Sweet Bean Chili to Power the Week Ahead

Good evening blog world!

How did the rest of everyone's weekends go? After wrapping up grocery shopping and my other errands the sun had gone in for the day and the rain and WIND were out so I didn't spend too much time outdoors. It was probably for the best though, I had a jam packed night of cooking ahead of me. I planned on making Sweet Bean Chili and cornbread for dinner because I knew it would give me a ton of left overs to last me through the busy week ahead.

Every year at my place of employment our Community Service Committee holds a Chili Cook Off. A bunch of employees volunteer to bring in a crock-pot of chili and at lunch everyone can go down and sample the all the different kinds. The money that is then raised goes to a predetermined charity (I believe it varies from year to year). Well I'm not usually a huge chili fan BUT I always go because it is for a good cause and I like samples. Through the Chili Cook Off I discovered this delicious dish I had for dinner tonight! :) 

All my ingredients ready to roll (minus the sweet tater)

 The recipe is as follows including my substitutions in parentheses:

Sweet Bean Chili

2-3 lbs ground beef, browned and drained (I used ground turkey instead of ground beef - I usually substitute in ground turkey because it's healthier and I don't notice a huge change in taste)

1 large can of baked beans - undrained (I use B&M - the best in my opinion!)

1 can corn - undrained (I had frozen corn on hand so I used that instead)

1 can white northern beans - undrained (I drained and rinsed them)

1 can yellow butter beans -  undrained (I drained and rinsed these too)

1 1/2 cup brown sugar (I used just a little over 1 cup and its still very sweet)

1 cup sugar

1 cup ketchup

3 Tbsp dry mustard

1 onion sliced thin (I used a large sweet white onion)

You can also add bacon (I added about half a package of turkey bacon already cooked)

Mix all the ingredients together and bring to a boil. I let it all simmer for about 45 minutes because I wanted the onions to soften and the flavors to marry. I believe the last time I made this I did it in the crock pot. I didn't have the time today for that but it still came out just as good!

All done! It tastes better than it looks I guess...

After that was all done I cleaned up in the kitchen and then moved my cleaning operation into the living room to go through my newspaper stack and weekly ads. A pretty relaxing evening to get me ready for the busy week ahead.

I'm off to go wind down and get ready for bed. I hope you all have a great Monday and I'll catch up with you tomorrow night!

As a preview of this week I am going to leave you with a teaser: Thompson Square. Any ideas how they fit in? Leave a comment ;)