I have a confession to make

Right after publishing my post on how we should all care about what we eat and in so doing, care about each other (group hug anyone?) Steve and I had to run out on errands…and we ended up grabbing some industrial fast-food burgers for dinner…at 8:30 at night…Steve’s “double original” was splayed out on the wax paper ready for dressing in the time it took me to walk over to the serviettes and ketchup across the way...

ugh…precooked efficiency.

Reminds me of my favourite saying from television: there's landmark television, and there's landfill television...

And those were landfill burgers.

So in retribution for stepping in the muck of hypocrisy -

1. We cooked a beautiful roast beef dinner on Saturday - roast potatoes, fresh steamed leeks with bechamel sauce, carrots and rutabaga mashed, and roasted parsnips and brussel sprouts...
2. Sunday we followed up with a roasted chicken from our favourite market that sells meats from the Mennonite farms in southwestern Ontario - in Steve's rub of course.
3. And finally, in my favourite example of a closed loop, I'm now in the stock market - every glorious roasted chicken carcass is the path to glorious chicken stock. I slowly simmered the pot and let the house fill with warmth and the smell of Thanksgiving. It was a moment of rich abundance - a bull market for chicken stock.

So now I think my righteous path will lead me to something clean and bright tasting - vegetarian chili. This is a recipe via Barb, the incredible apple painter of my previous post who found it in a tv magazine many, many moons ago.

This is now my quick dinner if we have nothing in the cupboard and don't feel like making a fuss. And if you put on some music and start chopping away...you're done in no time and the kitchen fills with the wonderful scent of cumin and peppers and tomatoes and onion...(why isn't that a room freshener scent? huh? fried onions? I'd buy a house in a millisecond if it had garlic or onions wafting through the air - if you could buy a house for the price of a bag of onions, that is.)

Barb's Vegetarian Chili

Sautee an assortment of chopped vegetables (onion, green pepper, zucchini, carrots, celery )

Add large can tomatoes and its liquid
2 tbsp. of tomato paste to thicken
A bit of brown sugar and salt to lift flatness
Can of kidney beans and (sometimes) chick peas
Some frozen corn
Season with cumin, chili powder and a few pinches of cayenne
Serve with shredded cheddar and sour cream

I thicken yogourt (in a sieve lined with paper towel - I know, I know I keep meaning to buy cheesecloth) and then fold in fresh herbs and/or garlic and let it sit for a bit...and serve that on the side.

Enjoy...