It’s so chilly outside.. Time for chili!

It’s cold in Montreal. Winter-like to those of us who get cold easily. What better time to make some chili?

I found a recipe for vegetarian chili last week on the Whole Foods website. Recipe here. I had most of the ingredients but happened to run out of lentils. I bought more and it was chili time!

As usual, I adapted the recipe to suit my needs. I had some vegetables that needed to be used as well as different spices that I wanted to use.

Here is my version:

Vegetarian Lentil Chili

Ingredients

One 28 oz can diced tomatoes with no sodium added
One and a half 540ml cans of spicy red pepper diced tomatoes
3 cups lentils
4 cloves garlic – finely chopped
Half a medium/large red onion – chopped
3 large stalks celery – chopped
5 small multi-colored carrots peeled and sliced
One red pepper – chopped
6 cups broth (divided – 1 cup and 5 cups)
2 cups water
spices – I used 3 teaspoons chili & tamarind spice then added in cayenne pepper, ground ginger and cinnamon to taste.
Half a cup quinoa (I added this in towards the end because I felt it was too watery

Directions

Bring one cup of broth to a simmer in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, red pepper, carrots, celery and garlic and cook about 8 minutes or until onion is translucent and vegetables are tender.

Stir in chili & tamarind and cayenne pepper and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add lentils, tomatoes, remaining 5 cups broth and 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, add chosen spices and simmer, partially covered, 30 minutes or until lentils are almost tender. Uncover and cook 10 minutes longer before serving.

This is where I did things differently. I found the recipe came out quite watery for my liking. So, I added in a half cup of quinoa and let the chili cook completely covered for another 20 minutes or so.