Slow Cooker Chili

Grandma Tibbett made the best chili soup ever. Her secret was brown sugar. I've been craving Grandma's chili soup for awhile now. Actually, that's not entirely true...I was craving vegetable soup, and while I was looking through my recipes I found Grandma's chili soup recipe, and THEN I started to crave it! Unfortunately, Grandma's recipe is kind of complicated (and it calls for "oleo." What the hell is "oleo?????"), so I settled for "Grandma's easy vegetarian slow cooker chili" - a recipe I found online about a year ago that turned out pretty well.

So, I went to Clement's and got all the necessary ingredients plus 2 pounds of ground chuck (let's face it - vegetarian chili is like caffeine-free Coke...there's no point). Actually, I got 3 pounds of ground chuck, but I used one pound for nachos that Michele and I made for dinner (but I digress...). Long story short - this chili turned out well, and there is a LOT of it! It helps to add 2 pounds of hamburger meat. :)

One of the coolest things about this chili is that Michele was here just hanging out with me, so we actually worked together to make the chili. As we were finishing up, I told her that I always have a great time cooking with her, and she told me that she finds it fun and relaxing. How cool is that? It reminded me how intimate food is and how much food can bring people together. As an aside - I felt the same way about cooking with Jen when I was at her and Kim's place over New Year's. Jen and I made breakfast for Jane and Kim, and I had an absolute blast cooking with her. I made pancakes, and she made eggs, sausage, bacon, etc. It was a lot of fun, and I felt like it really brought us all together. Jen and I also made a big pot of barley mushroom soup several weeks ago, and that was also a rockin' good time. Yes, I'd say "cooking with friends" is definitely on my list of most favorite things to do in life! :)