veggie chilli

Veggie chilli is one of my favourite meals; I never get tired of it. I usually serve it with sour cream, guacamole and organic tortilla chips. Add a homemade bread and you're golden! This is a recipe I put together in 2009 (I made chilli yesterday so I decided to share the recipe with you today). For a long time I had wanted to make my own recipe because I had tried various ones and always felt something was missing. This one is not too spicy because of my children and because I don't really enjoy eating chilli that only burns my tongue; I want to be able to enjoy the taste of the other ingredients. As the name indicates, the recipe contains no meat. I have actually served it to meat eaters that didn't even realize that there was no meat in it.

VEGGIE CHILLI

INGREDIENTS

• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 4 large cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 green peppers or 1 green and 1 red, seeded and diced
• 1 green jalapeno or chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons mild chilli powder (use less if using hot, burning tongues are not exactly what we are aiming for)
• 2 tablespoons raw cane sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin (or seeds)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 can kidney beans (400 g)
• 1 can pinto beans (400 g)
• 1 can tomatoes (or 2 cans and skip the tomato paste)
• 2 tablespoons, heaped, tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

METHOD

1. Before you start cooking, rinse and drain the beans and keep them in a colander until ready to use. Mix all the spices and sugar in a small bowl (not the salt) and set aside. Make sure you are using spices of good quality. (You can use agave syrup instead of sugar and add it with the tomatoes)
2. In a large saucepan over low to medium heat, fry the chopped/diced vegetables in the olive oil until soft
3. Add the spices and sugar and mix together
4. Add the beans, tomatoes/tomato paste and salt and mix together
5. Put a lid on the saucepan, turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Then turn the heat down again and let the chilli simmer on lowest heat with the lid for 20-30 minutes and without it for another 10 minutes

You can use another can of either kidney or pinto beans but then you may want to add some tomato paste and water as well. If you like sweetcorn you can add 125-250 ml (1/2-1 cup) right in the end.

You can serve the veggie chilli with sour cream, cheddar, (homemade) guacamole, bread, organic snack (blue corn tortilla chips are my favourite) or whatever. Please make sure that you do not spoil this healthy recipe with unhealthy side dishes.

Chilli even tastes better the day after so it is perfect for the lunch box, if you are able to heat it at work. It's also excellent to make a grilled sandwich with chilli and cheese. If I'm serving it to guests and I have plenty of time, I cook it in the morning and let it sit in the pot. Then I simply heat it again right before the guests arrive.