Crazy-Hot Chili

Here's a beanless chili that can bring some heat on its own or on top of pasta.

Heart-Stopping Chili-serves 8
2 lbs ground beef
6 cloves garlic
1 large onion
2 14-oz cans tomatoes, diced and with juice
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
12 oz beer 
1 4-oz can green chile peppers
1/3 cup chili powder
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp Texas Pete or other hot pepper sauce
1/2 tsp ground black pepper


Put the ground beef into a large saucepan over medium heat. Chop the onion and garlic, add to the beef and cook until the onions are tender and the beef is fully cooked. In the meantime, combine the basil, chili powder and cumin in a small bowl. Drain the fat and put back onto the heat. Sprinkle the spice mixture into the meat and stir until the spices are well distributed.

Then, drain the chiles and add to the meat along with the beer, vinegar, tomatoes and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, stirring to ensure that nothing sticks to the pan. Add the hot sauce, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Cover, turn heat to low and allow to simmer for 3 hours, removing the lid during the last 30 minutes.  

Variations-
My husband is a hot-sauce freak, so he couldn't stand to make chili without making a few additions. He added a bit of "Hoppin' Jalapeno" Dave's Insanity Sauce, along with a couple of "novelty sauces" he got as gifts. It doesn't take much of this stuff to make your face sweat! We also used hot breakfast sausage in place of one of the pounds of beef.  

It doesn't matter what kind of beer you use, so feel free to use the generic stuff your brother left at your house last month.