Stovetop Vegetarian Chili

2011-2-7

Stovetop Vegetarian Chili

This is recipe #1 in Good Housekeeping: Vegetarian Meals; Meatless Recipes Everyone Will Love. This is actually the third recipe in the book I've tried. For those of you who are just joining me, I had meant to go in order, for the most part. Somehow the pages got stuck together, and I neglected to see the first two recipes. Also, I am not a vegetarian, but I have good friends who are. One of those really good friends has this cookbook, and I told her I'd go through it kind of like Julie Powell did with Julia Child's cookbook.

I made this in a bit of a hurry, being on a time crunch, this morning. I'm pleased with how it turned out. Very tasty. My husband agrees. I made several of my own tweaks, as usually. You'll have to get a hold of the original recipe to see the differences. Unless you're content with my version. Plan on adding this to list of foods to make in the future.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 medium red onions - chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, sent through a garlic press
• 3 medium sweet potatoes - peeled & cut into small squares
  
• 1 jalapeno chile, seeded & minced
• 2 15.5 oz cans of black beans, drained
• 1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
  
• 1 28 oz can of pre-cut mushrooms
• olive oil
• 3 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp red sugar
• 3-4 tbsp sea salt
• 6-8 c. water
  

Directions:

• In a pan, with a few tablespoons of olive oil, on low medium heat, cook the red onions until transparent. I added a bit of sea salt towards the end of cooking.
• In a large pot, place in the sweet potatoes with just enough water to barely cover the sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil & lower heat until simmering with lid on but somewhat displaced. Cook for about 20-30 minutes.
• In the large pot, add everything else to the sweet potatoes: garlic, jalapeno chile, black beans, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, pre-cut mushrooms, chili powder, cumin, coriander, sea salt, and sugar. Add the red onions as well. Allow the contents enough time to soak in all the flavor, and it's ready to serve.
  

One rookie mistake I made was, I wish I had pan-fried the mushrooms first, before throwing them into the soup. Cooks fast that way. Sometimes the mushrooms don't quite cook well if they're thrown into the soup late in the game. Thankfully, the mushrooms were fine this time.

A delicious soup.

Still steaming. Can you see?


As my dad would say, "Try it; you'll like it."