Last weekend was mine and James’ anniversary (we’re talking six years here, not six months). We had planned lots of activities – hiking, apple picking, SOWA open market, eating out…

Saturday we decided to tackle the hiking and apple picking part and me being a planner decided to throw a chili together in the crock pot to come home to. That week, we received numerous hot peppers and tomatoes from the farm, including the evil cherry bomb.

That round thing in the upper left hand corner? Yep, evil. Why? Oh, this little thing called allergic reactions, that lasted 48 hours. Hot burning sensations running up and down my hands. I will spare of you of all of the details, but I ended up needing to take Benadryl (which was conveniently recalled, and I had to buy some other weird form of it). I will probably not be cooking with hot peppers again. Or James will be doing the chopping with super gloves.

The chili itself though was quite delicious. And versatile. Here’s what you need –

• 8 – 10 tomatoes, skinned
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 4 Aji Dulce (not hot) peppers, chopped
• 2 habanero peppers, minced
• 2 glove of garlic, minced
• 1 cherry bomb pepper (optional as it is evil), minced
• 1 – 2 ears of corn scraped off the cob
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 1 6 oz can of tomato paste
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 cans of black beans

To skin the tomatoes, start by making an X cut on the bottom of the tomato. Boil water and drop tomatoes a few at a time for 20 seconds. Remove and transfer to a bowl of ice water. Peal up on where the X is. The skin should slide right off. Throw half of the tomatoes into the food processor and puree. Chop the other half (removing the pulp and seeds as you go) into small 1/4”  to 1/2” pieces. Throw this all into the crock pot (or alternatively you could throw into a regular pot and do this on the burner in half the time).

Throw the onion into the food processor for easy chopping. You should probably throw your peppers in too, or be like me and just rub the oil all over your hands. Dump all into the crock pot. Chop the peppers, cut the corn off the cob, mince your garlic. Throw everything else into the crock pot and set on low to cook for 8 hours. You could simmer for 2 to 3 hours on the stove as well.

We finished it off by browning some ground beef and mixing it in. Topped it with some corn bread and cheddar cheese.