Its Cold so lets warm it up with some Chili

Ah, what can I say, fall is finally here. I am happy and at the same time a little sad. Time is moving so quickly, I barely enjoyed the summer. I need to constantly remind myself to slow down and enjoy the time. Yet no matter how hard I try that doesn't happen. Its been rainy and cold lately that I decided I was in the mood for some chili. I love chili, its about only the few spicy things I will eat without complaint. This time around I wanted a very good recipe for chili and didn't know where to go for that, so I went to my old standby for dinner ideas "The Food Network" LOVE THEM...haha. So many delicious recipes to choose from, my mouth was salivating just trying to pick and choose and sometimes meld. Reading through them and telling myself, Bobby said add this and Emeril said add that, but Alton said do this, and I don't have that, but I do have this...I truly hope I'm not the only one that goes through that...lol.

So this time around I won't post a recipe, since it was not my own. I used Bobby Flay's "Beef and Black Bean Chili" recipe that is posted on "The Food Network" website. You should have seen me in the market looking for the chili powder he said to use...I was a wreck. The only good thing was I had sense enough to go to a market that I knew had a large South American section. I stand in said section scratching my head looking for the "pasilla" chile powder, oh boy here we go. No pasilla chile powder anywhere. In fact no chile powders of any kind; thankfully there were whole dried chiles, but still I could not find these dang-on pasilla chiles.  But the heavens were on my side when a Mexican family walked by and I stopped the women and asked them for a substitute for pasilla chiles. One of the ladies took pity on me and spent five minutes racking her brain, finally she tells me "Take these. That is as close as you are gonna get". It was like an episode of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" I swear; you know when Meredith goes okay lets do the 50/50 and you choose one, but you're still not sure and then you need to call a friend and waste another life line, but you had the damn answer right anyway...haha.
I get home and google the substitue for pasilla chiles and one of the sites that I was directed to did one better for me. The bag of chiles I chose with my first life line which in turn was the same bag of chiles my "stop a passerby and ask"  life line chose was indeed  "PASILLA CHILES" yay!!!! Apparently when they are dried they drop the whole "pasilla" and are just called "negro-black" chiles...sigh!!
But in the end the whole drama of "guess your chiles" and now go home and grind your own chiles (which by the way isn't that much trouble and taste better anyway) was damn well worth it.