My History with Chili

I have a long and successful history with chili until recently. I got on a chili kick in late 2020 when I bought the Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Steamer, Sautè, Yogurt Maker, and Warmer. By chili kick, I mean all chili all the time. It was so easy and so tasty in the Instant Pot™. It was so deep that in April 2021, my parents and I left on a lengthy driving vacation from our homes in Portland, Oregon, to the Grand Cayon. We also took two to three-day trips to other areas of Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. We did not eat out all the time, but if we did, the chances were near 100% that I would order chili if it were on the menu. The quality ran the gamut from really good to blah. I used this classic chili recipe in my Instant Pot when preparing my chili at home, and the results were excellent every single time.

Chili types

I know there is a long-storied battle between purists on both sides of the beans or no beans authenticity for chili. I’m there for all of it, as I love chili. I think my brother even makes chili without tomatoes in any form. I’ve even had Cincinnati Chili traditionally served over spaghetti noodles, and the chili itself has some very non-traditional ingredients. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but devotees are passionate about it. This Cincinnati Chili becomes important later.

What and why

For Christmas in 2023, my parents gave me a basket of food from Bauman’s Farm & Garden. These were lovely specialty foods. Yummy Walla Walla Sweet Onion Salad Dressing was one of the items. I want to eat salad 24-7-365 with this dressing. Amongst the items was a chili mix. Last weekend, I decided this would be the item I would make. This was not a Baumans brand item, so this story is not to criticize them. Guess what. It didn’t go well. 

First, the ingredients were on the stapled sleeve. I made an assumption, incorrect, of course, that the ingredients would be added in the order listed. Nope. The quantity of soup this recipe would prepare turned out to be more than would fit in my one pan that is not a skillet, so I had to use my instant pot. I started adding the ingredients from the top. The first item was the bag of spices and snowflake & snowmen-shaped pasta (?!?!?!), and I got to the last item, browned and drained ground beef. I asked myself why browning and draining the ground meet wasn’t first on the list – so strange. Even stranger is that no ingredient is a liquid – even the three cans of canned beans are drained of their liquid, so the only liquid is from the diced tomatoes and the 1/3 cup of ketchup – that’s weird. How is the pasta supposed to be cooked? So, I added a can of chicken broth, hoping that would work.

I ended up with a gloppy, sticky mess. A LOT of gloppy, sticky mess. I didn’t have a dish that resembled any chili I’ve ever eaten.

This is my result:

After the chili was cooked, it looked like an unholy mess. I grabbed the stapled sleeve to review what might have gone wrong. In the review, I could see that I hadn’t missed any ingredients, but I did discover that the company uses its soup mixes for fundraising – so be warned if you come across this chili in a school fundraiser. Their soups may be excellent – this one misses the mark, in my opinion.  I also discovered that there were preparation directions on the stapled sleeve’s reverse side. The pasta should have been cooked first and on its own and was not to be cooked in the chili. The soup should have added 3 cups of water – not listed on the ingredient list- that would have been useful to know. Turns out the soup was to be served over the pasta – so reminiscent of the Cincinnati Chili. I did EVERYTHING wrong.

I was recounting all this to my mother, and she was laughing at me, or maybe it was the situation. I decided to share a good amount of the gloppy, sticky mess with my parents so they could opine on the result and pare down the amount I had to eat in the coming week. After she and my Dad tried the chili, she suggested that I not plan to bring this to my family’s Christmas Eve soup dinner. I assured her that was not even a consideration.

What is the lesson learned? Read the directions – look for the directions. 

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