More Traditions, Halloween Disappearing Chili

Halloween night is one of those opportunities to make memories with your family. I usually keep things pretty simple around here. We often make our own costumes, come up with creative characters, and we stay pretty close to home. One thing I have done every year is make chili for dinner. Sometimes food is a way to create long term memories for your kids. I want them to grow up and every Halloween feel like it is a chili night. The smell and taste will flood fond memories into their hearts and tummies! Not to mention - who doesn’t want to fill their kids up with something healthy before they descend upon mountains of candy?

When I was in high school, I had a crowd of friends who I went to church with. We were the “LBC” crowd, and many of those friends are still my closest today. Each Wednesday night a bunch of rowdy kids would gather and we would eat the wonderful - Wednesday night supper. These sweet ladies would serve each week making a delicious dinner for everyone, just so we all had a place to gather. It was a full meal for $3.25 cooked with love, and I might add that the cakes for dessert were divine. Every age was represented and it truly resembled family. The crowd always grew on the night she was serving Disappearing Chili. It was like a wave of excitement throughout the school day - it was Disappearing Chili night at LBC and you better believe we all showed up! Basically, this is just chili with biscuits filled with cheese and rolled in fritos baked inside. Yes, lots of yumminess right there. Hearty, not really healthy, but hey, not all memory filled foods are the healthy ones. Am I right?

This year, I spiced it up a bit and made Disappearing Chili for my littles and it was gobbled up in a NY minute. I shared this on my Instagram Story and many of you reached out to ask for the recipe. I thought I would give it its backstory and post it here. You can make any chili recipe you want, but I will share a favorite of mine - just don’t grab the paprika instead of the chili powder and use 3 tablespoons of paprika and try to cover it up! If you were wondering, nobody even noticed. Oops. I don’t have fancy pictures from the process because I wasn’t planned for it, but I will post my silly iPhone pics and you can send me your pictures!

For the Chili

This recipe is adapted from the blog Iowa Girl Eats Signature Spicy, Smoky, Sweet Chili.

  • 1 lb Ground beef
  • 1 can Kidney beans, drained
  • 1 Chopped onion
  • 1 Can of baked beans undrained (You know my love for Trader Joe’s, I swear theirs makes this delicious)
  • 3 teaspoons Chopped garlic
  • 2 cans of Tomato sauce
  • 3 tablespoons of chili powder
  • 1 Teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 Teaspoon of Salt
  • 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar or honey
  • Pepper to taste
  • ½ Teaspoon of Garlic powder
  • ½ Teaspoon of Onion powder
  • ½ Teaspoon of Cumin

Directions

Brown the ground beef, season with salt and pepper and drain off the fat. Add onion and garlic and saute with the beef over medium heat until slightly soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring to make sure it doesn’t stick to the pan. I love to cook this in my dutch oven.

Now to make this Disappearing Chili - you will need

  • Canned Biscuits
  • Block of Cheddar Cheese
  • Melted Butter
  • Fritos, Crushed

Pour your chili into a casserole dish, not quite to the top. Then you will add the biscuits, you guys, these are the yummiest part! I couldn’t find small biscuits, so I just used one can of the large biscuits and cut them in half, stuffed them with a piece of cheese, rolled it in butter and then roll it in crushed up Fritos. Stuff the biscuits into the chili until it is full. Sprinkle some shredded cheddar on top and bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

That’s it, easy peasy!!! Enjoy!! If you try it, let me know how your family likes it!

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Anita Corsini

Wife. Mom. Writer. Designer. Creative. Gift-lover.