Ground beef (I would start with at least 2 lbs, if you are serving to others or want to keep some in the freezer)
Yellow onions
Garlic
Chopped tomatoes or tomato sauce (pure, no salt or flavoring)
Kidney beans (canned or fresh; if fresh, cook down the way you usually do before adding to chili) (Black beans or black-eyed peas can be added, but at that point you're talking bean soup.)
Sometimes I add celery, but, again, “celery” to me means “soup.” Chili isn't soup. So be careful with your culinary genres.
Fresh cilantro
Canned or frozen sweet white corn

Rough and ready Mole paste:
Dried chilis
Neutral-flavored oil (canola or similar) (or use leftover beef oil)
Tomato paste
Baking chocolate, or genuine Mexican chocolate if you want to be picky
Pumpkin and/or sesame seeds and /or pine nuts
Cumin

Let's start the mole paste first. This is not as complex as the mole you would make as a sauce for a dish, but if you want to take extra care with it, buy the right dried chilis. I am not a chili expert, despite living in Austin for 10 years. I just read what's on the package and try to imagine how it would taste. Chipotle and ancho work well together. Ancho is sweet and fruity and chipotle is smoky and spicy. I used pasillo also, just because I had it and it seemed like it would blend well.
Soak dried chilis in water till soft, save the water.

While the chilis are soaking . . . .

Saute the ground beef in its own grease in a big skillet, when completely browned, drain on spatula and put in soup pot. Leave as much oil/grease as possible in skillet.
Chop several big yellow onions into 1-in. chunks and add to remaining grease in skillet.
Mince a head of garlic and add to remaining grease in skillet.
Let all that cook down till onion is translucent, then drain on spatula and add to meat in soup pot. Again, leave as much grease in skillet as you can.
You want a ratio of meat to onions that when they are together in the pot you can see chunks of onion even though it's cooked down.
Add tomato, not so much that the mix becomes soupy.

While that's simmering, back to the mole.

Scrape chili flesh off the skin, discard skin.
Add sesame or pumpkin seeds to skillet and brown them in the remaining beef grease, add a neutral-flavored oil (canola or similar) if necessary.
Add chili flesh.
(If you don't want to be a perfectionist, buy chili powder. But if you want flavor get powder from particular chilis, not just generic “chili powder.”)

Add your chili-soaked water, and beef stock or more water as needed for consistency.
Add tomato paste and chocolate and cumin. If you want a more fruity flavor add raisins or figs and cinnamon.
You want a paste, so you may need to grind or mush this to the right consistency if the chili pulp and seeds don't cook down enough.

Balance the fruitiness of the tomato/dried fruit with the sweetness of the chocolate with the spiciness of the chili and other spices however you like. Ideally it should not be so spicy that it's hard to eat, but it should give you a slow subtle burn. The chocolate should be an undertone. It's not a sweet soup, it's a hearty chili for cold winter nights.

Add one-fourth to one-third as much beans to the soup pot as the meat/onion mix.
Add mole mix to taste. Add sweet white corn, frozen or canned, to taste. (I learned about this when a friend shared her gazpacho recipe. Sweet white corn takes everything to a higher level.)

Let sit in the fridge to blend the flavors. Remember, chilis keep working even when the dish is cold, so expect it to get a bit more spicy as it sits.