Brown Sugar Chili and Cornbread Muffins

 

Hello lovely blogging Besties of my heart! 

Happy Friday Eve. 😁🧡

Today I thought I'd share the cornbread muffins I make and the brown sugar chili recipe I do. These are favorites around here every Autumn. Especially to have on a football Sunday! Cozy comfort food and the Green Bay Packers just go together. (IYKYK 😉) 

For the muffins I just use a mix I love. We have a chain of restaurants in the north (at least I think they're mainly in the north?) called Famous Dave's. It's a BBQ kind of place. And they have awesome cornbread. I like to make muffins, instead of bread, so I often do 6 jumbo muffins. I just follow the instructions on the box. 

When they come out of the oven I brush honey butter on them. I use the recipe suggested on the famous Dave's box: in a bowl mix softened butter (1/2 cup) and 1/4 cup of honey together. While muffins are still hot out of the oven I brush the butter all over the tops and it makes a nice glaze on them. Soaks right into the tops. I then save the leftover butter for serving.  This is the box of the brand I like, but any cornbread muffin mix or recipe could work for muffins and to add the yummy honey butter. 😋

I found a recipe many years ago for a brown sugar chili, but it was a brown chili (no tomato sauce) and used different ingredients I didn't care for and so I tweaked it to this recipe that I made how I prefer my chili.  I just liked the idea of the brown sugar for "sweet heat" flavor.

Carrie's Brown Sugar Chili

1&1/2 pounds of ground beef

1 green pepper (chopped)

1/2 or more of an onion (chopped)

chopped garlic (1 -2 cloves)

1 small can baked beans

1 can chili beans (I usually use mild)

1/2 can kidney beans  - drained (only 1/2 as I don't like them)

1 can of tomato sauce

1-2 TBSP (or to taste) of brown sugar

chili powder to taste (I usually use a bit - maybe 2-3TBSP or more 

paprika to taste (maybe 2 tsp)

cumin (maybe a tsp)

cayenne pepper to taste (maybe 1 tsp)

*sometimes instead of cayenne I've put in chopped fresh jalapenos too.

DIRECTIONS: heat a tbsp of oil in a pot and saute onion and green pepper until they start to soften. Add chopped garlic and cook for a minute stirring constantly. Then push the veggies to the side of the pot and add ground beef. Cook through breaking up as you go and slowly incorporate the veggies into it. I often salt and pepper it a bit too.

 Drain grease once beef is fully cooked through. Then add all the beans and tomato sauce to the pot. Once mixed well, start adding your seasonings. I like to add about the amounts I stated above (or start with less) and then let it simmer a bit. And then I taste and add more seasonings if needed. Remember you can always add - but you can't take away. So add to your liking and check as you go. 

Once it's how you like it let it simmer on the stove until ready to serve. 

This is for a regular batch of chili. But I often make this for bigger groups when entertaining and then I double the recipe and put it all in a slow cooker to keep warm. I forgot to take pictures of our bowls of chili last weekend - but I serve mine setting out toppings of chopped raw onion, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and fritos. Then folks can top their bowls of chili with whichever fixings they like. I enjoy mine with some shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream and I mix it all into the chili. And then I like the big fritos scoop chips and I eat my chili with them acting as my spoon  - like a big dip! 😋 So good! 

If you try - enjoy! 

xoxo