Making it Work: Chorizo & Chicken Chili

Most of my meals don't follow a specific recipe. I look at what's on sale and what's in my fridge/pantry/freezer. A coworker had brought in some lovely jalepeno & bell peppers, chorizo was on sale, and I had 8 tons of shredded chicken to deal with in the fridge. Hmmmm.....Chili!
Check out the recipe & pictures after the Jump!

Here's a loose representation of the recipe. You don't have to follow this! Have ground something instead of sausage? Use it! Like red beans instead of black? Go for it! Something from your garden looking a bit iffy and you need to use it tonight? Throw it in!

The cooking times are approximate, just look at, poke, taste the food to see if it's ready for the next step.

Chorizo & Chicken Chili

Ingredients

3 Chorizo Sausages (about 2/3lb)

1/2-3/4lb cooked, chopped or Shredded Chicken

1 (15oz) can Black Beans

1 Large Tomato, diced

2 Large Bell Peppers (or 4 small ones), diced or in strips

2 Jalepeno Peppers, diced small
1/2 cup Frozen Spinach (optional)

1/2 bottle of Beer

1/2 cup coarse ground Corn Meal (crunched up tortilla chips will work)

1/2 cup Chicken stock/broth (optional)

1 Clove Garlic, minced

Whole bunch o' spices

Some oilve oil

Maybe some water or tomato juice (who are we kidding? more beer)

Directions

1. Cook the sausage however you darn well feel like; but keep the fat! I cooked mine in the same pan as the chili. Less dishes!

2. Set chorizo aside. Add a little oil, if needed, to the pan and saute peppers, 1 jalepeno, and the garlic (5 minutes?) Pour in the beer. Once it calms down a bit, add half the tomatoes, some of the broth & whole bunch o' spices. 10-15 more minutes?

3. Chop up the sausages into relatively small bits. Put sausage bits, chicken, beans, the other pepper & tomatoes, and any extra sausage fat into the pot. Adjust the spices if needed and cook 5-10 min.

4. Check out the liquid levels. If it's pretty thick, add some more stock/beer/tomato juices/all-of-the-above. Then add the corn meal. Cook is so it bubbles a bit until the corn meal looks like it's done (not grainy and incorporated into the chili)

5. Adjust the spices & liquid again (I like mine a little thick & stewish.) Throw in the spinach and cook until everything's done (spinach not frozen)