Homemade Hot Dog Chili Sauce

This recipe was one of my grandmother's -- and for some reason, old-fashioned hot dogs in casing, with chili sauce, just sounded FANTASTIC this week!

Sometimes you just need a little comfort food, ya know? I'm an adult -- if I want to eat like a 3 year old for dinner -- so be it!

The original recipe (below) makes 1 gallon. Seeing as I live in a 1-bedroom apartment, with a kitchen tinier than my work cubicle -- making 1 gallon of this stuff and freezing it was NOT a good idea.

I split the recipe in half -- realized it was STILL way too much -- and split it again. And I think that's where the issue arose. The spices just don't split evenly, I think. A pretty common occurance, though, and I'm relatively unpreterbed about it.

My chili sauce had a VERY strong clove flavor. I hate clove. This was bad. But I think with less clove, and more chili powder (maybe a sprinkle of cumin, to replace the nasty clove) it would be DEEELICIOUS. So those are my recc's -- run with it :-)

Below is the original (1 gallon), and then my divided-up recipe.

Hot Dog Chili Sauce
Ma's Recipe!

(Makes 1 gallons)

Sauce freezes easily for use later. Reccommend freezing in single-serving containers

2 lbs. ground beef, cooked, broken up into fine pieces (I use a potato masher and it works wonderfully), and drained of excess fat
1 1/2 cups finely diced onion
1/8 cup salt
1 1/4 oz. chili powder
1/2 -3/4 tbsp ground clove (Use 3/4 if you like clove, 1/2 or less if you don't)
1 tbsp black pepper
1 1/2 oz. paprika
1 tbsp sugar
1-14 oz. ketchup
6 cups of water
1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 cup water (Mix until flour and water are combined into a paste)

Directions
- Simmer all ingredients above together for 2 hours
- Stir frequently
- Makes about 1 gallon

Smaller Version of Above Recipe
1/2 lb. ground beef, cooked, broken up into fine pieces (I use a potato masher and it works wonderfully), and drained of excess fat
1/2 cup finely diced onion
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. chili powder
1/3 tsp. ground clove (Use 3/4 if you like clove, 1/2 or less if you don't)
1/8 tsp. black pepper
2 1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tbsp. sugar
3/4 cup ketchup
1 1/2 cups of water
1/4 cup all-purpose flour + 1/4 cup water (Mix until flour and water are combined into a paste)

Directions
- Simmer all ingredients above together for 20 minutes
- Stir frequently
- Makes about 4 cups

Reccommendations
- I would leave the clove out entirely, as I hated the flavor of it
- I would increase the chili powder slightly, and replace the clove with cumin, to give it a smokier, chili-er flavor