Easy farm chile

A goal of mine when I started farming was to get to the point where I ate only meat that I raised; and this has taken me in a couple of different directions.

Easy farm chile

Tonights struggle was with our american love of easy to eat foods.  There are days when I don't want to cook, when it's just easier to pull a can out of the pantry and heat and eat; one of my staples is canned chile, and it's just time to break that habit. 

Here's the recipe - 15 minutes to dinner

One large onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
One jalapeno pepper
One green pepper
1lb ground beef
One small can tomato paste
1 12oz can beer  (I just use the cheapest beer; doesn't make much difference)
3 tablespoons chile powder
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or other vinegar, but I like apple cider)
1 teaspoon ground cumin seed (plus more to taste)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (plus more to taste)
Salt to taste
2 cans Kidney beans, drained

Dice the onion, green and jalapeno peppers and saute' in oil in a 2 quart sauce pan until onions transparent, on medium heat
Add the ground beef and cook until browned
Add the tomato paste and stir in.
Add the beer, watching the consistency of the mix.  You want it a little thick; keep adding until it looks like you think it should. 

Now stir in the chile powder, vinegar and cumin.   Taste it.  You'll probably
want to add more cumin.  Stir and taste, stir and taste, until you get it the way you
like it.   A pinch of salt to finish it.
If you'd like a variation, you could add a couple of teaspoons of sugar and see what that tastes like. 

Stir in the kidney beans, warm them, and serve. 

So when I cook this, I'll cook a batch that is 8x bigger than what I've listed above -- couple of gallons of it -- and I'll pressure can it into 1 pint jars, roughly the same size as a canned chile.  And like magic, I've got my easy-to-eat food.