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."

Chili

2010-8-6

I'm not sure what is motivating me to blog about chili, since I've shared some sort of recipe here before. Perhaps part of it is the fresh vegetables (such as squash and zucchini) and herbs I got, which went into the soup. Maybe also to share what I made for company Friday. My friend had two helpings of the chili. While writing this post, my husband's on his second bowl of chili, and there isn't much left.

Beef chili

2010-5-20

Beef Chili

I don't have any photo essays of the cooking process. Too much on my plate today. This was actually the second soup and third dish of the day.

Chili's one of those things people seem to really appreciate. To ease my conscience, I wanted this to be more than just a meat chili. So, I threw in some vegetables. Those of you who know me well realize that I don't merely experiment willy nilly; I'm a calculated risk taker when it comes to cooking. Won't do anything really weird . . . yet.

My husband, younger daughter (who's two), and mother-in-law seemed to really enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Ingredients:

• 2+ pounds of lean ground beef
• 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
• 15 ounce can of tomato sauce
• 2 15 ounce cans of black beans
• 1 pound package of carrots, peeled and cut into small chunks
  
• 1 package of celery, cut into thin pieces
  
• 1 medium sized onion, diced
  
• 3 garlic cloves, diced
  
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• chicken broth
• water
• sea salt
  

Directions:

• In a pan, caramelize the onion using some olive oil on low to medium heat.
• In a stock pot (mine holds a bit more than a gallon), toss in the carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, onion (once it's caramelized), several cups worth of water as well as chicken broth (extremely imprecise here; sorry).
• In the same aforementioned pan, pulling out most of the onion (it goes into the pot; see previous bullet), adding a tid bit of olive oil, cook the beef. Once done, I drained the liquid (I'll keep it for future use once the fat is separated from the broth), I poured the meat into the pot, to cook with everything else.
• Add in herbs and other ingredients - apple cider vinegar, thyme, oregano, black pepper, cayenne pepper, etc.

Serve with tortilla chips or corn chips. We also sprinkled shredded cheese on top. My husband and mother-in-law added some sour cream to theirs. Enjoy.