I’m a bad vegetarian. Growing up in a family where we ate out most of the time and no one really cooked has made me a mostly non-adventurous eater. Case in point: veggie chili. This is one of those dishes that’s super-easy to make and infinitely customizable. Well, I’ve got the super-easy part down, but I’ve never really customized it. All of my veggie chili recipes have basically consisted of getting a package of chili mix, reading the directions on the back, and substituting Morningstar Farms crumbles for ground beef. Pretty thrilling, I know.
What I end up with is perfectly passable chili; chili that will keep you warm and full. What I didn’t have was chili that will excite you. Is it weird that I think chili should excite you? Well I do, so whatever; don’t judge. Recently, however, I came across the veggie chili recipe to end all veggie chili recipes: Glark’s World-Famous Veggie Chili.
Glark is actually David T. Cole, who along with his wife, Tara Ariano, and friend Sara Bunting, co-founded the uber-TV site Television Without Pity. I stumbled upon his blog years ago through that, so it was totally my love of TV that found this amazing veggie chili recipe for you guys (well, for me. Mostly for me, because a good deal of it went in my belly, and it was the resulting food coma that made me realize I needed to spread the Good News).
The recipe itself caught my attention for a few reasons: the use of Quorn crumbles (and you guys know how I feel about Quorn) and the use of veggies that I wouldn’t have thought to put in chili: corn and carrots. The corn made total sense to me for some reason, but the carrots were more intriguing. Even Luke, who will eat anything you put in front of his face, was wary of the carrots. He actually told me that he would pick them out. Of course, when it came down to it, he gladly ate everything.
I even decided to be a big girl and stick to the recipe, which calls for one large sweet onion. Although my disgust isn’t nearly as pathological as Cate’s, onions are no friend of mine. I sucked it up though and used it. Granted, I put that bad boy in the food processor and pureed it until it was basically onion juice, but that thing was the size of a softball and I used it all. Baby steps, people.
Since it was my first time making it and the ingredients were already blowing my mind (chipotle peppers in adobo sauce!) I pretty much stuck with the recipe, with only a few minor modifications. Instead of a half stalk of celery, which didn’t seem like nearly enough for such a big pot, I used two stalks and probably could have used more. I also threw a little bit of garlic in there, because I can’t not put garlic in things.
Overall, this was ridiculously good. So good that not only did it not leave enough leftovers to “build a small chili-based hut for your favourite dog,” but it only lasted like two and a half days before we were left dreaming of the next time this chili would enter our lives. Next time I may even live on the wild side and add three stalks of celery. Watch out!
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Apr 21, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
Boo. That chili sounds awesome, but we don’t have Quorn OR chipotles in adobo here. I could probably use the mixture I make bean burgers with instead of Quorn, but…someone needs to mail me a can of chipotles! Which would make it the most expensive chili ever.