Chili When It's Chilly

This is another guest blog post from Joanna - who has saved me a whole week of having to write my own. Heh. I don't like vegetarian chili, I want to like it but I have never found a recipe that satisfied my meat craving where this particular dish is concerned.

This recipe uses a (I believe tofu based) veggie crumbles to replace the meat, so I'm really excited to try it out, it certainly looks meaty from the picture! Hopefully this weekend.

Thanks Jo!

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This last Thanksgiving was a very quiet one for me. Due to a bunch of schedules changing at what felt like the last minute, it was just me and my mom baking cookies and watching terrible sci-fi movies at her house on Thanksgiving day. Since it was just the two of us, we didn’t plan a formal meal. Instead, when lunchtime rolled around I poked around in her fridge and pantry and looked for inspiration. It was cold (first snowfall of the season) and I wanted comfort food. Chili was the winner.

I made up a batch and mom LOVED it. In fact, she loved it enough that she asked for my recipe. I was stumped for a second; I don’t have a chili recipe. There’s a core set of ingredients that are canned, but all the spices and fresh & frozen ingredients change depending on what’s around. I was able to scribble down a recipe for my mom. I should follow up to see if she’s made the recipe since.

So this past Saturday, I made myself a batch of chili. As I mentioned earlier, I have more bell peppers than one woman cooking for just herself should, so a lot of fresh peppers were used here. Needless to say, this made a lot of chili. I’ve been reheating servings in the microwave for lunches and dinners this week. I also stashed some in the freezer. I’m not certain how the crumbles will hold up after freezing and reheating – time will tell.

Oh, and the photo is before I sprinkled a ¼ of shredded cheese on top. Thought you’d like to see all the veggies.

Joanna’s Ever Changing Chili Recipe

Early January Edition

Ingredients

2 T. olive oil

Half a large sweet onion, diced

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 12oz package frozen veggie crumbles

(A very successful variation from the fall saw me using Trader Joe’s vegetarian chorizo instead of plain veggie crumbles. So spicy and amazing!)

2 T. chili powder (I’ve been on a chipotle chili powder kick. I love the extra smokiness.)

1 t. cumin

1 ½ C. bell pepper, diced (I mixed red and green)

1 C. crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 C. frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and drained

1 15oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 15oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 15oz can diced tomatoes

1 8oz can tomato sauce

½ C. red wine (or water as needed to reach chili consistency)

Shredded cheddar cheese for serving

Directions

In a big pot, sauté onions, garlic & crumbles in the olive oil until crumbles are browned. Add chili pepper and cumin for a minute or two. Add bell peppers & mushrooms & cook until peppers are tender – not terribly long.

Add everything else to the pot, stir and simmer til heated through – 20 minutes maybe.