I am no culinary expert but I can’t help sharing my discoveries.

I’ve always loved American chili, but often found the thick consistency and over-meatiness to be a bit much. Overwhelming, and not so complex in the flavor department.

Here’s a lovely soup to make with chili beans and meat, that’s actually inexpensive and much lighter in flavor and texture than most chili.

I like to buy a package of frozen beef patties and find ways to cook them using just one patty at a time. It gets some meat into our diet in a very inexpensive way. Anyway, every ingredient in this soup can be bought at Aldi, in quantities that none need be wasted.

You start by making the soup base. It can be used to make ultimately different soups as well.

A third of a white onion, diced

A quarter of three bell peppers, diced (I use these in so many recipes, including salads, that I never waste any out of a package of three.)

Two tablespoons butter

One frozen ground beef patty

One can chicken broth

The key with this soup is to simmer the ingredients in layers. You start by sauteeing the onion and peper together in butter. Then add the ground beef; chop, and simmer. Then the broth (and a little salt) and simmer.

The broth is the key ingedient here as it will thin out the chili texture, help to disguise the inferior flavor of the cheap meat, and add a savoriness without any noticeable chicken flavoring. (Believe me, if Scottie tasted chicken, this would never get eaten.)

This is your base.

After that, you want to boil some noodles. While that is heating up, add a can of diced tomato and chili peppers to the soup base. At Aldi you can find these cans with the other canned vegetables. This is my compromise with actually cooking my own chili peppers, which never turns out well for me. Simmer.

Add one can of chili beans; simmer.

Add one can tomato soup and water (or fresh tomato puree: ) simmer.

Drain the noodles (elbow macaroni is my choice.) Add them either directly to the soup or allow diners to add them in quantitiesto their own taste.

That’s your soup. You are using small quanities, in most cases pre-measured, of inexpensive ingredients. It feeds four to six people, depending upon how many noodles you use.

You keep the remaining beef patties in the freezer (freeze them in two layers of plastic and one of almunim foil to prevent freezer burn or unwanted flavoring.) You keep the rest of the onion and peppers in sealed plastic bags in the crisper drawer - as long as they and the bag aren’t wet, they’ll keep for a while.

And the family raves. Well, Johnny doesn’t rave as it’s a bity spicy for his tastes. But the husband raves.