Beef and Kidney Bean Chili -- The Batch That Feeds the Whole Week for Under Seven Dollars

October is the month I love most in Utah, and I love it with a completeness that would embarrass me to say out loud, so I say it here: October in Utah is the most beautiful month, the aspens at their peak, the air cold enough for a coat by morning and warm enough by noon to take it off, the mountains at the color they hold for exactly three weeks before the first snow, and the sky the specific blue that only happens when the angle of light and the angle of the mountains and the angle of your eyes are all exactly right. I drive the kids to school and I slow down at the corner where you can see Mount Timpanogos end to end and I always look longer than I should.

I am deep into fall batch cooking now, the full transition from summer cold prep to oven season. This week: chili, a real chili, not taco soup in a slow cooker, but a ground beef and kidney bean and diced tomato chili with cumin and chili powder and smoked paprika and a little dark chocolate because I learned this from a recipe video I watched on YouTube last January and I have been doing it ever since. Four bags. Each bag feeds seven for six dollars forty cents. Ninety-two cents per serving. I also made a massive batch of freezer cookie dough: chocolate chip, portioned into balls on a sheet pan, frozen, then transferred to a gallon bag so I can bake four cookies on a Tuesday night in eight minutes because some Tuesdays need four cookies and you should be able to have them without planning ahead.

Noah's teacher, Miss Peterson, sent home a note this week saying he is a natural leader and his classroom presence is remarkable for his age. I read this note three times. I showed it to Brandon. We did not discuss it. We did not need to. Some information about your child just needs to be received and held, and the receiving is the whole response.

Mason has started helping a neighbor two streets over with a fence repair project. He went over Saturday morning with his tools in the bag he uses for tools, which is not a tool bag, it is a reusable grocery bag, and he came home four hours later with a ten-dollar bill and the information that the post-hole digger is "the best tool." He is nine. He is already building things.

This is the chili I made four bags of this week, the one with the dark chocolate I picked up from a YouTube video last January and haven’t stopped making since. It is the recipe that makes October batch cooking feel like it has a purpose—twenty-eight servings in the freezer, ninety-two cents each, and on any given weeknight I can have dinner on the table in the time it takes the kids to wash their hands.

Beef and Kidney Bean Chili

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 28 (four freezer bags, about 7 servings each)

Ingredients

• 3 pounds ground beef (80/20)
• 2 large yellow onions, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cans (15.5 oz each) dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 cans (28 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 ounce dark chocolate (70% cacao or higher), roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup beef broth

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add ground beef and cook, breaking it into small pieces, until browned and no longer pink, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain excess fat, leaving about 1 tablespoon in the pot.
2. Cook the aromatics. Add diced onions to the pot and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add minced garlic and stir for 30 seconds until fragrant.
3. Add the spices. Stir in chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly, to bloom the spices.
4. Build the chili. Add diced tomatoes with their juices, tomato sauce, beef broth, kidney beans, salt, and black pepper. Stir to combine and bring to a boil.
5. Simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover with the lid slightly ajar, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The chili should thicken as it cooks.
6. Finish with chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped dark chocolate until fully melted and incorporated. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
7. Cool and portion for the freezer. Let the chili cool completely. Divide evenly into four gallon-size freezer bags, press out excess air, seal, and lay flat to freeze. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat on the stovetop or in the microwave.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 16g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 5g | Sodium: 480mg