i add pasta to chili because I LOVE pasta. I do the brown whole wheat pasta and in general avoid the whites. white rice, pasta, bread... mine is a bastardized version according to Texas standards. Most in Ohio add beans but not necessarily pasta. It is one of the budget stretchers.. Like potatoes, rice etc. I won a chili cookout in Cleveland in the 90s. I did my veggie crumbles.. the judges did not know. With all the spices and adding butter and olive oil and good quality tomatoes (mine was home grown tomatoes and I made the sauce. Well I won first prize. I KNOW it was the spices I developed. Add nutmeg, a bit of cocoa lots of garlic, enough fire to make it interesting. . One of the judges (1 out of 8) had a hissy fit when she found out that there was no meat in it. The other judges were all over her saying there was no requirement what was in. If someone wanted to enter macaroni and cheese and call it chili.. they could. They wouldn’t win however. LOL
Won 100 gift certificate to a tex mex restaurant and a few other gift certificates that were donated.
Great story! First prize at a chile cook off and come to find out meatless, lol. Yes, I cant go any further than beans in mine. But the casserole my mother used to make she may have learned from her mother, as she was originally from Kansas.
I put a pinch of oregano in my chile. I put a pinch of cinnamon in my spaghetti sauce. Those are two of my closely held secrets.
Slow cook, or boil, whole beef. Take skin off red chile peppers, then mash or blend with tomato, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper and oregano. Shred beef, slow cook with sauce. Eat with tortillas.
My other method is just adding chile powder and other spices to ground beef and add kidney beans.