Cincinnati Chili on Election Night

If you are American (or living in America), today is a big day. After weeks, if not months, of phone calls, junk mail, and TV harassment from both parties, we will finally know who the president will be for the next four years. If you don’t live in the US of A, I simply hope you had a lovely day. 🙂 As I am not a citizen (yet!), I didn’t personally get to vote today. But, whether you lean on the republican, democrat or independent side, I think we can all agree that the real winner should be Linus, right? 😉

Now, I decided to celebrate election night with an American classic…and even a swing-state classic: Cincinnati chili! A few years ago, my husband and I took a motorcycle trip to Cincinnati to visit his brother. We had a great time and one of the highlights for me was definitely trying some Cincinnati chili for the first time. I loved loved loved it and here’s a photo to prove it…

Important note: This food wasn’t all mine, I love to eat…but not THAT much!

I came across a recipe for this famous chili and decided that tonight was the night. I got the slow cooker going this morning and the house smelled heavenly all day. I was a little worried when I opened the slow cooker but it ended up tasting great. I know that, according to tradition, this chili is supposed to be served on spaghetti with shredded cheddar cheese on top. Well, I had the spaghetti but not the cheddar so I cheated and put mozzarella instead. Let’s just say that it wasn’t my best decision. I knew that my husband doesn’t like pasta so I also made a loaf of bread (in the bread machine) for him. I used the recipe I found on Chew Nibble Nosh and you can find it RIGHT HERE. It was so very easy to make and the result was great. I even bought some hotdogs to eat some chili dogs with the leftovers this week. Yes, it’s going to be this kind of week. 🙂
All in all, this turned out to be a super easy dinner. For the chili and bread, I only had to throw stuff in a machine (slow cooker and bread machine, respectively) and threw some pasta to boil right before serving. And the result was perfect.