Dave you asked about Chili recipe, no real recipe but this is what I did.
Start with 6 pack of beer, New Belgium Fat Tire is my flavor of the month, 1.5 lb of ground beef 85/15 Not what you'd call lean. I had some small ribeyes in the freezer and I chopped those up into tiny bits, you can see some in the photo above.
One good size onion. Chopped fine half of it, course chop the other half.
heat up a pan with some olive oil and chunk in the meat and the fine chop onion in the hot pan and let it sizzle. Season the way you want, I'm not much on salt but I use seasoning mixes you find at the grocery. Fry that up and drain the fat. Enjoy a beer as it's simmerin' :drinks
Start the crock pot, can o' chopped 'maters, can o' chili beans (I used Bush's, local favorite) small can of 'mater paste. Have another beer, you've worked hard so far. :drinks
Chili seasoning I used was McCormicks, again a local favorite, use what you'd like. I mixed the seasoning with a half a cup of water and put it in the crockpot, then added the drained meat, the other half of onion, mix it all with a wooden spoon and put the crockpot on low. I simmered this for about 6 hours till the onion was no where to be seen and the 'maters are just barely there. I left the lid off the cockpot the last hour and it thickened up nicely.
Your beer intake may vary, I was doing honey doos today as well so it was not what it could have been. I still got 3 more to og...go I mean..:drink