Chili ramblings

I soaked a pound of red beans overnight so I could get them cooked and in the freezer for future use. Once they were cooked, though, I decided to use half of them in chili.

We love chili, and I always make at least a double batch so I can freeze some. We have plenty of ground beef now (rest in peace, Meatloaf). I use the Better-Homes-and-Gardens recipe, which is listed as low-fat and actually contains more vegetables than meat. It's 381 calories for 1/4 of the recipe.

CHILI

• 12 ounces lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped green sweet pepper (1 small)
• 1 cup chopped onion (1 large)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 15-ounce can red kidney beans, undrained
• 1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 to 3 teaspoons chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

So I took another of my trips down memory lane and thought of how my mother made chili: She'd buy what she called a "chili brick" and add water to it. Maybe there was more; that's all I remember. Mother made a much thinner chili than I do; in fact, she called it chili soup, not just chili.

I wondered if anybody still makes or uses chili bricks and went to Google for the answer:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Another method of marketing commercial chili in the days before widespread home refrigerators was "brick chili", in the production of which nearly all of the moisture was squeezed out to leave a solid substance roughly the size and shape of a half-brick. Wolf Brand was sold in a brick before switching to a canned product.[2] Commonly available in small towns and rural areas of the American Southwest in the first three-quarters of the 20th century, brick chili has largely outlived its usefulness and is now difficult to find."

How about that? No wonder I hadn't thought of it in years.

Do any of my readers recall "brick chili" or "chili bricks"?