Southwest Chili Recipe

Below is a recipe my wife came up with from Chili. As is usually the case with both my wife & I we found the recipe elsewhere and then tweak it to our personal tastes. This particular recipe came from her WW cookbook. I've left her changes to the recipe intact:

1 lb. Ground Beef
1 pkg. McCormick (or store brand equivalent) Taco Mix (We've noticed Taco Mix is considerably lower in Sodium than Chili Mix)
1 bag frozen corn
2 cans diced or stewed tomatoes
1 lg. (or 2 small) cans of Black Beans
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1 qt. Chicken stock
Salt & Pepper (to taste)

Lightly sautee onion and garlic in frying pan, add to crock pot. Brown ground beef in same pan, pour off grease, add to crock pot with corn, tomatoes, black beans. Add chicken stock last. Set Crock pot to 8 or 10 hour setting. Stir occasionally (about once or twice every 2 hours or so).

My wife also added a bag of mixed frozen vegetables to give it more flavor and color but I’m guessing some of you would say that it’s no longer Chili at that point. Feel free to add Jalapenos or other spices to your personal tastes… You could also substitute beer instead of chicken stock if you so choose (If you do so, I recommend Bohemia, an excellent German style Mexican beer, easily the best Mexican beer I've ever had).