It's Chili Time!

Time for a recipe! You gotta love chili in the Fall, and I made up a new recipe tonight that I wanted to share. I was inspired by some I found online, along with my mom's that I grew up with. This also means it has macaroni in it. I know some people don't call that chili, but we do! Is that a Midwestern thing or a Southern thing? I never know because of our mixed heritage (Midwestern grandparents whose families came from the South). I tried to keep it healthy, and the verdict from my boys was two big thumbs up!!

Note: The reason for the V8 is that Marty had never had it, and wanted to try it to drink to get some more veggies in his diet. So we decided to buy some and I'd put it in the chili in place of tomato juice, saving him a glass to drink. You could easily substitute regular tomato juice. I was skeptical about using V8 at first, because I'm not a fan, but I couldn't tell a difference once it was cooked, and I felt better about having some extra veggies hidden in there. Next time I might add some corn, zucchini, and carrots, as I saw in one recipe online, to make it even healthier.

Chili

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. canola oil

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1.5 pounds lean ground turkey

1 clove garlic, minced

1 can light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 46 oz. bottle V8 Juice

1 15 oz. can beef broth 

1 packet Williams Chili Seasoning

1 Tbsp. chili powder

1 cup elbow macaroni

Directions

In large soup pot, heat canola oil and add diced onions. Cook over medium heat until caramelized. Add bell peppers and cook a few minutes longer until softened. Add ground turkey and cook until browned, adding garlic at the end to avoid it burning. Add beans, tomatoes, juice, broth, and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Cook 1.5 hours or more on low simmer. 10 minutes before serving, turn heat back up to small boil and add macaroni, stirring often to prevent sticking. Cook until macaroni is al dente.

Make it a little less healthy by sprinkling cheese on top and give it a side of yummy corn bread!

If you are not a macaroni fan, you might want to lessen the V8 and/or the beef broth to keep it thick. Then you could also finish it in the crock pot, which I don't think would work when you need to add the macaroni at the end.
If you can't find William's Chili Seasoning, then I'm sorry, because it rocks (so does their Chicken Chili seasoning). You're on your own for a substitute!