This month’s recipe is courtesy of Jason Siess, and happened to earn the crown of champion at a recent chili cookoff! Enjoy!

Chili Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef (or desired meat)
1 large yellow onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 sugar pumpkin, diced (about 3 cups) or a 14 oz can of pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie)
1 (28 oz) can diced, fire roasted tomatoes
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (7 oz) can diced, roasted green chilies
1 cup chicken or beef stock
FOC (fat of choice…I used bacon grease)
Salt and Pepper (if you want more after blending everything)

The Spice Mixture:
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Orange Coriander Avocado Cream
2 avocados
Zest of 1 orange
Juice of 2 oranges
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Place a tablespoon of your FOC in a pan on medium high heat and brown the meat.

You can get the spice mixture ready while the meat is cooking.

Once the meat is browned, use a slotted spoon to remove the meat, leaving the fat in the pan. Add the garlic and onions and sauté in the fat for a couple minutes (to let the onions soften a bit). If you are using the cubed sugar pumpkin (instead of the pumpkin puree), sauté it along with the onions and garlic. Once complete, remove using your slotted spoon. Combine the meat, sautéed veggies, remaining chili ingredients, and spice mixture into your crockpot and heat. Add additional salt and pepper as desired.

If you decide to try the Avocado Cream, just mix the ingredients into a food processor and blend. The citric acid from the orange juice will help keep the avocados from oxidizing and changing colors, but it might be best to wait on making that until you are ready to eat.

The recipe (as it is listed) is not very spicy. To spice it up a bit, you can season the meat as you cooking it in the pan with Chipotle Pepper seasoning. In addition, you can use half roasted green chilies and half jalapeno peppers (I usually cook two batches at a time, so use one can of chilies and one can of jalapenos).