Chili con Open Door

Chili con Open Door

It is that time of year for getting together. Food, fellowship, and fun are in the offing. After a covid related absence of a couple of years, the Communitas, Open Door Potluck event was back in full swing. Lots of familiar faces, some new faces, some harking back to the past, and like life, the disappointment of who could not be there. C’est la vie.

However, there was plenty of good cheer, socializing, a gift or two, stories, blessings, oh and did I mention the food?

Mish’s smoke meet was a big hit. So were many of the other dishes – including what I would call stewed greens (minestra) – several people asked for the recipe of the Chili that the boss and I contributed. While chili is made with the taste buds, I decided to share the recipe here.

First, this was my first vegetarian/vegan friendly chili. It was made that way purposefully – with Nico in mind – but with the desire to satisfy meat eaters as well. It appeared to succeed! People thought I used that new fake meat stuff – but I refuse (so far) to use it.

Here we go, and if yours does not turn out to your taste, add some more spices and some of your favourite ingredients and it will be just fine.

First off, I used a slow cooker and gave it plenty of time to simmer. It made about 22 cups worth, and we had one cup left – people being polite – by the end of the evening.  Now 22 cups will give you 44 ladles or servings, as there was plenty of other food. It will also feed a dozen or so if you include some rice and salad in the mixing. The cost? $10 or so.

So, do you like beans in your chili? To me it is not a debate, the answer is a resounding yes. Besides the black beans the star of this chili is the TVP. The TVP? I know. If you have to call something by initials usually, there is a problem. However, I am getting good results with my continued efforts with, Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), and chili is one of the areas that it does really well.  I reconstituted it in a water broth and then added it to my slow cooker with the crushed tomatoes. I let that stew to a boil and with the spices.  Then added it to my black beans that had been reconstituted from dry beans, then frozen and were added to the slow cooker after thawing, mostly, on the counter. It is a lot less expensive to use dry beans versus canned beans, but yes, it takes a little more time.

Now, if you are like me, you might be wondering what is ‘textured vegetable protein?” It is also known as textured soy protein, soy meat, or soya chunks. It looks like dried oatmeal. It is a soy flour product, which is a by-product of extracting soybean oil. It can be used as a meat analogue or meat extender. It is quick to cook, with a protein content comparable to certain meats. Have you donated to Wikipedia? They provided a lot of this information.

The ingredients:

• 2 cups TVP (textured vegetable protein) $2
• 2 cups water to get the TVP ready $0
• 2 small zucchinis $1
• 1 red pepper $1
• 4 cups turtle black beans $2
• 28 fluid ounces (796 ml) of crushed tomatoes $1
• Spices, here is personal taste, but I used cumin, turmeric, chili powder, and black pepper – all to taste, but a tablespoon of each is a good place to start, but ½ of that for the chili powder. ~ $2
• A couple of cloves of garlic – I don’t like powdered. ~ $1

Not including the love, care, and sharing – $10, and that was rounding up some of the numbers.

For the record, I plan on making another batch for the Purple Door Open House – but that is a tale for another day. (Did you get your invite?)

Lino Matteo ©™

Twitter @Lino_Matteo

PS: Business English phrase of note: “in the offing” is an idiom for “likely to happen or appear soon.”