Halloween has passed and your jack-o-lantern’s night in the spotlight is over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the seasonal taste of pumpkin.
We celebrated Halloween in the newsroom and I found this great pumpkin chili recipe to give a favorite dish a different twist. I was asked how many alarms this chili had and the truth is it’s not very hot at all. But it’s still quite tasty and a good dish for a cool fall night.
I adapted the preparation of this dish to suit the newsroom. Instead of cooking everything in a big pot, I cooked the beef and cooked some of the other ingredients together, but I added everything together in the crockpot and let it do most of the cooking there.
Pumpkin Chili
Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef
1 large onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans, drained
1 (46 fluid ounce) can tomato juice
1 (28 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 cup white sugar
Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, cook beef until brown; drain. Stir in onion and bell pepper and cook 5 minutes. Stir in beans, tomato juice, diced tomatoes and pumpkin puree. Season with pumpkin pie spice, chili powder and sugar. Simmer 1 hour.
