Vegan Chili

Chili is a much-loved dish, and most chili recipes are fiercely guarded. It’s not quick to make and needs to be monitored while cooking, so it’s by no means “fire and forget.” I’d recommend getting a couple of good movies to watch while you make it. The longer you cook the beans at a medium to low heat, the better the chili will turn out.

I gave this recipe to a vegan friend who was serving as a US Army Ranger at Fort Hood. He made it (minus the cilantro since one guy was allergic) for some of his platoon buddies, and they loved it. You know vegan chili has to be good when carnivores from Texas like it.

INGREDIENTS:
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 cup of dried pinto beans
1 cup of dried black beans
1 large red onion, diced
1 large red bell pepper, diced
1 small fistful of cilantro, washed and diced
1 – 1.5 cups of textured vegetable protein (TVP)
5 large cloves of garlic, diced
2 -3 tbsps of olive oil (use more if necessary)
1 – 1.5 tbsps of chili powder cumin, to taste
1 – 2 dashes of cayenne pepper
Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds vegan cheese, to taste

Note: This recipe serves about 4 to 6, but I like serving chili with rice, preferably short grain brown rice. In this way, you can stretch out this batch of chili to 8 servings.

You can tweak the heat factor of this chili with a dash more cayenne pepper, or go full bore with chopped chipotle peppers or worse. Don’t make the chili too painful, though, or it becomes a dare instead of a dish.

I recommend investing in a good rice cooker. Rice comes out much more evenly cooked, with less effort, than on a range top.

DIRECTIONS:

1. The night before you’re going to make the chili, soak the beans in plenty of water in a large pot. In the morning, you may need to add water if the beans soaked up what was there. 
2. Drain the beans, keeping a jar or other container under the strainer so that you can save the water. You’ll need the water later.

3. Dice 3 cloves of garlic and fry in olive oil over a high heat until slightly browned. 
4. Toss in the diced tomatoes and the beans and reduce heat to medium to low. Stir.

5. Pop your first movie in. Add the chili powder and a dash or two of cayenne pepper. Every so often, return to stir. Keep checking on the beans throughout your first movie. 
6. Dice the last two garlic cloves , the onion, and the red bell pepper and toss them in. Add the bean water from step 2 and lower the heat a little. Start watching your second movie.
7. Start cooking the rice about midway through your second flick. Use approximately one cup of (dry) rice for every two people.
8. Mix the TVP in well. It will soak up a lot of the moisture in the chili. If it starts to look too crumbly and solid, add a little bit of water.
9. If you’re using a rice cooker, once the rice is done, leave it in the cooker for a while, with the cooker on. This will keep the rice warmer until serving.
10. Soak, wash, and rinse the cilantro before you dice it up. Stir that into the chili, and then remove the chili from the heat.
11. Take the rice out of the cooker and put it into bowls; add the chili on top. Top the chili with Daiya cheese (the amount will depend upon how gooey you want this dish).
    

Vegan Mushroom Pizza

This pizza is somewhat atypical in that it doesn’t include tomato sauce, but given how easy it is to make, I think it’s likely to become one of your favorites. It does require that you make the dough a night in advance, however.
As I mentioned in my recipe for vegan stromboli, I use a dough recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. It yields a great all-purpose dough, but you’ll probably have to cut it down. Using about 2/5ths of the original recipe, I had enough dough for one loaf of pita bread and a pizza.
INGREDIENTS:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 – 3 portobello mushroom caps, diced
Olive oil for the frying pan
Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds vegan cheese
Flour for the cutting boardPita bread dough (from Baking with Julia, above)

Serves 2.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Put a frying pan of at least 8 inches in diameter over high heat. Mince the garlic cloves and dice the mushroom caps.
    
2. Pour a thin layer of olive oil in the frying pan. Toss in the minced garlic. Once the garlic has browned slightly, reduce heat to medium-high, and put in the diced mushrooms. Sauté for a couple minutes. Scoop out the sautéed mushrooms and garlic into a bowl. Do not remove the frying pan from heat. 
3. Spread a little flour onto a cutting board, and stretch the dough into circle a little over 9 inches in diameter. The dough should be a little bit thicker for this pizza than for pita bread. Carefully place it into the frying pan. 
4. Place the sautéed mushrooms in the center of the dough and spread evenly. Spread just enough Daiya cheese over the body of the pizza. Be judicious with the Daiya or your pizza will be on the soggy side.
   
   Cover the frying pan with the lid for a couple of minutes. Check periodically to see if the cheese has melted.
5. Once the cheese has melted to taste, Using a spatula, slide the pizza out of the pan and onto a cutting board using a spatula. Slice and serve.
   
   

Vegan Stromboli

Originally I wanted this to be something like the venerable hors d’oeuvre known as “pigs in a blanket,” but like the Incredible Hulk, it changed into something bigger and better.

While baking bread can be intimidating, this recipe is fairly easy to follow. I used a recipe for pita bread from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. I highly recommend the show of the same name, which airs on public television. You can never go wrong with a master like Julia Child; she makes the most lavish dishes seem easy to prepare.

You’ll have to start the dough a night in advance.

The pita bread recipe yields enough dough for this and for my upcoming recipe for mushroom pizza. If you don’t want to remain in the kitchen after making the stromboli, you can put the remainder of the dough in a sealed container in the fridge—but for no more than a day or two. There are active yeast cultures in bread dough, so whenever possible use fresh dough over dough that’s been in the freezer or the fridge.

INGREDIENTS

1 package of Tofurky Italian Sausage, sliced
4 gren onions, finely diced
1 package of Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds
Pita bread dough (from Baking with Julia, above)

Makes 8 – 9 stromboli.

Note: I don’t know the exact volume of the bread dough, but the recipe calls for about 6.5 cups of flour (whole-wheat and all-purpose) and 2.5 cups of water.

DIRECTIONS

1. Start heating a nonstick frying pan of at least 8 inches in diameter.
2. Using your hands, scoop out a ball of dough onto a floured cutting board. Flatten it to a circle of 7 to 8 inches in diameter.
   
   
3. Place on the dough a few pieces of Tofurky sausage along with some green onions and Daiya cheese. If you want your stromboli to be very gooey, add more cheese than in this shot.
   
   
4. Flip one side over the other, folding the dough in half. Make sure that the ingredients are completely encased in the dough. Pinch the edges to seal it.
   
   
   
5. By this time, the frying pan should be very hot. Lightly place the stromboli in the frying pan. You don’t need to add oil since the bread dough already contains enough. Let the stromboli cook for a couple of minutes, turning it over once or twice (depending upon the heat of the pan) to cook evenly. Remove from pan when both sides are well cooked.