R - Hearty Chili (options for meat lovers and vegans)

Serves: 4

Time to Cook: ~ 40 minutes

I tend to get my recipes from google and pintrest searches, and then I embellish them to my liking. One of my favorite chili recipes comes from Cookie + kate, which is a great food blog (http://cookieandkate.com/2015/vegetarian-chili-rec...). This entry is my own edited version of Kate's recipe. It includes ground turkey, although you can always leave this out, and a few other cooking tips that make up the basis of my cooking.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 lb of ground turkey
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped

• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (you can also buy the pre-chopped garlic, which usually saves me a good 5 minutes)
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1½ teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 large can (28 ounces) or 2 small cans (15 ounces each) diced tomatoes*, with their juices
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups vegetable broth or water
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnishing
• 1 to 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar or lime juice, to taste

Directions:

I start all my meals by sautéing onions in olive oil at low-medium heat for about 5 minutes. While the onion is sautéing, I season the ground turkey with lemon and adobo. Adobo is a Spanish salt/pepper/paprika/oregano seasoning that I use to season all the meats I cook. It’s delicious and you can buy it in the Latin section at Stop and Shop. Once the onions look soft and shiny, I add the ground turkey, celery and garlic and let that cook for 5 minutes. Then, add the other veggies and spices.

For the canned tomatoes, I always buy Cento peeled tomatoes and chop them. They are just more delicious than regular tomatoes and the juices are quite good. Once the veggies are in, you can add the tomatoes, broth and bay leaf and let the dish simmer on low, covered for 20 – 25 minutes. You can add the teaspoons of lime juice and cilantro at the very end.