I made chili this weekend, with some inspiration from the Homesick Texan. Unlike her, I do put beans and tomatoes in my chili so I didn't follow her recipe exactly but I did follow the steps for cooking, soaking, and blending dried chilis for flavoring in place of the more usual chili powder. What a difference! The dried chilis gave the final product a much more complex, smoky flavor than the powdered stuff. It's not as simple as shaking flavoring out of a can, but so worth the extra effort.