My low carb chili’s looking mighty tasty. Just a couple more hours in the crock-pot!

While giving my body the day to recover, I’m busy in the kitchen making awesome low carb chili and prepping food for the week. It’s a cold, rainy afternoon–perfect chili weather.

The wonderful thing about chili is it’s really hard to screw up. Basic chili requires ground beef, chopped onion or green pepper, a 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, 15 oz. can of kidney beans, some seasoning, and toppings like shredded cheese and sour cream.

I like making up the recipe as I go and tossing in the odd veggie or different type of beans because it strikes my fancy.

The trick is making it low carb. Onions and green peppers are relatively high in carbs. But it’s the tomatoes that kill you every time. Especially if you use canned tomatoes. Pick the wrong can and your carb count escalates pretty quickly.

Luckily for me, I found a can of peeled tomatoes with only 3g of carbs per serving while roaming the grocery store this afternoon. I like to keep my chili below the 8g carb count for every 1-1/3 cup serving.

I’m also tossing in some fire-roasted tomatoes along with a lovely jalapeño with seeds (of course!) for flavor and heat, respectively.

To help lower my carb count, I’m eliminating the kidney beans and beer from tonight’s version. Don’t worry, the recipe below includes both.

I also make my own chili seasoning. Strangely, I don’t make it overwhelmingly hot–that’s the jalapeno’s job.

Once the chili is in the crock-pot, it’s on to chopping tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, red peppers, and red onions. All the veggies I’ll use during the week in preparing our meals.

As for giving my body the day off, fear not. I’m back at it tomorrow with yoga, upper and lower body strength training and either 20 minutes of aerobics or a 2-mile walk (weather dictating the last activity).

While chopping up my ingredients for the chili, my arms began to feel the pain from Monday’s upper body workout.

I actually thought I wasn’t sore today. How silly of me. Once I started chopping up my chili ingredients, my arms and shoulders started killing me.

Time to start browning the ground beef. Enjoy the recipes below!

Dot2Trot Chili
Net Carbs: 8
Weight Watchers PointsPlus: 8*
Dot’s No Beer/Beans Net Carb Count: 6**
Serves 12 (1-1/3C servings)

All carb and point counts assume no toppings added.

Chili Ingredients

• 3 ½ lbs. of 80/20 ground beef
• Course salt and freshly ground pepper
•  1 large white or yellow onion, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 jalapeño, chopped with seeds
• 2 (28 oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes**
• 1 (14 oz.) can fire roasted tomatoes
• 8 oz. of water (only add if not adding beer)
• ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more sprigs for serving
• 1 (12 oz.) bottle of beer (amber, brown or larger recommended)**
• 2 (15-oz) cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed (optional)**

*Attention My Weight Watcher Peeps: You need to use 95/5 ground beef for the recipe to add up to 8 points per serving. If you use 80/20, you’re looking at a whopping 16 points!

**Note: The version I’m making at home tonight doesn’t include the beer and beans…how sad. I’m also using only 1 28-oz. can of whole tomatoes to make a smaller batch.

Easy Chili Seasoning

• ¼ C chili powder
• 1 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 1-½ Tsp. ground cumin
• 1-1/2 Tsp. Hungarian paprika
• ½ Tsp. red pepper flakes
• ¼ Tsp. ground cayenne pepper

Chili Toppings

Pick the ones you like, but count your carbs and points!

• Cilantro
• Chopped tomatoes (optional – depends if you are counting carbs)
• Shredded cheddar cheese
• Sour Cream
• Lime wedges (awesome!)

Directions

• In a large skillet, over medium-high heat brown your ground beef – cooking until it’s no longer pink. About half way through the cooking of the ground beef, add in onion, green pepper and ½ of the garlic and mix with the ground beef. Season with salt and pepper.  When meat is done, drain away fat.
• In a 6-quart crock-pot, add in your whole tomatoes. Using your hands, squeeze the tomatoes to crush them into pieces.  Then add in the beef, onion and green pepper mixture, remaining garlic, jalapeño, chili powder, oregano, cumin, paprika, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper and stir to combine. Add in fire roasted tomatoes, cilantro and water.  If you are using beer, add it in now. Stir.
• Cook on high for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.
• If adding kidney beans, add them after 5 hours with salt and pepper. Continue cooking, uncovered, until it thickens, about 30-45 minutes.
• Serve in a bowl with your toppings.