Lentil and Bean Chili

I made this chili last night. I've been avoiding writing about it ever since. It's hard to get excited about chili. It's lentils. And beans. Two kinds of beans even. Whoo-hoo. The compromise I made with myself is that I won't list out the full description of what went into it and how I made it and all that. Instead, I am writing about random thoughts that may or may not relate to making chili...

I went vegetarian last Thanksgiving. The Sunday following Thanksgiving if you really want me to be precise about it. I was sitting at home alone in my apartment, eating a frozen meal, when I randomly turned the television on, and started watching a documentary on the local PBS station called Eating. There are two things that I will always watch with unparalleled fascination on television. The first are workout infomercials. The second is anything having to do with health studies.

Eating turned out to be a somewhat low-budget, somewhat biased plea for the world to all turn into vegans. I couldn't believe the health benefits the narrator discussed, from curing cancer to ending heart disease. Oh, and then there was the global warming pitch. And the humanitarian side was thoroughly discussed too. Pretty much, becoming vegan (a low-fat vegan at that) was covered from every angle.

Well, I bit. It was the idea of being able to heal myself through the foods I ate that was what really appealed to me. I have never liked having even to take Advil when I am in pain, so the idea of healing through vegetables seemed great to me.

Susie of one year and two months ago was much like Susie of today. She felt like she should exercise more than she did, she liked to speak about herself in third person, and she knew even less about cooking, and had far less food in her pantry to cook with. Becoming vegan seemed like the logical next step. Or something like that.

I became a Vegan at about 330 in the afternoon, and had pretty much nothing to eat, nor did I go out and grocery shop that evening. Nor did I really know anything about being vegan. Nor did I really know anyone who was a vegan. It was a bumpy start, and within two weeks, I knew every vegan junk food available (not really the point of going vegan, I know).

I'm not vegan anymore. I eat eggs and dairy, although not a lot. In the end, what the narrator said in the documentary about eating low-fat vegan, that it's really not that hard to get all the nutrients and nutrition that you need, could have been true. He neglected to add that it does require a lot of home cooked meals. Quite frankly, traveling to rural parts of Wyoming and North Dakota for work really doesn't provide any food options for vegans. (Even if it has taught me the difference between a deer and a pronghorn.) It barely works being vegetarian, and usually requires ordering grilled cheese sandwiches off of the children's menu. Aside from traveling, it also doesn't work being vegan when your favorite meal to go out for is brunch, and you want to eat more than dry toast.

While I have no plans to go back to eating meat, I also understand why others choose to continue eating it. I know that meat is something that humans were designed to eat and all that. I just look at some of the statistics, like the sheer amount of energy required to produce a pound of beef, and I wish that people would not eat so much of it. A meal doesn't have to include meat in order to be a meal.

I was hesitant to even mention the fact that I am vegetarian in creating this blog, because I know that it skews how others will read it. Although at this point, it must be getting obvious. Who else would actually enjoy making a chili with lentils in it? As I gauged from Julie's reaction to what I made last night, the answer to that question is: not many.

This is the first chili that I have made since becoming vegetarian that I have actually liked. The texture of the lentils adds a nice variety to the other beans. I ended up with 10 portions after adding can after random can of beans. I wasn't expecting it to grow to quite the size it achieved, and nearly overflowed the pot that it was in.

Okay, well now, I think I may actually provide the recipe after all, if for no other reason than to remember it for myself, and, frankly, I've now had a request for it...

This is inspired, once again from a WeightWatchers.com recipe. I am following their program online right now, so have had lots of time to peruse their recipes. I will be breaking the mold and looking elsewhere next week though.

What I made makes 10 servings of just over a cup and a half each.
If anyone's curious, each serving is 8 WW PointsPlus

Ingredients:
1 1-lb package lentils
1 large onion, cooked in two tablespoons of vegetable oil (I cut the onion like a champ this time. I swear. Well, a little bit smaller anyway... the youtube link was great. Thanks! I've avoided writing about this step because I don't feel like talking about cooking an onion again. It gets old. And I'm only on week six or so of this.)
1 28 oz can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes (so much better than plain old crushed tomatoes)
2 15 oz cans of black beans
1 25 oz can of kidney beans 
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes with green chili (about as much spice as I can tolerate)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin 
2 red peppers, chopped up real good (For practically the first week ever, the item I was looking for at Whole Paycheck was actually on sale. A buck a piece!)

Instructions:
1. I cooked the lentils according to the instructions (about 20 minutes), then poured out all but about an inch of the water. I cooked the onion at the same time. The recipe called for adding the red pepper and cooking it at the same time, but I skipped that and added it with the other ingredients. It kept the pepper tasting more crispy, which I preferred.
2. Basically, I combined all of the ingredients after cooking the onion, and let it all cook on medium-low for 20 minutes. Wicked haw'd.

Alright, enough said.

ps. There's a pretty cool website that we looked at in class yesterday called waterfootprint.org. It's a pretty fun/scary/interesting website. I had no idea how much water went into making a cup of coffee...