My chili is made in the crock-pot and I think it tastes a lot like Wendy's. What I start out with is a pound of ground beef that has been browned and drained. I add a packet of taco seasoning mix, about a cup or so of salsa, a can of kidney beans and a can of black beans if I have them around. let that cook on high in the crock pot for a couple of hours for the flavors to blend and give it a taste every once in a while. May need to add some Franks if you need some more heat, but it's pretty simple. To give it more of the Wendy's "feel", I sometimes will substitute the lb. of ground beef with four 1/4 lb. hamburger patties that I've cooked up and cut up into chunks. I usually have ground beef that we've pre-browned for convenience and I'm too lazy to fry up burgers when I'm hungry for chili...
I found a recipe for White Bean Chicken Chili that we make in the crock-pot, too that's REALLY good. We also make Taco Soup, baked potatoes, pulled pork BBQ and Chicken Torilla Soup in it as well. Feeding 6 people with as busy as a schedule as we have, I LOVE the crock-pot. I can set it up in the morning and forget it until after the school run when I make bread or cut up salad or whatever needs doing. We use the crock pot for cooking up batches of beans too.
For convenience, also - we make our own chicken and beef stock from left-overs and freeze it in bulk. We also process up batches of shredded chicken, browned ground beef, kidney beans, white beans, pinto beans and black beans. I have everything stored in one of two large deep freezers so I can go "grocery shopping" for meals in the back yard (outbuilding where the freezers are). We also have two refridgerator/freezers in the kitchen for day-to-day eating. As my wife calls it, we "Eat like we are rich, but we shop like we are poor."
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