Finally, after months of hits and misses and eating like a five-year-old, I have concocted and executed my first successful recipe!
I’ve been hankering for hearty comfort food lately. I even bought the ingredients to make my former food nemesis Chili Mac. So I hit the Web and my fledgling library of cookbooks to find a chili recipe. I couldn’t find one that had exactly what I was looking for, but I began to notice a pattern.
All of the recipes followed the same basic premise: saute vegetables, then add tomato and beans. Well, I thought, that’s simple enough. I went to Winn Dixie for onions and canned tomatoes and more beans.
My first attempt at sauteing vegetables failed miserably when I got the olive oil in the pan too hot. I thought for sure the fire alarm was going to go off. Luckily I had a big quasi-dutch oven pan my bought me ages ago and I had never got around to using. Because it was non-stick, I got to leave out the oil all together and save myself some serious calories and reduce the possibility that I would set the kitchen aflame.
I sauted some celery, green bell pepper, onion and mushrooms with a tablespoon of water and same garlic salt. Every recipe I saw called for a few cloves of garlic, but I had none. Once my veggies got soft, I added in a can of diced tomatoes with chilies, a can of whole peeled tomatoes, a can of black beans and a can of chili beans. I didn’t drain any of them. Then I put in some cumin and some chili powder, brought the whole thing to a boil and then dropped the heat and let it simmer for probably an hour or so, stirring every once and a while.
An hour seems like a long time, but it’s so very worth it. It might not even take you an hour, just simmer it until it’s the consistency you like. Because there’s no meat in it, you don’t have to worry about dying of mad cow or some other such thing.
Bonus? It makes a shit ton. I’ll have supper for the rest of the week most likely. I also made a pan of cornbread from a recipe I got from the Post Punk Kitchen Web site. It was truly delicious. I like my cornbread a little sweeter though, so I’m keeping my eye out for another recipe.
The next time I make this chili — oh yes, there will be a next time — I’m going to play around with the vegetables some. I like mushrooms and bell peppers and the celery did add a satifying crunch, but I might try corn and possibly chickpeas. I also want to try sauteing the veggies in either vegetable broth or tomato juice. Or maybe some of that fancy schmancy cooking wine I keep seeing at Rouse’s. I’m also going to put in some cocoa powder to take some the edge off the chili powder. The possibilities, they’re endless.
What makes me the happiest is that, for the first time since I started Weight Watchers, I’m full. You know the Taco Bell commercials where people announce how they’re full and it’s supposed to be so amazing because they ordered only from the value menu? Well, that how I felt after supper tonight. I had an entirely vegan, entirely healthy meal and I still got the nice, stuffed-to-the-gills, I-wanna-nap-now feeling. It also makes me feel a little more comfortable tooling around in the kitchen. I know chili’s probably not the hardest thing in the world to cook, but considering my skills up til now have consisted of boiling water, microwaving and heating up spaghetti sauce, I’m pretty damn proud of myself.
Wanna see some pics?
yay nanner!