Smokey Weeknight Chili with Homemade Chili Powder

Smokey Weeknight Chili

My husband thinks that I rearrange our furniture every 3-4 months to amuse myself. While I do enjoy moving things around in the house, the main reason I tend to rearrange rooms is to make space for the new things we accumulate. With four people in the house we end up with a lot of new things over the course of the year. Most things I buy second hand, clearanced or up-cycled. Every three or four months I go through the house and donate any items that we no longer use or I can't find in a way to re-purpose. Yesterday I spent the day moving a bookcase out of my kid's room and re-arranging the remaining furniture in their bedroom. Now they have a large play area and I have a bookcase that I will paint and make look like new for the living room. I already found oopsie paint at the home improvement store for 2 dollars. I love oopsie paint, it's a great way to buy high quality paint for very little money. The paint I found was originally 40 dollars, so 2 dollars was a great deal! The best part of rearranging furniture is watching my husband try to figure out where everything has been moved to. It always makes me smile.

I have been making a lot of soups and chili the last month due to the cold weather. It has been a very cold winter and when the weather is far below freezing I prefer food that is warm and comforting. Last week I tried a new recipe for Smokey Weeknight Chili from the February 2014 issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

Smokey Weeknight Chili

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active. I followed the original recipe pretty closely. The only change I made was to make my own chili powder. I prefer homemade chili powder to store bought, it tastes better and I can adjust the amount of heat for my family's tastes. Here is the recipe I used:

4 tablespoons Ancho chili powder

2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder
4 teaspoons paprika (I use smoked)
1/4 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoons black pepper

It took minutes to make and was really great tasting. I also made my beans from scratch. I made my beans in the crock pot in a big batch and then measured out the equivalent amount of beans (about a cup and a half for a 15 ounce can). 

This is a very easy recipe to put together. You can substitute black or kidney beans if you don't have chickpeas (or just prefer the taste). It's also an inexpensive meal since it's vegetarian and is even cheaper if you make the beans from scratch. It has 15 grams of protein per serving and only 6 grams of fat so it's a nice all around meal. My family liked the chili with a bit of sour cream since my homemade chili powder is a little on the spicier side. 

For the recipe go to Smokey Weeknight Chili.