On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 8:31:49 AM UTC-4, Sheldon wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jun 2021 01:03:27 -0400, Michael Trew >
> wrote:
> >I made my typically chili con carne from my pre-war Better Homes/Gardens
> >cook book, but I decided to nix half of the cost of the dish and make it
> >without ground beef this time; vegetarian if you will. Substituted
> >butter/olive oil for the fat and started off frying garlic/onions, then
> >adding crushed tomatoes, green pepper and seasoning; finally lots of
> >kidney/pinto/black beans.
> >
> >Honestly, I didn't feel that it was missing much of anything without the
> >ground beef... it maybe halved the cost, which was a nice bonus. Other
> >than adding a lot of beans, does anyone have useful tips on "vegetarian
> >chili"?
> You can cut down on the price of ground meat by grinding your own, and
> you'll know who's in it... pork costs less than beef so grind a pork
> shoulder. You can buy inexpensive beef roasts for grinding. I buy
> shoulder pork chops when on sale and filet out the meat to grind or to
> fry and braise the meaty bones in #10 cans of crushed tomatoes to make
> fantastic tomato sauce for pasta.

You don't need to grind meat for chili. I've cubed both pork shoulder and beef sirloin tip, or inside round or some such, and it turned out really good.