Chili Cook-off; Tres Carne Texas Red Chili

For the 2nd Time I won 3rd place in a Chili Cook-off with my own recipe for Texas Red Chili.  It was also the People's Choice in the first competition.

This time I won a coveted trophy:

Last time I won 2 beautiful aprons:

 

My chili started off with Inspiration from the following 2 recipes:

http://www.marthastewart.com/315350/texas-red-chili
    I used the technique from both these recipes where you toast dried chiles and then rehydrate with boiling water. Then puree into a wonderful homemade Chile paste of sorts. I really like Ancho chiles for this, then I add some canned Chiles Chipotles which really makes the secret sauce -the key to the flavor and coloring in my Chili.
http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chili/texas-red-chili/
 I also added my own touch by using some similarities to my perfect Baked Beans - I started out with lots of Bacon.  Then I used reserved Bacon grease to cook the remaining ingredients in the chili, so no additional oil was needed.

   My chili is titled "Tres Carne Texas Red Chili", for "Three Meats".  I wanted to use chuck which is common in Texas Chili, but I made sure to cut it up into VERY small cubes.  The 2nd meat that I used was Boneless Beef Short ribs. These cooked nice and tender in the chili, then at the end I remove them, shred the meat and put it back into the chili. The tasters commented on this most and seemed to really enjoy it. For my third meat I wanted that traditional ground meat but in a play on the name I choose to use the meatloaf mix of ground meats. And the bacon was thrown in for good measure.

I like to garnish the chili with crushed Honey BBQ Fritos, Shredded Colby-Jack cheese, Stonewall Kitchens Farmhouse Red Relish, Creme Fraiche, a pickled jalapeño, Lime wedge, and a pinch of pink Himalayan salt.

I also like to make chili pepper chocolates that I give out as a little dessert.  I use the candy molds and melt 1 cup chocolate melts with 1 tsp. Mexican style Chili pepper. The coolness of the chocolate pairs so well with the spice.

And I enjoyed this chili recipe so much that I even made it into a Chili Burger Recipe!