Chili con carne take 2

It's that season again.  And when the pantry is relatively empty it's easy enough just to go with what you have.  This worked out fine and basically proves that con carne is just one of those things you can do just about anything to without messing it up too badly.

This time, sweat two smallish white onions in olive oil until nice and tender.

Add in one to 1.5 pounds ground beef (70-30 if you can get it of course; 80-20 works though I wouldn't go much lower than that).  When that's mostly cooked through, throw in (of course) cumin and oregano along with cayenne in relatively equal parts.  Don't worry, the bulk of the heat will come later.

To that, add:

• 1 can black beans, half drained
• 1 can pinto beans, half drained
• 1 can great northern beans, half drained
• 2 cans tomato paste
• 1 can chipotle in adobo, chopped

Mix that together adding water as needed.  Garnish with cilantro (or parsley as that's what I had and it worked fine) and cheese of your choice.

Relatively quick, dead simple, and quite hardy.  Plus, well, hot.  Chipotle in adobo tends to lend itself to that quite well.

Black beans

This one's easy.  And tasty.  You can modulate spice if need be, and they're slightly (but only slightly) on the unusual side for just standard black beans.

Chop:

• One half white/yellow onion.  Pretty small bits.
• Four or five cloves of garlic

Sweat in olive oil.  Add:

• About 1/3 of a 7oz can of chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, rough chopped, with some of the sauce itself.  This stuff is potent, as it turns out.  Save the rest for another day.

When that's all nicely combined, add:

• Two cans of black beans, one of them without liquid
• One can chicken broth

Bring all that to a boil and reduce it down until the liquid is just covering the beans.  Cover, reduce heat, add some salt.  You can hold that warm as long as you need and beans will just get softer and mushier, which can be desirable.