Chili 1-2-3

Cold and wet outside.

Winds gusting.

Snow in the mountains.

Mmm ... something warm and earthy starts sounding good. Hot soothing liquid, full of flavour and spice.

This pretty much sums the mood that often prevailed over the last couple of weeks - this craving for "warm+spicy+soothing" led to several chili cookouts :)

So, is vegetarian chili an oxymoron?

Isn't chili the quintessential texan dish that is meant to have just beef, chiles and spices. Not mounds of chopped up vegetables. No peppers, not even beans! CASI apparently has really strict regulations about what goes into a chili and what doesn't.

The meat is the medium, but the chile is the message.
- Cheryl and Bill Jamison, Texas Home Cooking

And to paraphrase Didi Emmons: With vegetarian chili, we're just changing the medium, not the message!



You say chile, I say chilli ...

Hmm ... I'm in a quandary of sorts as I type this post. There is chili - that fiery bowl of goodness. And there is chile - the peppers that define the chili. And there are chillies - what we use to refer to all the members of the Capsicum family. So many variations!

Anyway, chile peppers truly rock! They're not just about heat, but about flavour. Every chile has its own unique taste, the flavour even varies depending on whether the chile is ripe or raw or dried or not. And they have fabulous aromas to boot! For the most part, atleast for veggie chili afficionados as well as non-traditionalists, just the plethora of chile flavours and smells seems to hit the spot. And once we start combining varities, the flavour level totally skyrockets. And we can't help but believe "Chile makes the chili, not the meat!" :)

White Bean Chili with Spicy Mango Salsa
Chili 1 (adapted from Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet)

Servings: 4

White Bean Chili

2 cups of dried navy beans
1 t olive oil
1.5 cups chopped onions
6 cloves of garlic - minced
3 cups chopped green cabbage
1 rutabaga - diced
1 t dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Soak the beans in cold water overnight.
In a large pot, cover the beans with water and bring to a boil. Cook 1+ hours till the beans are tender. A great alternative is to throw the beans into a crockpot and cook on low for a few hours.
Drain the beans and reserve about 3 cups of the liquid (add water if necessary to make up 3 cups).
In a heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the onions.
Saute for about 5 minutes till softened.
Throw in the garlic and cabbage and saute for another 5 minutes.
Now add the reserved bean liquid along with the rutabaga, salt and oregano. Cook for 15+ minutes till the vegetables are tender.
Mix in the beans along with freshly ground pepper.

Spicy Mango Salsa

1 large guajillo pepper
1 pinch of freshly ground ancho pepper
1/2 semi-ripe mango -diced
1/2 green bell pepper - finely chopped
1/2 red onion - finely chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
salt to taste

Mix all the veggies and spices in a large bowl.
Using tongs, hold the guajillo pepper over a medium flame until it gets charred.
Once cooled, pound the chile using a pestle and add the powder to the salsa.
Season with salt.

Serve the chili in large bowls, topped with a few spoons of the fiery salsa.



Opinion?

*good*! The salsa was my favourite part of it all :) I think the chili itself could have used a little more flavour/spice, but then again, I'm the one who buys a new bottle of hot sauce pretty much every second week! :)

***

Chili Verde (of sorts!)
Chili 2 - (adapted from Joy of Cooking by Rombauer & Becker)

Servings: 3-4

1/2 onion - chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped yellow squash
1 cup chopped bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic - minced
3-4 fresh chile peppers - I used these long not-super-spicy chillies I found at the indian store
4 T chopped cilantro
1/2 semi-ripe mango - chopped into chunks
15-20 cherry tomatoes
1 can black beans (drained)
1 block of tofu - diced
1 T coriander+cumin powder
1 t olive oil
salt to taste

Grind the chile peppers, mango, tomatoes and cilantro into a puree.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes.
Add the carrots and saute for 2-3 more minutes.
Throw in the bell peppers and squash and saute for another 3-4 minutes.
Add the coriander and cumin powders along with the black beans and stir.
Pour in the puree and cook covered for 10-12 minutes.

In the meantime, spray the tofu bits with some olive oil and toast till the edges get crispy.

Throw the tofu into the chili and stir for a few more minutes.
Season with salt and maybe some red pepper flakes if you want more zing!



Opinion?

Hmm ... this was good too! I think the tofu was a little overwhelming - maybe I added too much. I'll definitely try this again and scale back on the soy love. Otherwise, the flavours were great - the spicy mango+tomato+cilantro was really good - totally worth a reuse as a gravy for other veggies.

***

Veggie Chili with Rainbow Chard
Chili 3 (the recipe was pretty much whipped out of my behind!)

Servings: 2

1/2 cup red onions - chopped
4 cloves garlic - minced
1 can cannellini beans
3 vine tomatoes - blanched and pureed
1 bunch of rainbow chard - chopped/shredded
1/2 red bell pepper - chopped
1" ginger - grated
1 t olive oil
1 t cumin powder
1 large ancho chile
1 arbol chile
salt to taste

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and saute the onions.
Once they get translucent, add the ginger and garlic and saute for a couple more minutes.
Add the bell pepper and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Now throw in the chard along with the tomato puree and cook covered on low for 10+ minutes.
While the veggies are cooking, char the ancho and arbol chiles over a medium flame till they get charred.
Grind the charred chiles into a fine powder and add to the veggies.
Stir in the cumin powder and season with salt.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream or just garnished with chopped cilantro.


