Chili and Football: It's what Tennessee does.

OK, it's probably what TEXAS does. I'll leave crabcakes and football to Maryland and think more on what Tennessee does . . . For now, the temperature FINALLY dropped last week, and all I wanted to do this weekend was watch football and knit, break for chili, rinse and repeat. It helped that I came home with a peck of peppers from the farm last weekend.

As always, I find a recipe I like online and then tweak as I go. This rendition of Sugar Spun Run's was so good that I'll enter it in our neighborhood chili cook off in a couple weeks.

5 strips uncooked bacon, chopped

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

4 poblano peppers, diced

1 serrano pepper, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 lbs ground chuck

1 T dark brown sugar

1 T chili powder

1 T ancho chili powder

1 ½ tsps smoked paprika

1 tsp cumin

¾ tsp ground black pepper

½ tsp salt

⅛ tsp cayenne pepper

3 cups beef broth

14.5 oz can dark red kidney beans, drained

14.5 oz can black beans, drained

14.5 oz can diced fire roasted tomatoes (I used Rotel)

¼ cup salsa of your choice

¼ cup tomato paste

¼ cup cornmeal

1 T soy sauce

1 T apple cider vinegar

~ Add bacon to hot stock pot on medium low. Crisp it slowly to render the fat. Then remove bacon to a paper towel.

~ Turn burner to medium and sauté onion and peppers to bacon grease and soften.

~ Then add minced garlic for only thirty seconds so it does not burn.

~ Turn burner to medium/high and push veggies to the sides and drop ground chuck in large chunks so it begins to brown. Slowly incorporate veggies into mixture as it browns.

~ When beef is mostly brown, turn burner to medium and mix in brown sugar, spices, and everything nice.

~ Once spices start to bloom and darken the meat, add beef broth, beans, tomatoes, salsa, tomato paste, and soy sauce.

~ Turn burner to high. Just as chili starts to boil, slowly stir in cornmeal.*

~ After incorporating all cornmeal in, let it bubble for five minutes so cornmeal cooks into mixture.

~ Then lower burner to medium low and simmer for thirty minutes.

~ Just before you are ready to eat or serve, stir in 1 T of apple cider vinegar.

~ As with all soups and stews, flavors meld when it sits. So enjoy it right away, or a day later, or freeze for a chili cook off in two weeks . . .

*I can't remember when or where I first heard about cornmeal in chili. But it's benefits are three fold:

• A) Chili and cornbread is a no-brainer combination. So the cornmeal adds a touch of sweet corn flavor in the chili itself.

• 2) There is grease in the mixture from both the bacon and the gound chuck. The cornmeal fuses with the fat and sops it up so you don't get a layer of grease on top when it cools.

• C) The cornmeal thickens the mixture just slightly in a gluten-free way.

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