Beefy Bacon Chili

Ingredients:
-1 large steak or equivalent size of other meat, I actually used the same cut I use for beef roasts in my crockpot so get what's on sale in my opinion, I would use a half a pack of a beef roast type cut.  Think, size of a kindle or so. Chop it into pink eraser size pieces.  I am all about the learning today.
-1 pack of bacon, chopped
-1/4 small onion, finely minced
-1 28oz can petite diced tomatoes, I ONLY use Meijer naturals
-4-6 roma tomatoes, pureed in a food processor
-Chipotle peppers: I blended canned chipotles up and used about 1 TB of the puree.  You can use less or more to your taste.  I love chipotle peppers.  LOVE THEM.
-1 tsp garlic
-heaping TB flour
-1/2 tsp basil
-Shake of marjoram
-Shake of nutmeg
-Hefty squirt of ketchup (think 3 Mississippi's)
-6 dashes of Worcestshire Sauce (random but true)
-Salt to taste, pepper as needed
-Optional 1/2 C frozen corn or whatever else you want to throw in

One pot meal alert! Anyway, add the bacon and fry to crispy in the bottom of a large kettle.  Add in your onions next, give them just a moment (scoot your bacon over to the edges) and then add your beef pieces.  Cook all of this until the beef is done with 1/2 TB chipotle puree.  When that is ready, add the flour and stir well to dissolve.

Why add flour? Well, I knew my bacon would create grease.  I was not particularly fond of the idea of greasy bacon.  I also did not want to go to the effort of draining it.  I also am very adept at gravy. I also knew I might need to thicken this. A lot of chili mixes have a thickening agent of some type, or at least that is what I read recently.  X,Y, Z later, it made the most sense to soak up that grease and thicken my soup!

Anyway, stir like crazy and get that flour dissolved in the juices, then add the pureed tomatoes, spices, ketchup, W. sauce, and let it cook for a couple minutes.  Then add the canned tomatoes and the rest of the chipotle puree.  Bring to a slow boil, add the corn, and let it cook until it reaches desired thickness.

You can obviously make this as thick or thin as you want, and you can add as much or little beef as you want.  I would personally suggest using part of your pack of bacon to fry up and put on top of the chili for serving.  I gave mine a hit of extra sharp white cheddar.  It was very tasty!

This is best served with corn muffins, which my sweet corn muffin recipe will be posted later today.  I made mine from maseca, I actually have found that I prefer it to typical cornbread mixes.

You can use a variety of peppers if you like for different types of heat, chipotles happened to be all I really had handy at the time, and like I said they are my absolute favorite.

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