Rather Good Chili - It's Fantastic!

 All that energy I have inside that wants to work out but my body can't.....yeah I'm using it in the kitchen. Pinterest is my new BFF and I'm not sure if I will ever buy another cook book again. What am I doing? Well first I was just trying recipes out and trying to figure out how close I can stay to the Paleo/Whole30/Eating Clean method of eating. It's not easy! The challenge is over but I'm a lot more aware of what I'm cooking, buying and eating. I'm constantly looking at the ingredients and the calorie count. What I'm doing is finding the recipe and following along and then I'm going to figure out how to put a healthier spin on it. That's the goal any way.

This is Rather Good Chili and it's the best I have ever tasted hands down. Hats off to Jennifer Rather at EzraPoundCake.com.

• 1 1/2 lbs. ground chuck (leanest ground beef possible 900 calories)
• 1/2 lb. ground sausage (Jimmy Dean's breakfast sausage 640 calories)
• 2 medium onions, chopped (I opted for 1 large onion)
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, minced (I like garlic, 4)
• 1/3 cup chili powder
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (72 calories)
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon sugar (45 calories pure cane organic sugar)
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes (Hunts 420 calories)
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed (GOYA® Black Beans 360 calories)
• 1 to 2 cups water

I did end up using the water and of course I wanted mine to look just like the photo so I did top it with cheese, sour cream and dry chives! Whoa....my family and I are in love.

Now for the healthier spin on this awesome chili! 

• 1 1/2 lbs. ground chuck (leanest ground beef possible 900 calories)
• 1/2 lb. ground sausage (Light pork sausage 640 calories)
• 2 medium onions, chopped (I opted for 1 large onion)
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, minced (I like garlic, 4)
• 1/3 cup chili powder
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (72 calories)
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon sugar (45 calories pure cane organic sugar)
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 6 medium tomatoes (156 calories)
• 1 (16-ounce) bag of black beans (omit beans and it's Paleo)
• 4 cups water

It's a LOT more work to make it this way! You have to rinse and boil the beans so they can sit for an hour while you prepare the meat and slice up all those tomatoes. I ended up using all the water to allow for more juice. I threw it all in the crock pot this morning and we had it for lunch.

There are a lot more beans in this recipe and you can see the color difference between using canned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes. The beans are not nearly as soft but nobody was complaining. It was just something that I noticed. Also, omitting the flour made it more like a soup, boo! If you omit the toppings it becomes Paleo, also without beans.

I did the calorie count for both recipes! Check this out.....

Each recipe made 14 cups and that's a lot of chili. The left side is the first recipe and the right side is my tweaks to make it healthier.

beef	900	900
sausage	640	360
flour	72	0
sugar	45	0
tomatos	245	156
beans	360	140
Calories	2262	1556
Divide 14	161.5714	111.1429
Toppings	140	130
	302	241	with toppings

The 140 on the left is 1 tbs of sour cream and 1/4 cup of grated mild cheddar cheese.
The 130 on the right is the same except I went with Light sour cream this time.

Even if you throw on the toppings that is one hearty meal people. There doesn't seem to be a huge calorie difference but hey you are going to feed your family for a few days on this meal. Think dinner and lunches. What a fun find and I'm happy to add it to my menu.

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