Smoky Black Bean Chili

This is a super-easy chili whose ingredients can all be stocked up well ahead of time and kept on hand for whenever you get the craving. I like to make it on a weekend; I have just enough ambition when I get out of bed to put it together in the morning, and then I get to laze around the house smelling it all day, and eat lunch/dinner whenever I feel like it without any more work than spooning it out into a bowl. I've been trying to put together a recipe for my perfect chili for years now, incorporating the elements of other people's recipes that I liked best; I think this recipe, or a variation of it, is finally it. Sometimes I add a little lime juice, corn, red beans instead of black, stuff like that.

• Ready In: 1 hr 15 mins
• Serves: 6-10
• Yields: 1 really big pot

Ingredients

• 1  lb ground chicken or 1  lb ground beef
• 1  onion
• 1  tablespoon  minced garlic
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans
• 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (10 3/4ounce) can  Campbell's cheddar cheese soup
• 1⁄4 cup Worcestershire sauce (see note in step 4!)
• 1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1  teaspoon ground cloves
• 2  teaspoons ground cumin
• 2  teaspoons chili powder

Directions

1. Brown the meat on the stove. If you're using chicken/turkey, you'll probably want to put some oil in the pan first, but beef will make its own grease really quickly.
2. Dice the onion. Here, you can either sauté it with the meat or you can chuck it right into the pot raw. You can also set aside a little to sprinkle on top of the chili raw, for serving, as you would with shredded cheese.
3. Put all the ingredients in your crock pot; stir.
4. IMPORTANT: I don't actually measure anything when I make this, I just upend the bottles. So I'm totally guessing on the spice/W. sauce measurements. Please do adapt those to your own taste; I don't insist that I got them right at all.
5. Turn on the crock pot - low 6-8 hours, or high 3-4 hours, or until you really can't stand the anticipation anymore. If you do it in a big pot on the stove, let it simmer at least a half hour, IMO. Longer if you can; the longer it simmers the better it tastes, but sometimes you just can't wait, y'know?