I have a first place ribbon hanging on my refrigerator door tonight. I won first place at our church chili cook off! Well technically HH (my Honorable Husband) won the ribbon, but he couldn't have done it without me.

Last year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the church had a turkey dinner. This year the ladies decided to have a chili cook off. The men were to each fix a pot of chili, and the women were to bring corn bread or cake. Now HH does a lot of things well, but cooking is not one of them. So I agreed to make the chili, and let him get the credit - or the blame.

When our children were younger, we used to go camping with three other families. John would make a huge batch of chili and freeze it in milk cartons. The frozen chili kept his ice chest cold during the first part of the trip, and then one night we would heat the chili up over a camp fire and enjoy. I made John's camp chili.

I'll give you John's original recipe, then give a few hints for making it BTD friendly.

2 pounds of ground meat

1 regular can of Ranch Style Beans

1 can of Rotel tomatoes and green chilies

1 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

2 cans ( 6 oz) of tomato sauce

salt and pepper

For the cook off, I used ground turkey. DD (my Darling Daughter) knew that all the other chili would be made with beef. She wanted something she could eat with a clean conscience. I don't buy tomato sauce any more because of the corn syrup. I substituted tomato paste, and liked the way it made the chili just a tad thicker.

The tomatoes and green chilies were avoids for Type As, as was the green pepper. If I had been making the chili at home, I could have left out the green pepper, but chili just isn't chili without a tomato base. Ranch beans are pinto beans, which are avoid for me. If I had been making chili at home, I could have used black beans or some other neutral bean.

Everybody liked the chili, and we didn't have any leftovers. DD and I laughed when HH was announced as the winner. He let me have the ribbon when we got home.