Black Bean Veggie Chili

Also along the line of making food for Nicole's freezer, I made up a small batch of chili.

Ingredients

• 8 oz of diced tomotoes
• 1/2 cup of diced red pepper
• 1 small onion
• 1 cup of diced zucchini
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/3 cup of rice
• 1 cup of textured vegetable protein
• 1/4 cup of crushed tortilla chips
• 8 oz of black beans (or refried black beans)
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt, black pepper, cumin, crushed red pepper, oregano, cilantro, chili powder, paprika

I diced all the veggies and sauteed them in a little olive oil with a dash of crush red pepper. Once the veggies were soft, I added the black beans. The other day, we had opened a can of refried black beans (the super healthy ones not made with lard), so I threw these in instead of whole black beans. If you use whole beans, drain them first, then add about 1/2 cup of water and let them simmer with the vegetables a little to get soft. Once they are soft, mush them up a little with a fork.

After the bean and veggie mixture was warm, I added a dash of chili powder, paprika, and cumin and a grind of black pepper. Next I added the tomatoes and the let the mixture simmer. While this was going on, I cooked the rice. When I've made this for myself, I've used whatever rice I had on hand--basmati, sushi, or even the kashi pilaf. Once the rice was cooked, I added it to the mixture, and then added in the TVP, to avoid overcooking the TVP.

Once the TVP was heated through, I added the juice of a lemon and the crushed tortilla chips. I readjusted the seasoning at this point and added a few tablespoons of of fresh chopped cilantro.

It tasts great with topped with pepper jack cheese and a tortilla chip.