On March 3, 2002, I cooked a couple of pots of chili to bring to the
office the following Monday, in belated celebration of Texas Independence
Day.  This was my first experience cooking without chili powder, and I was
really pleased with the results.  If you're a chili purist like me, you're
not as interested in variations on vegetable or animal ingredients as you
are in variation among the chiles that form the defining feature of chili
con carne.  Replacing chili powder with its component ingredients (cumin
and chile peppers) allows you to experiment with your own pepper
combinations in a way that is deeply gratifying.  I'd grown, smoked, and
dried peppers for the previous two years, and wanted to see how they
stacked up against the bulk peppers bought at Fiesta.  Here are the 
recipies I used, which were well recieved by a bunch of coworkers keener 
on a free meal than on preserving their tastebuds.

Quick & Spicy Chili

1) Brown 4-5 pounds chili grind in a pot
2) Drain liquid from pot
3) Add 2 15 oz cans tomato sauce
4) Add 4 heaping teaspoons chopped garlic
5) Add two large extra-strong yellow onions, chopped medium-coarse.
6) Add 2 cans Trappey's Jalapinto beans
7) Add 2-3 tablespoons cumin, 4 tablspoons homegrown dried pepper mix 
(jalapeno & habanero), 4-5 tablespoons homegrown cayenne pepper.
8) Add 1 can Lone Star beer
9) Add water to pot and bring to rolling boil
10) Add 2 tablespoons masa harina
11) Simmer for a couple of hours and salt to taste


Chipotle Chili con Carne 

1) Brown* three pounds stew meat in an iron skillet and transfer to
	cooking pot (I use a slow cooker, similar to a crock pot).
2) Add one large extra-strong yellow onion, chopped coarse.
3) Add two tablespoons cumin, three tablespoons chopped garlic, and four 
	tablespoons fine-ground chipotle peppers.
4) Fill pot with water and bring to boil.
5) Add masa harina to desired thickness (I use 3-4 tablespoons).
6) Cook overnight & salt to taste.


*For best results browning meat with a wimpy electric range, heat the
skillet with a tsp of oil until it's really hot, then lay only enough meat
in the skillet to make a sparse layer in contact with the bottom.  Let
that sizzle on high heat for 2-3 minutes, then turn.  Do the best you can
with the other side of the meat, but don't worry if it won't brown --
you've probably cooked enough water out of the meat that your skillet is
now only at boiling temperature.  Transfer the half-browned meat to your
pot, and leave the skillet on high heat until most of the water boils off
(you may want to add more oil and tilt the skillet around to speed up the
boiling of the water).  Then add another batch of meat and repeat.


The second chili was my favorite, though it was less spicy than the first.  
The browned stewmeat gave it the beefy flavor that I think should form the 
backbone of any good chili.

Plans for the future involve using chile pequins/chiltepins, which are a 
variety of a wild pepper native to Texas.