Vegetarian Chili

The recipe for this vegetarian chili may be found HERE at the Fork And Bottle blog (hey, who gets to be the bottle anyway?) with a few changes.

I used pinto beans in place of the kidney beans, and I added a few extra spices like epazote (1 tablespoon) and extra tablespoon of cumin, 1 teaspoon thyme, 4 bay leaves, 2 heaping tablespoons of powdered cocoa, I omitted the tomato juice and used a tin of tomato sauce with an equal part water, and finally, I omitted the fresh chillies in favour of twice as much ancho.

I also cooked the daylights out of it (hours) because I have a youngster who will be eating it and doesn't always chew his vegetables as well as he ought to. I probably will run his portion through the food processor briefly, just to be on the safe side. I also really like thick stew-chili, therefore the extra cooking.

I need to make room in the fridge for the birthday cake tomorrow (finally! all that planning! Watch me screw it up!) so I expect to freeze some of this. I'll let you know how it re-heats when I use it again. I have the two loaves of rustic bread for serving (thought about bread bowls, but that seems wasteful) with it and I'm planning to roast some red potatoes with rosemary. Typically, I serve this sort of thing over brown rice, but that just seems like too much of a carbo-bomb, even without potatoes.