Very Good Chilli

1lb ground beef
2 tins of tomatoes
1 tspn sun dried tomato paste
1/2lb mushrooms chopped
1 large onion chopped
half a garlic peeled and chopped
1 sweet pepper or pimento peppers chopped
1 tin of red beans drained or 1/2lb of dried beans soaked and cooked.
1 small chipottle pepper
1 tablespoon chilli powder
2 tspn paprika
1 sprig of thyme
salt and black pepper

Slow fry the onions garlic and peppers until soft then turn up the heat a little and brown meat until no raw showing. Add tomatoes and chop them up plus other ingredients. Add at least 1 tspn fresh black pepper and 1 tbspn salt.  Cook slowly for 45min to 1 hour. If it gets too thick add a little water. Serve with warm french bread or soft rolls and butter. Tastes better the second day when flavors have had time to adjust. Recently we went to a chilli cookoff in Edinburgh and went to 7 restaurants and tasted their chilli and ours was much better than any of them.