Veggie Chili

So yesterday, I had every intention of going to the grocery store to pick up some extra food.

I soon had to change my plan when I walked out of the house and over to the gym, because this is what I saw:

Desolation....

Not so much destruction....

A stray car here and there....

Which could only mean one thing: It's a German holiday I totally forgot about. Which means everything is closed, and apparently nobody goes anywhere.

I was going to make this sweet potato and black bean chili anyway, but I was bummed I didn't have any sour cream for it. Oh well, next time.

After the gym, I panicked when I saw my aging sweet potato, so I peeled and diced and got rid of any bad looking bits and dunked it into ice water (thanks, internet for telling me that was a thing!) and stuck it in the fridge for later.

I also started getting my extra ingredients out...(yay quinoa!)

(Not pictured: seasonings and probably some other stuff).

Matt was dubious when I told him what I was making, a little concerned about how sweet potato would go in a chili, and I don't blame him. I offered other things (frozen pizza, tortellini) for him to eat but he passed. He's working in the home office right now on the computer, so I had the kitchen all to myself.

How it turned out. I had to cook it for much longer than was stated in the original recipe, and also reduce the liquid (uh, also, I should have pulled out my 5 quart pot and not use my 3 quart, because man that was close to some crazy spillage). A few of the potatoes were still undercooked when I finally had had enough and decided to eat. The quinoa was spot on, though.

I'm pretty sure my ratio of sweet potato (it was a big sucker) to beans and tomato and onion was off. It was a tad too sweet potato-heavy.

The first few bites were a little bland, but then I started to "get" it. It made sense. It also was improved by the shredded cheese and the taco sauce. Matt even gave it a "yeah, this is pretty good" approval. Will definitely be better with sour cream though.

Final verdict: For some reason, this tasted twice as good the next day (today) for lunch. Not only did it heat up well, the flavors meshed a lot better, and I'm sure the spoonful of hot salsa didn't hurt, either. And the cheese.

We still love our meaty chili, but when we're in the mood to try something different, I will certainly give this another go, and probably add some more veggies like red pepper, extra tomato, beans... all sorts of things to junk it up. That's the best part about chili - you can add tons of random things and still call it chili.