Vegetarian Chilli

Anybody else notice that wee cold snap today? True, we don't get Minnesota cold here, but our houses aren't insulated like theirs, and we can't just hop into our car and drive everywhere. No, we have to brave the wind, rain, and hail as we go to and from our local educational institutions...or to and from the bus stop, anyway.

Monday this autumn has been swimming day for us, so normally I make some kind of soup as it's easy to heat up when the kids and I get back. But today, I felt like something different, something to mark the end of the Monday afternoon swim lessons. Something like CHILLI!

Now, now, don't get too excited. It isn't chilli con carne, but a vegetarian chilli based off of a recipe in Nigella Lawson's Feast. (and yes, I have been watching the news each day for reports on the trial.  I find it ghoulishly fascinating getting a glimpse inside the Domestic Goddess's household.  Yes, I'm a bad person). This recipe is wonderfully tasty, and not so runny, bland, or wholesome tasting as I find most veggie chillis. It's gooood, real gooooood, but I can't pretend it's the same as the meat lover's variety.

First, I actually got my act together enough to put out the ingredients. Trust me, this was more than I expected myself capable of today:

It's a huge recipe. I make the full batch and then freeze about 2/3 of it for future lazy evenings. I can usually get my kids to eat this pretty easily, so I'm happy to make a big batch of it.
First, in went the onions. Nigella says to put the onions in with the peppers and garlic straight away, but I didn't have enough room on my chopping board to easily slice them all at once, so I just stuck the onions in to cook while I went on to do the peppers. Why use more than one chopping board or bowl if you don't have to?

So those sizzled and I chopped up the peppers and added them.

Then I put the garlic on top.  Stir, stir, stir, soften, soften, soften.

Now for a bit of SPICE. Me like-a the spice-a!

Ahem.

Coriander seed, lots of paprika, cardamom pods, and ground cumin went in. I usually use cumin seeds, but the other day I bought some, used them, and then couldn't find them, so went out to my corner shop and bought the only form of cumin they had, which was ground cumin. I then came home to find the cumin seeds...in the fridge.  Oops.  Stupid brain.  So now I'm using up the ground cumin as it doesn't last as long as the seeds.

And I use paprika rather than the crushed chilli she calls for because my little people eat more if I don't put it in.  Paprika adds a similar flavour without making my kids drink 2 gallons of water with their meal.

You needed to know all that, didn't you?  Course you did.

Once those had heated up, in went a couple boxes of chopped tomatoes.

And some water from rinsing them out. I got the wooden utensil from Williams Sonoma, a store I love that can be a bit over the top: http://deadspin.com/the-2013-haters-guide-to-the-williams-sonoma-catalog-1481230580

Then in went the kidney beans. I use canned beans, because apart from the fact that cooking your own beans is a pain in the backside, I find I never manage to get them soft enough when I cook them myself. Then I read about how if you under-cook kidney beans it can make you deathly ill, even land you in hospital, and decided I'm done with using dried kidney beans.

For more kidney bean stories, read this: http://dailynewsen.com/2013/10/18/delia-smith-and-esther-rantzen-reheat-1970s-chilli-con-carne-feud.html

or just keep looking at my chilli being created. Your choice.

A squirt of ketchup.

Some more squirts of tomato puree

Then some oregano and some unsweetened cocoa powder.  Trust me on this one.

Oh, and the lentils.  They were supposed to go in after we fried up the spices, but I forgot. It'll be fine.

A quick stir...

Then I let it simmer for 40 minutes.  At the end, I sprinkled some chopped coriander on it and left it to intensify in flavour until we returned in the evening.  We had some rice and sour cream with ours with some tortilla chips on the side too. And now, in my freezer, in 6 different randomly sized containers, I have what's left of it.  Why so many? Because those are the only ones I could find, of course.

Vegetarian Chilli (adapted from recipe in Nigella Lawson's Feast)

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large peppers, diced
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 1 1/2 tsp  coriander seeds
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 4 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
• 300g red lentils
• 2 cans chopped tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cans water from tomato containers
• 2 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 3 Tbsp ketchup
• 3 Tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 
  
• For serving:
• small handful fresh coriander, chopped
• sour cream
• rice
• tortilla chips
• 
  

1. To prepare chili, heat olive oil over medium-low heat in a deep, wide pan with a lid. Add onions, garlic and bell peppers, and sauté until softened, about 5-10 minutes. Stir in paprika, coriander, cumin and cardamom pods. Stir in lentils.
2. Add chopped tomatoes, kidney beans, ketchup, tomato paste, cocoa, oregano, and water. Stir well. Cover, and simmer, stirring frequently, until mixture is thickened and beans are tender, about 45 minutes. Taste and season. Sprinkle on coriander and serve alongside rice, sour cream, and tortilla chips.

Bean filled peppers served alongside squashed stuffed with leeks

The nights are drawing in, and winter is coming.  And with it come winter bugs.

We got a handout from my daughter's nursery about hand washing today - I think quite a few children were afflicted with a vomiting illness last week.  When I take over the world, I certainly will make sure that all sinks are fitted with a blender tap that can emit neither hot nor cold but warm water for hand washing.  I feel like this would help a lot in combating the fear of faucets that children have.

We had a couple meat heavy meals at the weekend, so now we are trying to get some vegetables back into our bodies to fight off these maladies.  Do leeks count as leafy greens? Hmm...

