Krysta's Award Winning Chili Recipe!

Ooh hey there, friends!

Today must be "special treat tuesday"

because I have an awesome person here today guest blogging for me.

 Krysta from My Life in Food is here to share her bomb.com {..I went there} vegetarian chili recipe I cooked for our friends chili cook-off party this past weekend. Krysta is someone I can always turn to for a great vegetarian dish when I'm in a rut and unsure of what to cook. I simply email her with the subject line "HELP!" and she's there to help a sister out. Bless her heart.

Anyway, she's kinda the creator of this amazing chili recipe

which makes me really really like her

...as if I didn't before ;)

{for the record: I love her and look up to her as a mom, cook, and a person}

Let's give her a warm welcome, shall we?

Here's Krysta...take it away girl!



Hey everyone, it's me, Krysta from My life In Food and I am really excited to be guest blogging yet again for Ms. Awesomeness herself. Just for the record, I do have a full face but this is currently my favorite picture so I'm using it. :) I've said it before and I'll say it again, Katie's blog is one of my personal favorites and she is always turning me on to the best beauty, food and fashion items out there. Hopefully today, I'll be as successful at turning you on to meatless chili.

Katie and I are vegetarians (kind-of...actually I'm not sure exactly what to call me, but for the sake of not making this a lengthy post, I'll go with "vegetarian" today) and see, this fact is pretty hard for me to accept when it comes to chili. I seriously LOVE chili and chili cook-off's are one of my favorite events in the whole world. Because of this I can be pretty particular about the kind I make at home. Chili at my house has to be relatively thick, have a little kick, and heaped with a ton of toppings (I usually do cheese, cilantro, red onion and a tiny bit of sour cream). It also cannot have meat in it. The problem was a lot of vegetarian chili recipes out there are pretty bland. So, I went about tweaking the chili recipe (which originally contained 2 lbs of ground beef) that I had always made. I eventually got it right and it has become my go-to recipe on cold winter nights.

I added Morning Star Veggie Crumbles to this batch.

That's why it looks like there is meat in it. But it's not, promise.

This recipe has won three chili cook-off's in it's time (ahem...confession. The meat version did, anyway) and I can honestly say that I like it just as much as the original. Try this for a Meatless Monday and see if you don't agree with me. :) And if you just can't live without the meat, brown 2 lbs 80/20 ground beef in a skillet with the onion and pepper and reduce the beans by 2 cans.

Award Winning Chili

Ingredients:

1 large yellow onion, diced small

3 14.5-oz cans red kidney beans, drained

3 14.5-oz cans Hunts small red beans, drained or use more kidney or great northern beans

2 14.5-oz cans S&W diced tomatoes

1 16-oz jar Herdez Salsa Casera (mild or medium depending on your preference of heat)

1 14.5-oz can tomato saucestyle

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped small

2 anaheim peppers, seeded and chopped small

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced (leave seeds in if you like it hot)

2 1/2 tablespoons chili powder

1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon kosher salt

Directions:

Saute the onion and peppers in a skillet with olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Or if you are strapped for time, throw everything in a crockpot without sauteing and let it cook all day on low. If you have time, all night and all day-see note at bottom.

A few secrets I learned are as follows:

-If you cook the chili the night before you are going to eat it, it's especially good. That means throwing it in after dinner one night and letting it cook all night and all the next day.

-Herdez salsa is a must, but if you absolutely can't find it (I get mine at both Safeway and Kroger) use another fresh tasting jarred salsa and try to avoid really pasty or sugary ones like Pace. Rotel would probably work well.

-Serve with a bunch of toppings and salty corn chips or corn bread.

That's it, that's all I know.

Now if you'll excuse me, Poor Unfortunate Souls from Little Mermaid just popped up and is playing on my itunes and I need to nip that, like now. Thanks for having me. Happy Tuesday!



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There you have it! Isn't Krysta wonderful? and calling me Ms. Awesomeness? I think I'll take it. Hop on over to her blog & click "follow"..she always has me starving before 11am.

 Now, go get your ingredients & make yourself some of this amazing chili.

...and eat it all week for pretty every lunch & dinner like I have :)

PS-Are you interested in guest posting for me?

If so, leave me a comment or email me at: whalenkat@gmail.com

and let me know what you would like to share that is fitting to my blog.

I love sharing people I {heart} with my readers who I also {heart}

adios!