A Night of Firsts: Chili and Brownies

It's not that I've never made chili or brownies before; it's just that last night they actually turned out well. If you ask me, my chili tastes good, but Ryan's always measuring mine against his dad's. And his dad's always wins!

Last night I think his dad's chili probably still won, (I didn't ask) but Ryan did say that he really liked mine—for once! The title of this post comes from what he said after dinner while he was sampling a brownie: "This is a night of firsts—good chili and good brownies."

I never make good brownies. This stems from the fact that I always buy the cheapest brownie mix out there and then I occasionally try to skimp on the fat. (Don't try that, by the way.) But I'm determined to change. I finally bought a fancy Hershey's Triple Chunk mix (Ghiradelli's is next) and a Butterfinger candy bar.

I divided the mix in half, by the way, so that we couldn't eat a whole pan in one night. :) Then I spooned half of the batter into six lined muffin tins, sprinkled on broken up Butterfinger, spooned on another layer of brownie batter, and topped one more time with Butterfinger. DELICIOUS.

Anyway, here's the recipe I went off of for the chili, over at Allrecipes. I halved it for our family and also added about a quarter to a third of a fresh jalapeno, diced. As my sister Rachel says, we are part-Mexican. (AKA We grew up in AZ eating a whole lot of Mexican food.)