Three Bean Chili

here are probably hundreds of chili recipes out there. Many of the vegan ones substitute the meat in a regular recipe with tofu or textured vegetable protein. This recipe just uses beans and vegetables, so it's probably not what most people would consider a chili. At any rate, I like it.

Here's the list of ingredients:

• One cup each, of red kidney beans, cattle beans, and yellow-eyed beans
• One large spanish onion, diced
• Two or three cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 can of tomato paste (optional, but it adds a lot of flavour)
• 2-5 Jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
• A big handful of crushed dried pasilla negro chilis (or something else for flavour)
• 1 cup of frozen corn
• Cayenne pepper, to taste
• 1 table spoon of ground cumin
• 1 table spoon of black strap molasses
• 1 table spoon of cinnamon
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil

Soak the beans over night in big pot of water. Just cover them, and check on them occasionally to make sure they don't need more water. They will swell. Before cooking, drain them in a colander.

Begin by adding a bit of oil to a big pot. When the oil is hot, add the onion and sweat it for 5 minutes until soft. Add the garlic. Once you can smell the garlic, add the beans, the tomatos, the tomato paste, and the vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil, and then drop the heat.

Add the peppers, and the spices at this point. Stir it all well, and then add the corn. Cover, and let it simmer for an hour, or until the beans are fork tender. Let it cool to room temperature, and reheat before serving.

The chili will thicken up after cooling, so you might need to reheat it with more liquid. If it's too watery, though, you can always add textured vegetable protein (TVP), or some barley, or quinoa, or even flour to thicken it up.

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