Chili for a chilly night

I woke up this morning with a serious chili craving...so after scouring the internets for good chili and cornbread (you can't eat chili without cornbread!) recipes, I headed to the market after work to pick up the necessary ingredients. Who knew you could put cocoa powder in chili? Here's my turkey chili cooking in my dutch oven, which is so much better than making it in a crock pot...the last time I tried the crock pot method, everything burned -- that's right, I somehow messed up a crock pot recipe!:

Yes, it's a giant pot, we will be eating chili for days.

As for the cornbread, I looked on the Food Network site and saw several unappetizing recipes by someone I won't call out by name (but she sure likes butta!)...and then I found a delicious-sounding Cheddar Dill Cornbread recipe by the Barefoot Contessa. I switched out the milk for creamed corn, which my favorite food blog, The Kitchn, says guarantees a moist cornbread. Here's the cornbread straight out of the oven, with some melted cheddar on top:

Sadly, the cornbread was a bit bland and too moist. How can three of my favorite things -- corn, dill, and cheese! -- be bland? No clue, but I couldn't really taste any of those ingredients, they seemed to cancel each other out.

Still dinner was delicious...I washed it all down with a nice glass of my new favorite wine drank, Tinto.