Anything Goes (CSA) Chili

Here it is! The delicious concoction I made last Thursday! And one of these days, I will get pictures up! I took many of them, but my computer is just slightly ancient so I have to borrow Phred’s to do pictures which hasn’t been possible lately.

This is a variation on my last post about Sandy’s Vegetarian Chili:

*6 cups dried beans (soaked overnight in 10+ cups of water)
*1 piece of kombu seaweed
*1/2 cup of olive oil
*2 large onions (chopped coarsely)
*3 medium jalapenos (chopped, with seeds)
*1 large bell pepper (chopped coarsely, sans seeds)
*5 small squashes (chopped coarsely, sans seeds)
*1 large eggplant (chopped coarsely)
*1 large sprig of fresh rosemary
*3 cups fresh green beans (in bite-sized pieces)
*1 cup frozen chopped collard greens
*1 small can tomato paste
*1 large can diced (petit) tomatoes
*2 heaping Tablespoons cumin
*1 Tablespoon rubbed sage
*Chili powder to taste
*Black pepper to taste
*Salt to taste (more than you think it needs – several Tbls.)

First, I soaked the beans (2 cups each of black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans) overnight on Wednesday evening. I probably should’ve used filtered water, but I was lazy and didn’t feel like waiting for our Brita so I didn’t. The water here isn’t that bad except when they’ve recently re-chlorinated it and then you can smell the chlorine. Ick!

Anyhow, Thursday morning I rinsed the beans and gave them some fresh water. At around noon I rinsed them again, put them in more fresh water in my giant stock pot and then brought them to a boil. Once they reached a boil, I turned down the heat to medium and skimmed off all the foam that had risen to the top. If you leave the foam on the top, you’ll probably have bad gas for a few days so it’s a good idea to skim that off. It doesn’t take long at all to do and it’s definitely worth the time!

After skimming the foam I turn it down to simmer and then it’s the perfect time to take yet another gas-minimizing step and add a piece of kombu seaweed. I promise that it does not affect the flavor at all and I add some kombu every time I make a giant pot of beans. Nobody will even be able to tell, but it’ll cut back on the gas and add some natural flavor enhancers as well as essential minerals like iodine (important since we generally do not use iodized salt).

After the beans had simmered for a few hours, I began to prepare the vegetables. I didn’t prep them all in one block of time because I get interrupted frequently by my offspring so I can’t really tell you how long it took, but it didn’t seem to take too much time. I started with the onions and peppers since I like to saute them in a frying pan with olive oil before adding them to the beans.

Making this chili is not an exact science by any stretch of the imagination. I usually add the vegetables (and saute the onions and peppers) when the beans are no longer crunchy – just maybe a tiny bit al dente, but soft. I usually cook the chili for about one hour after adding the veggies and that gives the beans enough time to really get nice and soft.

I added the fresh veggies in this order: onions and peppers, green beans, squashes, eggplant, and collards. Mainly because that was approximately the order of tenderness although there wasn’t any significant amount of time between adding any of them and adding the next. I also added the sprig of rosemary at this time. I just put the whole thing in and removed the stem after the chili was done cooking. I also added the salt when I put the rosemary in.

After the hour is (approximately) up, I check on the beans and veggies which are typically done by then. If not, I let it simmer on for a bit longer. It’s around this time that I add the tomatoes and other spices.

I added the tomatoes so late in the game because I used canned tomatoes. I am looking forward to trying this recipe with fresh tomatoes (for the very first time!) this summer. We weren’t able to try it last summer because our house would warm up too much when I cooked for very long and when we lived in WA we got so few tomatoes that we didn’t use them for cooking – we just ate them straight up!

We browned some ground beef, basically in the way Phred describes except lighter on the spice, and added it in our bowls to taste. There are several good reasons for doing it this way.

1. Vegetarian chili keeps in the fridge for longer.
2. You can make more chili in the same sized pot if the meat is added afterwards.
3. You can share your chili with vegetarian (and even vegan) friends.
4. Some people prefer more or less meat in their chili than you might.
5. Meat chili tends to not have a variety of vegetables, but vegetable chili goes very nicely either with or without meat.

I hope you decide to try a crazy CSA chili this summer! Really, you can put just about anything in it – this chili can easily be made to use up vegetables you aren’t sure what to do with.

In fact, I’d love to hear what unusual things you try in this chili and how it turns out. I’d never had eggplant chili before, but it turned out extremely well! I’ve used squash before and now squash is one of my favorite veggies to put in chili.

We served it with sour cream and it’s also delicious with cheese if you like dairy. It’d probably be even better with local sour cream and cheese, but sadly that’s one of the areas we compromise in to be able to buy other foods locally. We don’t eat sour cream and cheese all the time so it works as a compromise for us.

Enjoy the recipe! Tweak it to suit your pantry and please report back if you find a particularly wonderful combination because I’m always looking for unusually tasty food combinations 🙂

~B.