Joe Holstead's Famous Chili Recipe

Peel the onion and place it in a food processor. Grind it to a pulp. When finished it will be watery, and quite pungent. (Have a Kleenex ready) Place onion pulp into a large cooking pot and place heat on high. As the onion pulp begins to boil, add three tablespoons of garlic salt and a tablespoon of ground cumin. (Be sure that most of the liquid burns off, but that the onion does not start to burn itself.) This is when you begin the most physical part of the process. Browning 5 pounds of meat. Please note that the "browning" process as I know it is to cook the outside of the meat until it is a very light brown or gray in color. It most likely will NOT be cooked throughout, and that is okay. Just make sure that the cooking pot is hot enough to brown the meat, but not so hot that it burns the meat. This will take several minutes. It is important to mention that the only part of the Pendery's printed recipe that is a good rule of thumb to follow (for our demonstration) is the three tablespoons of powder for every pound of meat. God love them for their blends and spices, but we prefer a slower, more deliberate approach to cooking chili and the end result will be most memorable. Once the meat has been browned, reduce the heat to medium/low level. Begin applying the chili powder. You will have to put in a bit more elbow grease to insure that the powder is distributed evenly throughout the meat. A total of 15 tablespoons of chili powder should be added evenly throughout the mixture. Add one can of beer. Drink the other five. (This from Hal Jay of WBAP Radio who said that the clerk at the 7-11 in Westover Hills would never let him break a 6-Pack.) Stir and add one Jalapeno Pepper. Cover and let simmer. Stirring every half-hour, to hour. It should be ready to eat in three hours time, but will be best tasting in about 6 hours. It should feed between 8 and 10. Enjoy! Have Leftovers? Great! Here are some things you can do with them- Freeze it! Chili will keep forever. Thaw it out and reheat. It will taste as good, and in most cases better because the spices will have had time to break down even more. This case is the same for those who merely refrigerate their leftovers for a day or so. Add leftover chili to scrambled eggs Add leftover chili to flour or corn tortillas and add cheese, sour cream, lettuce and tomatoes and your favorite picante sauce for in a pinch tacos or burritos. Add leftover chili to Velveeta with a can of RoTel tomatoes and you have instant Queso!