2012 Chili Contest - "Still Sleeping Alone" Wins Second Year in a Row

Last Saturday was our local chili cook off.  The way the Front Porch Chilifest is run, the year after you win, you are an honorary judge rather than a competitor.  Rocco and I are competitors at heart so we opted to enter a Chili and only be eligible for the people's choice award.  We were not eligible for the judges pick "Best in Fest".

RECIPE

Result?  We won again!  Two years in a row of "peoples choice" award. We worked on the chili from 8am - 2:30pm, then hauled all 70lbs over to the contest. Those giant chili pots came from Rocco's bagel shop.  He also browned off all the meat the night before to give us a head start.

At the contest we served every drop.  500+ people had the pleasure of sampling "Still Sleeping Alone". We had a big jar of my homemade hot sauce (recipe and video coming soon) as an option to increase the heat.

If your ready to make your own I'll give you my best advice.  Don't be afraid of chili powder.  There is a lot more chili powder in good chili than you might think.  Chili needs to be very spicy to taste like chili.  Not necessarily hot and spicy, just spicy.  The quality of the chili powder is also a big factor.  That big plastic McCormick container you bought at BJ's in 1998..  chuck it.

This was all for charity. The Front Porch Club raised over 10K for the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council.

There were some minor adjustments to the RECIPE from last year.  I can't give away all our secrets, but I will give you a hint!  Any ingredients not listed in the recipe (there aren't many) appear in the video.  Check it out.

If you want to compare how we made the Chili year over year, here is the 2011 video: