Almond Chili

...yeah, I said "Almond Chili."  Let me explain.

Several years ago, I was in Indianapolis and my companion and I went downtown to walk around and see the sights.  We came across a chili place and decided to check it out.  The restaurant had a few types of chili, plus a rotating set of seasonal chilis.  You could get a sampler of 5 or 6 types of chilis either as a full meal or to try them out before ordering.  We got the sampler to share, as one of their chilis was a vegetarian version.  It was made with tvp (textured vegetable protein, which is in many, many veggie meat products and is a reasonable facsimilie for ground beef).  But, this veggie chili also had nuts in it.  Peanuts, if I remember correctly.  It was pretty good chili, not the best, but the thing that really stuck out in my mind was how good the nuts were in it.

Since then, I occassionally recall that chili, and when I do I tell myself that someday I'm going to try doing that.  Well, it's been a long time coming, but the other day I finally gave nuts in chili a try.  I used ground up toasted almonds.  I made a typical chili for me except that I didn't use kidney beans, and I used a few roasted mild green chiles, which I don't normally use.  I used my flavour shaker (I love that thing!) to crush the almonds so that they were a mixture of pulverized-into-a-powder and very-fine-tiny-pieces.

Dan and I sampled the chili for dinner that night, and wow, it was really good!  The almonds added a nice subtle, nutty flavor which really highlighted the dried chiles well.  Also, the not-quite-ground-up little pieces of almond added a little texture which I thought was really nice.  If I hadn't told him that it had almonds in it, I don't think he would have known; it was really subtle.  But it did work really well!  I am so making this again, for sure.  If you have a few nuts leftover from something the next time you make chili, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Happy New Year eating!