Slow Cooked Chunky Chili

January comes in the way January comes in Vermont: completely. The temperature went to eight below Monday night, which is not a Vermont record or even a Vermont surprise — it is just January doing its work. The pipes held, which they always hold now that the water lines are properly insulated, a project I completed in 2003 after a January that was instructive on the matter. I heated with wood my whole life in this house. The furnace was installed in 1985 and I have been suspicious of furnaces ever since. The woodstove is the furnace's honest cousin. It does the same work without asking you to trust it.

The baked beans went on Saturday morning. This is the winter ritual: the beans soak overnight Friday, Saturday morning they go in the oven low and long with salt pork and molasses and dry mustard and a small onion and they cook for eight to ten hours, covered, until the beans are soft and the pot liquor has reduced to something thick and sweet and capable of making a cold weekend worthwhile. My mother made them on Saturdays. I make them on Saturdays. The brown bread steams alongside in the coffee cans. These two things arrive together the way they always have.

I have been reading Thoreau again — Walden, which I have read perhaps thirty times since college and find different at every reading. The passage about simplicity: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand." I spent thirty-eight years explaining this sentence to sixteen-year-olds who thought it meant something gentle and idealistic. It does not. It means cut. It means keep what is necessary and let the rest go. Vermont January enforces this principle without asking your permission.

Frost chased a deer across the north field this week, which he had no chance of catching and knew it and did it anyway, because the deer presented itself and the impulse is what it is. He came back panting and pleased with himself. I gave him a biscuit. Some pursuits are their own reward.

The days are getting longer. It is not visible yet. I know it anyway. In Vermont you learn to trust the calendar when the light will not cooperate.

There are Saturdays when the beans are already occupying the oven from morning to dusk, and no sensible Vermonter is going to displace them. On those weeks—or any winter week when you want the same low-and-slow honesty the woodstove provides but need something that feeds a crowd or keeps through the week—this chunky chili fills that same hours-long silence in the kitchen. It asks for the same thing the baked beans ask for: time, and the willingness to leave it alone.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 6–8 hours | Total Time: 6 hours 20 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

2 lbs lean ground beef
1 lb bulk pork sausage
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans (14-1/2 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
2 cans (15 oz each) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

Brown the meat. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef and pork sausage together until no longer pink, breaking into crumbles, about 8–10 minutes. Drain off excess fat.
Soften the aromatics. Add the onion, green pepper, and garlic to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.
Build the pot. Transfer the meat and vegetable mixture to a 6-quart slow cooker. Stir in the diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, and tomato paste until combined.
Season. Add the chili powder, oregano, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Stir well to distribute the spices evenly throughout the mixture.
Cook low and long. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours, or on HIGH for 3–4 hours, until the flavors have deepened and the chili has thickened to your liking. Stir once or twice if you pass through the kitchen.
Serve. Ladle into bowls. Top with shredded cheddar, sour cream, or cornbread on the side if you have it. It keeps well refrigerated for four days and improves by the second.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooked Chunky Chili — Saturday Patience in a Pot