Potluck Chili

I was invited to a potluck, so I wanted to do something legitimate compared to my past potlucks where I made fried rice (sounds better than it was) or edamame beans. Since I now possess a slow cooker (thanks mom), my roommate and I decided to make chili! Since he's Muslim, we went out to buy 2 pounds of ground halal beef. We followed a recipe (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/slow-cooked-chili/Detail.aspx) but replaced a can of kidney beans for chickpeas, added a 4-inch long jalapeno pepper, cilantro, basil leaves, garlic cloves, oregano, and the other can of kidney beans was replaced with a mixed-bean can. 

After setting it on low and leaving it for 10 hours (yes, 10 hours), it looked like this:

It was pretty spicy for my taste, but my roommate didn't find it spicy at all (then again, he's Indian). We brought shredded mozzarella cheese to the potluck to top off the chili too. Since there was pizza at the potluck, my chili also turned out to be a great dipping sauce for the crust too :P 

There were some leftovers so we brought it back home. It made for a great snack/fast meal. Here it is topped with mozzarella and that herb I just love so much.

I think next time I'll try other types of meat (steak, ground turkey), and maybe cook the meat with onions before throwing it into the slow cooker (which would have some raw onions as well). So many possibilities!