The essential meal (or at least one of two) for cold weather: Chili.

Here's the way I do it, modified some from the way my sainted mama taught me to make it. This will make four meals for the three of us, or three if we're feeling a trifle piggish.

2 pounds ground beef
2 large (or three medium) onions, chopped medium-fine
5 to 8 garlic cloves, minced
3 15.5 oz. cans kidney beans
7 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 ounces dark bitter chocolate, cut up coarsely

1 Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Reserve
2 Fry up the ground beef in olive oil, until all the pink has disappeared
3 Add back the onions and garlic
4 Add the kidney beans
5 Add the tomato juice
6 Add the chocolate and the salt

Simmer half to three quarters of an hour.

Serving suggestion: Serve with Fritos or with oyster crackers. With chopped parsley on each bowl. Another possibility, serve with corn bread. We drink cold milk with it at our place.

A word of caution: Around our house, serving chili with pasta of any kind in it or under it is considered heresy or worse, and is punishable with hanging or burning at the stake, whichever comes first.

Dave Oesterreich