Opinion?

Yum! I think this was my favourite chili - the perfect consistency, flavours well blended and lots of chard goodness!

***

Wow! This is serious legume overdose! Which means this post gets shipped off to Susan, the well-seasoned cook for My Legume Love Affair. Yum!

Salsa rojo ... and still lusting for Mexico :)

The aftereffects of the trip down south are pretty clear - especially the impact on the palate! We miss our street taco guy, have dreams about tamarind margaritas, veracruz fish, salsa verde y rojo. And every once in a while, the smell of queso fundido seems to waft through the air ... *sigh*.

So, we decided to take matters into our own hands, after all we had a new mexican cookbook, right? So, we cooked up this flash-fried fish - turned out too dry. Never been a fan of fried fish, never want to eat it again! We also tried out this new red salsa recipe - we followed the recipe pretty closely and used 2 juicy off-the-vine tomatoes, but the salsa seemed too "tomato-ey". So, we ended up adding some onions and it seemed too oniony (for me atleast). We used a combination of ancho and pasilla peppers and the spice flavours turned out great, but the base sauce needs some work, so I'm not posting that recipe just yet :)

We did get a cool picture, so that goes here - just so we will remember to work on this recipe till it is perfect!


So, we'll keep trying to recreate those flavours - our next attempt is going to be fish veracruz-style, I'm a lot more confident of nailing that one :)

The best fajitas *ever*!

I've always been obsessed with cooking and eating and even dreaming about food (probably reasonably obvious from the frequency of this blog!). But I've been noticing an interesting phenomenon - the last couple of weeks have been simply fabulous in terms of diversity of foods I've tried out as well as how well they've turned out! True gastronomic bliss :) And I'm attributing it primarily to this whole food blog obsession. Writing, taking pictures, reading all the awesome blogs out there, getting to know about fellow food bloggers and their cooking styles, this is truly rewarding!

And on that note, I'll have to start writing about the best fajitas I've *ever* eaten. Maybe I should be more specific? Best veggies fajitas I've ever eaten. Whatever! I've only eaten veggie fajitas, though the plan is to attempt some kind of seafood fajitas one of these days :) Have I mentioned how awesome Celia Brooks Brown's cookbooks are? And how obsessed I am with her 'New Vegetarian' cookbook? A few days ago, after we made the Teriyaki Tofu dish, we continued browsing this book for more drool-worthy recipes - trust me, there are several of them here! But this one particularly stood out - veggie fajitas with haloumi cheese and a bunch of marinated veggies. We only morphed it a little bit - substituting the haloumi with kasseri and crimini mushrooms instead of button mushrooms. Oh, and we spiced up the marinade and doubled the garlic (obviously!) :)

The Best Veggie Fajitas *ever*

Servings: 4

8 whole wheat tortillas
1/2 red onion
1/2 vidalia onion
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 zucchini
10-12 crimini mushrooms (sliced)
8 oz kasseri cheese - sliced long

Marinade
=========
5 cloves of garlic
1 T sea salt
1 huge handful of cilantro - chopped
1 T red pepper flakes
3 T olive oil
juice from 4 lemons
1 T ginger juice

Grind up the garlic with the sea salt in a pestle till the smell of garlic overwhelms you :) Mix the rest of the marinade ingredients with this in a large bowl. Toss the veggies in the marinade, cover the bowl and stick it in the fridge for about 30 minutes. After the veggies are marinated, toss them in a wok and cook partially covered till the juices are absorbed and the veggies are cooked - about 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, wrap the tortillas in foil and stick them in the oven at 325 F for about 15 minutes. Stick the sliced cheese in the toaster for about a minute. Once melted, we mopped off the grease from the top and then shredded the cheese into 1" pieces.

To assemble the fajita, just load up a bunch of the veggies into the tortilla along with a few pieces of cheese and fold over.


Obviously, we needed a few sides to go with the best fajitas *ever* :) We had an avocado which went into making a basic guacamole:

Guacamole

1 avocado - mashed up
1 T lime juice
1 t kosher salt
1 t red pepper flakes

Just mix 'em all up! :)

Our next side was a happy, happy salsa:

Tomato-onion-mango salsa

1 red onion - chopped
3 medium tomatoes - chopped
1/2 ripe mango - chopped
1 jalapeno
10 mint leaves
1 t salt

Grind up the jalapeno+mint and toss the mixture with the tomatoes, onions and mango. Add the salt and mix.

Hmm ... we obviously needed a rice to go with all of this, guess that means we're making one more side! :)

Brown rice with olive tapenade and pinto beans

2 cups brown rice (long grain)
1 can pinto beans
15 green olives
1/2 tomato
2 cloves garlic
1 t vinegar
1 t olive oil
2 t cayenne pepper
salt
Chopped cilantro

Cook the rice in 4.5 cups of water. In the meantime, grind the olives, tomato and garlic into a coarse paste. Mix this with the vinegar, olive oil, cayenne and salt to make a tapenade. Toss the cooked rice with the pinto beans and tapenade. Garnish with cilantro. Yum!


Mmmm ... this meal has cilantro + mint = double herb delight! Plus oodles of yummy vegetables! Gots to be an entry for Kalyn's fabulous Weekend Herb Blogging two year anniversary event! :)