The Twitter Moms organization was looking for recipes that used canned food. My first reaction was to offer up the easy fruit cobbler made with a can of any fruit. It’s easy and delicious.

Then I read the directions. The request and the resulting contest called for a dish using at least two canned food items. This was a little harder in my pseudo-locavore home, but not impossible. One of my standards, crock-pot chili, uses several cans. I like it with homemade tomato sauce, but I rarely have sufficient tomato crop to make it that way for long. Chili is my standby when I have meetings or classes after teaching all day. Grandma comes over, adds the noodles, and serves it up with whatever side dish Amigo wants. In fact, to give credit where credit is due, “my” crock-pot chili was hers first.

The next requirement was to watch this video about canned food. At 10 minutes it was a little long for my taste (I’d rather read than watch videos), but I did see some interesting facts. My favorite part was the timeline in the beginning showing the history of canned food preservation. Did you know that early canned food sustained the Napoleonic Army? I didn’t, either. And that canned food was (supposedly) safe to eat after nuclear testing, making it the Thing To Have on the shelves in case of nuclear attack? Nope, I didn’t have that little piece of info, either.

But that’s not why I make chili. I keep the staples for making crock-pot chili in my pantry year round. Here it is:

Daisy’ Mom’s Crock-Pot Chili

1 can red beans (kidney beans, chili beans, or other)
1 can tomatoes (I like Red Gold diced with chilis)
1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned (leftover sloppy joe meat or meatsauce from spaghetti works, too)
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 cup red and/or green peppers
1/4 cup diced onion
1 large can tomato sauce (or leftover spaghetti sauce: you get my drift, it varies)

Place ingredients in crock-pot in that order. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-6 hours. In true Wisconsin style, I add 1 cup elbow macaroni or pasta shells about an hour before serving.
Serve with grated cheese (I said it’s Wisconsin!) or sour cream on top. Mmmmmm.

This is not a sponsored post. It is an entry in a contest on Twitter Moms. In fact, I’m not entirely sure the widget will work; I have yet to successfully upload a TM widget to Compost Happens. Well, here goes!