Tolbert's Chili Spice Recipe

Good ratio of spices for chili:
2 - 4 heaping Tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp oregano
1/2 cup paprika

This mixture is from a recipe in the front of an otherwise not so useful Texan Cookbook - but this recipe makes the book quite useful -
2-4 hot pepper pods or 1 heaping Tbsp chili powder per pod (see, useful already)
3 pounds lean chuck, cut into bite sized pieces (I _never_ use this much meat, but I do add a small, cheap piece of solid meat to about 1 1/2 pounds med. ground beef
2 ounces sweet beef kidney suet, divided (or vegetable oil) - I don't even know what beef kidney suet is, I just use olive oil.
1/3 cup garlic, finely chopped
chopped onion, optional (not optional IMHO - quite necessary, two med onions)

here's the useful spice part:
2 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp oregano
1/2 cup paprika (important not to get confused with Korean hot pepper powder which you also keep in your cupboard in the same type of jar...)
1 sprig fresh cilantro (I use cilantro in oil if I don't have fresh)

Note - this recipe has neither beans nor tomatoes. I add one tin of each and then split the batch in 1/2. Then to one I add another tin of kidney beans and to the other a second tin of tomatoes because my husband really likes the beans and despises the "chili soup" consistency I prefer.
Second Note - my husband has a cultural claim to some South American traditions and insists that chili should be eaten over rice. It does taste good, and certainly stretches a fairly cheap meal even further, although if you are doing the whole vegetarian thing and hoping for the complete protein combination, apparently you need to use brown rice, not white rice. I'm not vegetarian, but that information is worth verifying if you are.