Vegetarian Chili

As promised, here is the recipe for the vegetarian chili I made last week (my variations off of Heidi Swanson's recipe). It's a very flexible recipe, so feel free to tweak based on what you have on hand. It reheats and freezes well, and is both very healthy and very tasty. 

Note: this makes a HUGE pot of chili, like 10 large servings, and was half an inch from overflowing my largest pot, so unless you're cooking for a crowd and have an enormous pot, you will probably want to half the recipe.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
10 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 serrano pepper, seeded and finely chopped [serrano peppers are hot, so be careful with your handling of it]
1 chipotle pepper (from can or rehydrated), minced [I used canned in adobo and the flavor was excellent]
1 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped (save the liquid and add that with the tomatoes too)

1.5 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
8-10 cups vegetable broth (you can sub in water for some or all of this, just adjust your salt accordingly - I used 4 cups broth and 4 cups water)
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (canned is fine)
2 1/4 cups black, brown, or green lentils (or combo), rinsed and picked over [I tried using 1 cup of yellow split peas instead of lentils, and they didn't soften as much as they should have, so I would really use lentils here, or more chickpeas]
1 1/3 cup pearled barley, pearled farro, or bulgur wheat (or some combo) [I used all bulgar wheat and it was great]
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt (or to taste)

cayenne pepper to taste

Equipment

knife and cutting board

sieve/strainer (for rinsing lentils and draining chickpeas)

measuring spoons

measuring cup

can opener

LARGE stockpot or dutch oven

wooden spoon/silicone spatula

Instructions
1. Chop and rinse all ingredients as noted above.

2. In a large stockpot pot over medium heat add the olive oil, onion, and shallots.

3. When the onions soften up and get a bit translucent, add the garlic, ginger, chili powder, and cumin. Stir well and cook for a minute or so, until everything gets quite fragrant.

4. Stir in the serrano pepper and chipotle pepper, canned and fresh tomatoes, and 6 cups of the broth/water. Now add the chickpeas, lentils, and barley/farro/bulgur - stirring between each addition.

5. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 35- 45 minutes (stirring every 5 minutes or so to ensure things don't get stuck to the bottom of the pan and burn, as happened to me) or until the lentils and grains are cooked through. As it cooks down, add more vegetable broth or water as necessary to keep the mixture from getting too thick.

6. Before serving, do your final adjustments - add some cayenne if it's not hot enough yet, or more chipotle, salt, or whatever you think it needs.

Palak Daal

This is a great recipe to make on Sundays for the whole week because it's easy to make in a large quantity and the flavors gets better every day (it also reheats very well). My recipe is an adaptation of the one from 101cookbooks (one of my favorite food blogs - check it out). You have a lot of leeway in the spicing here, so feel free to tweak based on how spicy you like thing. I tend to slightly underspice when I'm making the whole recipe and then individually spice each bowl as I eat it so I can add exactly the right amount (it can be hard to spice a giant pot of food because you won't get all the peppers and spices distributed totally evenly), but you can also just do the whole pot if you don't want to mess with adding spices each meal.

This recipe makes about 8 large servings, so feel free to cut in half. I recommend serving with brown rice, but you could also serve with naan or plain.

Ingredients
1.5 cups / 9.75 oz lentils, picked over and rinsed [the original recipe says to use "white urid/ ivory lentils, I have never found them, so I've used regular lentils and yellow split peas, both of which turned out great, I think french green lentils would also work too]
9 cups water, plus more if necessary
1 lb. spinach, washed and chopped
1.5 Tbsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3/4 tsp turmeric
1.5 jalapeno pepppers, minced (plus more for garnishing)
3 plum tomatoes, chopped
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter (you could probably substitute vegan margarine/olive or canola oil to make it vegan)
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1.5 tsp red chile powder
juice of 1/4 a lemon
3/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Equipment

Cutting board and large knife

Large pot (ideally thick bottomed so things don't burn)

Stirring spoon or silicone spatula

Small saucepan

Instructions

1. In a large pot over medium-high heat combine the lentils and water, and bring to a boil.

2. While the water boils, work on chopping your spinach, ginger, tomatoes, and jalapenos. [Word of warning on chopping jalapenos - use rubber gloves or put your hand inside a plastic bag as you cut them up so your hands don't start burning, and especially if you have contact lenses, because taking lenses out with small amounts of capsaicin left under your fingernails is a highly unpleasant experience and permanently wrecks your lenses. Also, you should discard all the seeds and the white part the seeds are attached too - all you want is the green exterior.] If you're using baby spinach, you don't need to chop as finely because it will already be in smaller tender leaves, but if you're using spinach with thicker stems and leaves, chop it more finely. [Another note: you can and should store your ginger root in a Ziplock in the freezer. It will keep the ginger fresh much longer, and frozen ginger is way easier to peel and cut into nice shavings that mince into tiny bits.]

3. When the water is boiling, add the spinach, ginger, turmeric, jalapenos, and tomatoes.Reduce the heat, put the top on, and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. If things start to dry out, add more water, but as long as the pot is covered, that probably won't happen.

4. Towards the end of the simmering time, heat the butter and cumin in a saucepan over medium heat and fry until the cumin seeds start to pop (this is what the instructions say, sometimes they don't pop, maybe the seeds are old or something, so after 30 seconds or so of the butter being hot and melted, if nothing happens, go on). Add the red chile powder and fry for another 30 seconds.

5. Add this butter mixture to the lentils along with the salt and allow to cook for another five minutes.

6. Taste, and season with more salt or other spices if needed. If you care more about ease than prettiness, you can add the chopped cilantro now and stir into the daal, where it will promptly wilt. If you are going to eat most of the daal now, you can serve it into bowls and top with chopped cilantro (and a little bit of extra jalapeno if you like it very spicy), which is a prettier presentation. Otherwise, let it cool some, then put into containers to refrigerate or freeze.