you right off the bat whether or not I'd like it. I like to have options.

Fourth, the recipes can be rated and reviewed by its members. This is probably my favorite feature of this website. Everyone has an opinion, and many people are speaking from another orifice on their body other than their mouth, but if there are enough reviews, you can get an overall sense of the recipe's good and bad points.

Fifth, they let you select a print size to make it easy to print recipe cards that fit your box.

There are other features that I could name, but the above points are really the make it or break it items for me.

From their many chili recipes, It's Chili By George was a hit at my son's birthday party. Everyone loved it, even my son, who is only six years old.

Serve the chili with chopped green onions, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, hot sauce, crumbled bacon and chopped yellow onion.

It's Chili by George!!
Submitted by: George Couch
Rated: 5 out of 5 by 183 members
Yields: 10 servings

"This is a good, standard chili, with lots of ground beef, tomatoes, kidney and pinto beans, and onions. It needs to simmer for 90 minutes on the stove, or can be made in a slow cooker and left to simmer all day."

INGREDIENTS:
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 (46 fluid ounce) can tomato juice
1 (29 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 cup chili powder

DIRECTIONS:
1. Place ground beef in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, and crumble.

2. In a large pot over high heat combine the ground beef, tomato juice, tomato sauce, kidney beans, pinto beans, onions, bell pepper, cayenne pepper, sugar, oregano, ground black pepper, salt, cumin and chili powder. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

(Note: If using a slow cooker, set on low, add ingredients and cook for 8 to 10 hours.)

2 comments:

Kristi said...

I love All Recipes for all the reasons you mentioned. There's nothing that irks me more than reading a recipe with missing or unclear steps, and this has never happened with anything I've used from All Recipes. And I like the chili photo too!

Dawn said...

Thanks Kristi! It's amazing how many people go to that website now. I remember when I first started going there, it must have been about four years ago. It has really blossomed! The only thing I wish they did was allow you to select comments to print with the recipes like at epicurious.com and to sort recipes by user rating.