The worst part about making chili, real fire house chili, is cook'n up those beans. I prefer black beens or dark kidneys as they don't get as mushy as those lighter beans that they make refried beans from. Lentils are a favorable substitute that I have done before. Anyhow, you typically have to start by soaking the beans, to both rinse them and get them started taking on water. Boil the water and let soak again over night. This could go on for about 2 to 3 days to get things done. Stir often to keep the thick bean broth generated from burning to the bottom of whatever your cook'n the beans in. Don't cook overnight, just let sit. You don't need midnight surprises that the fire department actually needs to come out and give you tips on your firehouse chili for. Don't pour off that brown water, its gonna contribute to the sauce! My ingredient list is simply added after the beans are done cook'n. They include ... Roma Tomatos They are thicker and meatier Aneheim Chilis Hot, but not overwhelming. Sorrano Chilis Hot and zingy. Habneros ( If you really want firehouse flavor ) Onions and lots of 'em. Paprika Chili Powder Cinnamon Not necessary, but you can experiment Cilantro Some people like to add some form of sugar, like molasses, etc., but I don't. Here are some tips ... 1.) Cut up Tomatoes, Onions and Peppers so they form long strips. Don't dice 'em. 2.) Go find some real earthy chili powder. New Mexico and California have some really nice varieties that range from a ocre red to more brownish and they have flavor that'll make your chili ... chili! 3.) Where's the beef? Oh, I don't put it in mine. But when I do, I like to do what I do with spaghetti sauce and add both beef and pork. Cut up something like stewing beef strips and center cut pork chops. 4.) My old friend balsamic vinegar can add an interesting change to your chili. 5.) OK so you don't like reall hard core chili - eh? Well, don't use the habneros and add celery to mellow things out. Use less chili powder. 6.) If your chili is really thick, make sure you drink alot. You can either thin it down before hand or afterwards ... it's your choice.

Thanks, that's what I figured too - since it was a long-cooked sauce, there weren't going to be any chunks left. Sorry Dave I had typed this, went to make dinner and just came back and hit Submit. I goofed (was checking the Ball Complete book for the original spices) and used the full 2C of vinegar for my half batch. So used 1/3C brown sugar and added another 2C tomato puree. We had a pint with a lb of ground meat for dinner, have 8C left in Pyrex measuring cup in fridge. The "puree" was pretty thin - as you can tell since my half recipe with an additional cup of vinegar and total 10C "puree" (2 additional cups, quickly nuked some paste tomatoes in a big Pyrex measuring cup, drained in a colander and topped with ice to peel them, then milled them into the measuring cup) made 5 pints, and that's with reducing the peppers and onions to less than half of the original recipe (that used 16C tomatoes). So a half batch should have been 8C peeled tomatoes, 4 bell peppers (app. 5C?), 3 onions (app. 2C), and 1C of vinegar to make 3.5 pints. I used 10C milled tomatoes, 3C peppers, 1 onion (slightly under 2C), and 2C vinegar and got 5 pints. I made sure the big chunks of onions (I roughly chopped them) were used for dinner, the peppers are in smaller pieces. Do you think it's safe to can the 4 pints I have left (after reheating of course)? I have adjusted the recipe in my Word document for the spices (Malna used a spice bag), I will go off that from now on so I don't get confused with looking at original amounts. And I think I'm going to change the white vinegar to ACV ;-) Sorry for the hijack. This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Sep 8, 13 at 18:34

I liked the fact that there are no herbs or spices to take away from the flavor of the fruits. I also think that she used a 6 qt. basket of tomatoes because it wasn't the usual red colour and you couldn't really taste the tomatoes. Enjoy!

Stevie - sugar has nothing to do with safety in canning except in a very minimal role. It binds up some of any free water. It doesn't alter the pH of low acid foods and has minimal effect on any density or heat penetration issues. Low acid vegetables must be either pressure canned, fermented, or have enough acid added to lower the ingredients pH to 4.6 minimum to prevent botulism. This is all discussed in infinite detail on the Harvest/canning forum. Like I said, freezing the recipe or eating it fresh is no problem. Even pressure canning it would eliminate most of the safety concerns IF one could calculate the amount of time and pressure needed. But other than pressure canning, sealing it in a vacuum environment with simple boiling water bath canning without pH and density testing would be considered unsafe. But since the recipe as posted includes no canning instructions we can only assume this is intended for fresh eating (although it would be a big batch) or freezing. Dave