Making Hamburger Chili

soaking the beans

I get to take hamburgers home among other food items from one of my part-time jobs. I usually get to take about 4 hamburgers home, and I certainly don't feel like eating these cold hamburgers. It is also against my belief to throw away perfectly good hamburgers with onion and tomato slices. I thought they would be perfect for making chili. I have made chili with these hamburgers with and without beans. Canned beans work great, but since I am trying to spend as little money as necessary, I got some dried beans, too.

I like to mix different kinds of bean together. My favorite beans are black and kidney beans, but I would mix any kind of beans. For this batch, I mixed 1/2 cup small pink beans and 1/2 cup white beans. The beans were soaked during the day and then cooked overnight in my 1.5-quart slow cooker with about 1 inch of water covering the beans.

chopping up the rest of ingredients from hamburgers

While the beans were being cooked, I chopped up the rest of ingredients - cooked hamburger patties, onion, and tomatoes. I put all of them in a Tupperware and put it back in the fridge. In the morning, I checked on the beans and they were all cooked through.  I added the chopped onion, tomatoes, and hamburger bits into the pot. I wasn't too concerned about the proportions of each ingredient. I just filled up the pot. For spices, I used:

1 Tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon chopped up garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt

dried beans are pre-cooked overnight

I also poured in some tomato sauce. Sometimes I add a can of tomato paste or diced tomatoes. It just depends on what I have in the pantry. Sometimes I add some cut corn kernels if I have them. After all the ingredients were in the pot, I carefully mixed them all together with a spoon and let it cook.

I got all the ingredients in the pot around 10 A.M. I went out to run some errands, and when I came back around 2 P.M., I could smell it as soon as I walked in. The chili was done, and it was easy. I didn't even have to be in the kitchen much of time.

By the way, I got the 1.5 quart  Crock Pot for $5.00 from Craigslist. The woman who sold it to me said that she probably used it only once or twice since she got it, so she decided to get rid of it. It was still in its original box. The pot is perfect for bringing hot food to potlucks, too.

Chili is done!