Hearty Vegan Chili

I have always tried to eat healthy as an adult because I grew up with parents who were born in the country as opposed to the city. We had a vegetable garden in our back yard, a barbecue pit and a fig tree. All of the vegetables that we ate with few exceptions came from our back yard. My father was also an avid fisherman who fished twice a week, so we had all of the fresh fish, crabs and shrimp that we could eat. I actually got tired of eating seafood, gumbo, and crabs until I had to start paying for them as an adult.

Last year after watching a documentary on Netflix about the food industry, inhumane treatment of animals, etc. I became a vegan for about 5 months. The challenge for me was keeping my weight up to a normal size eating just fruit, vegetables and nuts. I did not eat dairy products either. I was already a small person and have been all of my life. I also lead a very active lifestyle and I have a fast rate of metabolism. Whereas other people have to watch what they eat or it becomes fat, I have to watch what I eat to gain some fat.

Anyway, I am a pretty good cook, and I ended up with a lot of wonderful vegan recipes that I modified, added to or made my own. One recipe in particular was for some vegan chili. The original recipe was from epicurious.com and it included canned black beans and kidney beans. I prefer to cook my own beans, so the first change that I made was to prepare my own homemade black beans and I also used pinto beans sometimes or red beans. The recipe also calls for chili powder which I changed to chipotle chili powder because I like spicy food. If I didn't have jalapeno peppers, then I substituted serrano peppers. I also added celery to the ingredients.

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/vegan-chili-51216410.

This recipe had turned out to be one of the favorites with my family and friends. When we had a family dinner and I brought as my dish, the vegan chili, the meat eaters were trying to pack it all off. The recipe calls for bulgur wheat which I had not used before making this dish. The bulgur wheat gives the same consistency of ground meat and it adds a lot of protein to the dish.

I highly recommend this dish whether you are vegan or not. I added other foods back to my diet after I lost so much weight that one of my sister's who had not seen me in a while said I looked like I was disappearing. More importantly, I dropped two pant sizes and I refused to get any smaller.

I hope you try the recipe and if you do, let me know what you think of it. Bon Appetit!