Vegetarian Black Bean Chili

Vegetarian chili - warm and comforting | superspace.com

Chili is usually a Fall season food, but this last little bit of April has been unusually cold and rainy, and the other night we really wanted comfort food.

Fun Fact: I’m not a meat eater (it’s a boring story, so we’ll skip it). Mr. SuzerSpace does eat meat, but since he really likes to cook, it’s not a deal breaker.

Meatless chili recipes tend to splinter off into mostly two groups – the types that are more bean salad with sauce, or the ones with so many special expensive ingredients that they really aren’t chili anymore.

I’ve been tweaking my own recipe for many, many years, and have come up with a version that we both really like. I think it’s a pretty good compliment that Mr. SuzerSpace will actually request this meal vs. cooking up his own version with more standard ingredients. He also likes to serve this on top of a hot dog – his own “healthyized” version of a chili dog.

There is one special ingredient in this recipe – TVP – also known as Texturized Vegetable Protein. If you go googling this, it sounds weird and scary (doomsday preppers buy it by the pallet). It looks like spray insulation, and if you don’t add anything to it when you cook it, it takes about the same.

My trick is to add layers of flavor to it at every stage – I add Soy Sauce to the water for rehydrating it, and I cook it with the onions and spices BEFORE I add in the other ingredients so it has a good amount of time to soak up all the flavors.

Personally, I buy small bags of the Bob’s Red Mill Brand (not a paid endorsement – it’s just the only version I’ve used). It’s in the health market section of my regular grocery store, or I can find it at Trader Joe’s and Sprouts.

You can leave the TVP out of the dish and it’s still good. Before I discovered TVP I made this using the veggie burger crumbles from the frozen food section. I like the texture of TVP better, it keeps forever in the cabinet, and it is much more economical.

The great thing about this (any any good chili recipe) is you can make a big batch and eat it for days, or freeze leftovers. And it scales up or down beautifully.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili

Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Textured Vegetable Protein small crumble version
  • 3/4 cup Warm Water
  • 3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce Low Sodium
  • 2 cans Black Beans Rinsed and Drained
  • 2 cans Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies Drain off some, but not all of the liquid
  • 1 can Garbanzo Beans Rinsed and Drained
  • 1/2 small Onion (White or Vidalia) large dice
  • 4-6 oz Frozen Sliced Carrots
  • 8 ounces Tomato Sauce
  • Shredded Cheese For topping, if desired
  • Sour Cream For topping, if desired

Chili Spice Mix

  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons Chili Power
  • 3/4 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
  • 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
  • 1 Teaspoon Onion Powder
  • 1 Teaspoon Paprika

Instructions

Prepare the TVP

  1. In a medium bowl, add TVP, the warm water and Soy Sauce.

  2. Stir to combine (mixture should be watery).

  3. Allow TVP to absorb liquids for about a half hour. This is a good time to chop the onion, open and drain and rinse canned items and drink a beer.

Create Chili Spice Mix

  1. Combine all spice items in a small dish and mix gently. Set aside

Cook the TVP

  1. In a large dutch oven, stock pot or other deep pot with a lid, saute the onion in a bit of olive oil until translucent. It is OK for the onion to brown, but do not let it burn.

  2. Add the TVP to the cooked onion and continue cooking over medium heat. TVP won't brown like ground beef, but cook and stir in the same manner. The object is for it to warm and pick up the oniony olive oil flavors.

  3. Sprinkle the spice mix over the cooking TVP and onion mixture, and stir to combine throughly. Be sure to not let spices burn on bottom of pot.

Create the Chili

  1. Add all the canned ingredients and stir. If mixture is too dry, add a little water.

  2. Continue cooking over medium heat, stirring often to keep items at bottom of pot from sticking. 

  3. Bring to a simmer, and then add frozen carrots, stir again, and then lower heat and put lid on pot.

  4. Cook until carrots are tender, and then serve. Add topping as desired.

Teeny Tiny Tip: Snack Smarter

snack smarter

An obvious choice for eating healthier is to is to change out high calorie, low nutrition snacks for their better versions.

I really like crunchy snacks, but chips or crackers can go wrong really quickly. They are a lot of empty calories. There are alternatives at the store, but many are a little pricey and portion control is still tricky for me.

Enter the easy swap – healthy cereal. A little label reading goes a long way here. High fiber, vitamin enriched cereal like wheat squares or fiber twigs are two that we like. Crunchy, a little sweet but not too sugary, and very filling. I can easily eat an entire box of Cheese-Its. There’s no way I can eat an entire box of Wheat Chex.

To make it even easier to stick to the plan, I put the cereal that’s for snacking into containers on the counter, right where the crackers used to live.

Sunday Scrolling: April 30, 2017

  • I’m a double knotter myself, but it never occurred to me that there was science behind the ever annoying untied shoelace.
  • While looking for a pattern for a bow tie for a pug owning co-worker I found this, which seems easy and is super cute.
  • I’m a motorsports fan. Sort of a NASCAR fan but they keep making it harder to like the sport. Dale Jr. retiring may be the last straw for me. (Full disclosure, I’m related to someone who owns that site. Opinion is still my own.)
None of these links are affiliate; they are all items that just caught my eye this week.

Daisy Door Decoration

Completed daisy door decoration

I’ve had my sparkly Spring sign on the door for a few weeks now, and while it is still Spring, it’s time for a new decoration. I’ve been mulling my options for a bit, full well knowing it was going to involve paper flowers since that’s my latest obsession.

And then Pam from Get Silvered posted this cute daisy. That was the push I needed.

Instead of making a sign this time, I decided I wanted a longer, more vertical decoration. Continue reading…

SuzerSauce

SuzerSauce is a custom condiment that uses basic ingredients for great taste.

Every good food establishment has it’s special sauce.

Some go as far as to call them “secret” which sounds even more special, but in truth, most of the mainstream ones (or the one’s with cult followings) have their recipes appear in copycat versions on various websites.

Until recently, I’ve been pretty content to put bottled barbecue sauce on my veggie burgers. Mr SuzerSpace is a fan of Worcestershire.

But a few weeks ago, Mr. SuzerSpace and I were browsing in a high end kitchen store and stumbled upon an “artisan” hamburger condiment. They wanted $14.95 for 8 ounces, and the ingredient list was right on the back (has to – it’s the law). There was nothing special in the list.

After laughing ourselves to tears in the aisle, Mr. SuzerSpace remembered a burger place he really enjoyed in Wisconsin, known for it’s secret sauce recipe.

And I recalled a totally different burger place from my high school years in Texas, which sadly appears to have closed this past January.

And then we went home to make dinner. After all the story telling, it had to be burgers. And we definitely needed our own sauce.

SuzerSauce

Prep Time 2 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Heaping Tablespoons Mayonnaise
  • 2 Tablespoons Ketchup
  • 4-5 sliced pickled Jalapeños, diced
  • 1/4 tablespoon pickle relish
  • Splash of Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl (preferably one with a lid) combine all ingredients.
  2. Spread on bun for hamburger, or use as a spread for sandwiches
  3. Leftovers keep refrigerated for weeks - stir before using.