Meatless Monday: Quick Vegetarian Chili

It's let's-try-to-pare-down-our-food-budget week at Theohaus, which means that I'm trying to stack recipes with overlapping ingredients to cut down on our food waste.  Since I can never manage to use a whole can of chipotles at once, that means we have several Mexican/Southwestern-inspired recipes coming up, so that I can look forward to some Chipotle Meatballs from Rick Bayless (via Elise at Simply Recipes.)


Now that the temperature has dropped a little, it's chili weather.  This is the only vegetarian chili I have ever made more than once.  It's quick (~30 minutes), filling, quite tasty, and reheats well.  It also sneaks in a fair bit of vegetables and healthy grains to undo the Chuy's damage from last night.   I usually make this when I have guacamole lying around (especially if it's THIS guacamole, which is worth making your whole house smell irreversibly of garlic for a week).


From Cooking Light:


Quick Vegetarian Chili

2 tsp canola oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped red bell pepper (or orange or yellow)
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
4.5 oz chopped green chiles
2/3 cup quick-cooking barley
1/4 cup water
15 oz black beans, drained
14.5 oz diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth


Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add onion and bell pepper and saute for 3 minutes.  Add chili powder through green chiles and cook for 1 minute.  Stir in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Serve with sour cream and tortilla chips.