Last night I started cooking my favorite chili in our large slow
cooker set on “high.” To two pounds of dried, small red beans, I added
ten cups of hot water and one chipotle pepper (smoked jalapeno
pepper).
I used our Vita-Mix blender to blend the chipotle pepper with water
which I then heated in the microwave oven, two cups at a time, before
adding it to the slow cooker. Before going to bed, I turned the cooker
setting down to “low.”
This morning I turned the cooker setting back to “high” before adding
the rest of the ingredients. I added the molasses* and the seasonings –
chili powder, cumin, paprika, and cinnamon – to the beans in the slow
cooker. I pureed the onion and garlic in the Vita-Mix, and then heated
them and the crushed tomatoes in the microwave oven before adding to the
slow cooker. Then I cooked the sweet potato pieces in the microwave oven
until they were slightly softened and added them to the rest of the
ingredients in the cooker.
After cooking the chili for a few more hours on “low,” I turned the
slow cooker off. While the chili was cooking, I finished making a large
fresh, tossed salad with pieces of romaine lettuce, red cabbage, green
cabbage, broccoli, onion, carrots, and celery. I put this in the
refrigerator until later.
Then I made a veggie smoothie (vegan, of course!) for breakfast,
which we enjoyed while having fun playing Boggle.
*Note: Through experience, I’ve learned to make sure that I use plain
Barbados unsulphured molasses – not “blackstrap” in our chili. We have
both, but we’ve noticed that the plain unsulphured molasses tastes
better in chili.
We make enough chili to last several days refrigerated. All we have
to do is heat some up in the microwave oven.
Now it’s time for us to enjoy our chili and salad. Yum!
For this chili recipe, see:
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes/chili-smredbean-swpot.html
See also Recipe Table of Contents:
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html
