Enough With the Preaching

So, that's about enough of the preachy crap for now.
How about a recipe?

Here is the recipe for Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili that I made the other night.
It is from one of my favorite websites, vegweb.com.

They have vegan recipes for everything. This is handy for those of us who do not do the dairy. I put the chicken and eggs back in (and sometimes I add buffalo meat where they have TVP (textured vegetable protein)) which is probably sacreligious to the vegan crowd, but good for those looking for non-dairy recipes that aren't total crap. Am I saying "crap" too much in this entry? Well, crap!

Anyway, here it is:

Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

2 onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
2-3 tablespoon olive oil (more if onions start to burn)
2 cans (4 oz) diced green chiles
2 tablespoon spices (cumin, chile powder, cinnamon, cocoa powder to taste)
1 large lime (or 2 small), zest and juice
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2 cubes
28 oz can whole tomatoes, chopped
4 cans (15 oz) black beans, rinsed
2 chipotle chiles (canned chipotle in adobo sauce), chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped leaves
1/2 - 1 cup water as needed
Buy organic when possible!

Directions:

Saute garlic and onions in olive oil on low-medium heat till limp. Add lime zest, squash, 1/2 lime juice, and spices and cook covered for 15 min (add a little water or olive oil if the mixture starts to stick to the bottom). Add tomatoes, black beans, chipotle chiles, cilantro and cook until sweet potatoes are tender. Add remaining lime juice and more spices to taste if necessary, and simmer covered for 10 min, adding more water if needed.

Serve with brown basmati rice and vegan sour cream!!!

Serves: 8

Preparation time: 1hr

VEGETARIANS STOP READING NOW (This means you, Laurie):
I think this recipe would be fantastic made with buffalo, elk, deer, or moose in place of some of the black beans.

VEGETARIANS CAN START READING AGAIN
I've been putting it over brown rice in "tupperware" (used margarine tubs a friend gives me) for lunch at work. Since I started with dry beans, used a fajita spice packet I had left over from christmas, and most of the other ingredients are fresh or almost-always-on-sale-canned, it's a pretty frugal dish. And what's simpler than beans and rice? (which is also a complete protein)

And yes, Pamela, I like this recipe because there is no juice to the chili. I find that juice in chili, stew, or soup is really just wasted space. I know others think it is "broth" or "sauce" or whatever. I don't care for it. I prefer my chili/stew/soup to be more like a stove top casserole.

Last night I served this over oven fries (made from organic purple potatoes) with cheese on top...the hippie version of chili cheese fries. El Kid loved it. Mine was good even with almond cheese. Wish I had taken a photo...oh well.

Anyway, I think this chili would be fantastic camping food! You could leave it simmering on the wood stove all day and eat and eat and eat. Then, fart all night providing your own heat when the stank hits a candle and the whole place blows up!