Regardless of how you like your chili- (beans, no beans, beef, pork, mixed, chunked, ground) with a million chili recipes out there, the difference between good chili and great chili is the seasoning and the main seasoning in chili is chili powder. I've made many pots of chili using commercial chili powder and been quite happy with the end results but the last pot o' chili I made contained homemade chili powder and I have to say, "I will never buy another bag, bottle, pouch, sack, tin or box of commercial chili powder for my chili". Inspired by Cook's Illustrated, I took their advice and purchased dried Ancho chili's and dried New Mexico chili's (found in many stores), put them on a cookie sheet and using low oven heat, slow roasted them until they were brittle enough to grind to a powder in a spice grinder (I use a Braun coffee-spice grinder). Using the homemade powder gave my chili a deep, dark extremely flavorful chili base that cannot be duplicated using commercial chili powder. Combine that with whole roasted cumin seed that is also ground, and you've the beginnings of not a good chili... but a great chili. So get out there an get chili!!