I turned to my Veg Every Day book from the River Cottage and saw two things that looked alluring: Stuffed peppers, which always proves popular as a veggie main meal, and squash stuffed with leeks.  Having seen lots of interesting squash adorning the supermarket shelves along with bargains on leeks, this seemed like a nice, seasonal choice.  Since there is cheese in it, I knew my kids would be less enthusiastic than me, but I hope that by continuing to put foods they dislike in front of them at dinnertime eventually they'll change their minds.

For once I had plenty of time on my hands as I only had one child pick-up to complete.  After a trip to Lidl, I gathered the pepper ingredients together:

First I had to grill/broil the peppers.  I hate this job, as it requires lots of turning, cooling time, and finicky peeling.  Unfortunately, I only remembered how much I hate it several minutes into it.  At least roast peppers do reward you with tastiness.

While they did their thing in the oven, I chopped up a few of these babies with some garlic:

The recipe had suggested grating tomatoes into the shallots but keeping the peel, but that sounded like it would be painful for my hands (I hate the acidity of tomatoes) so I opted for just peeling some cherry tomatoes instead and throwing them in.  I used a knife to make a cross in the end of them and poured over boiling water.

Finally, the peppers looked charred so I took them out and put them into a bag to cool.

Well, if I'm going to pay for a Lidl bag, I want to use it more than once...

After draining the hot water and cooling them with cold water I peeled the tomatoes

And ground some cumin

I peeled all the friggin' peppers and set them aside.

I cooked the shallots and garlic in a bit of olive oil then put in the tomatoes

And pressed on them with the wooden cooking implement.  Once they had reduced slightly, I turned off the heat.

I drained some butter beans and put them in, mushing them a bit.

And I added a bunch of coriander along with cumin, paprika, and seasoning.

I sliced "lids" off the tops of the peppers and took out the seeds, then filled them with the bean mixture. Remarkably, the amount of filling was just right for stuffing 6 peppers.  Most recipes produce too much, but props to River Cottage for getting it right.  Once I'd stuffed them, I set them aside to cook later (at this point they just need 20 minutes in the oven to heat everything up together).

Onto the squash.  I had in my mind a couple larger squash, but these were the last two small squash available at Lidl along with most of a butternut squash (I used part of it in soup yesterday).  Although the recipe suggested slicing a bit off the bottom to help them sit in the dish, I chose to sit them on their tops  and use the conical bottoms as lids since I didn't want to waste any of the already small squash.

Meanwhile I softened some leeks (they're under the lid hissing at you)

And hollowed out the squash.  See, they're cute AND you can eat them.

Ok, the leeks looked done...

So I took them off the heat and added mustard, thyme, creme fraiche, emmental cheese, and seasoning. Once I'd vaguely stirred them together, I stuffed the squash with it.

I had some leftover filling so I ended up using a bigger dish and
threw the filling into a ramekin.  That was a very good idea, I discovered.

I did all that ahead of time, so an hour before dinnertime I put the oven on and stuck the squash in, then later put the peppers on the rack underneath.

The squash were glorious.  My kids didn't like the filling, but they did eat a good portion of the surrounding squash at least, and I got that browned baby in the corner to myself.  Browned cheesy leeks...heavenly.

The peppers don't looks so pretty here, but they were surprisingly popular with the kids.  My only mistake was adding too many crushed peppercorns, otherwise they would have eaten more.  All in all, quite a successful vegetarian meal.

Both recipes adapted from Veg Every Day

Peppers stuffed with beans

INGREDIENTS

• 6 large, fresh peppers

• 1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil

• 2–3 shallots, or 1 medium onion, finely chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
• 150–200g cherry tomatoes, peeled

• 400g tin beans, such as borlotti, pinto or butter beans, drained and rinsed

• Bunch of coriander, chopped

• 1 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp hot smoked paprika

METHOD

Preheat grill to high.  Lay the peppers on a baking tray and grill, turning from time to time, until the skins begin to char.  Place in bag until cool enough to handle, then peel away skins, taking care to leave peppers whole.  Cut around and remove a flap of flesh to form a lid.  Carefully scrape out seeds and tip out any juice.  

Preheat oven to 180C.  Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium low heat, then saute the shallots and garlic until soft, about 10 minutes.  Add your tomatoes and simmer for a couple minutes to reduce slightly, mashing the tomatoes a bit with the back of a wooden spoon.  Remove from heat.

Add the drained beans to the pan and roughly mash some of them with a fork so they break up a little, but don't overdo it.  Add the coriander, cumin, and paprika, season and mix well, then stuff the peppers.  Lay them in an ovenproof dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Squash stuffed with Leeks

• 3-4 mixed baby squash
• 40g butter
• 2 large leeks, thinly sliced
• 150g emmental, grated
• 4 Tbsp crème fraiche
• 1 tsp English mustard

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5. Cut the tops off the squash and if necessary take a slice off the bottom to give a flat base. Using a spoon scoop out all the seeds and fibrous matter.
2. Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan when hot add the leeks. Cook gently until the leeks are softened but not coloured then season with salt and pepper.
3. When cooked transfer to a bowl to cool slightly, add the grated cheese, crème fraiche and mustard; taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
4. Scoop the leeks into the squashes and place the lids back on. Put the squashes into a hot oven for 1 – 1 ½ hours.