Confetti Chili: Cooking for a Vegetarian in a Meat Eating Home

My twenty-two year old son decided to stop eating meat about three or so years ago. He is a musician, studying to make music his career and being a vegetarian is part of the music subculture that he identifies with. Our meat eating kids are spending the most of the summer working on the staff at a a camp in New Hampshire and our vegetarian son is home from college for the summer. It has been a challenge knowing how to feed him, especially since cooking and feeding people good food is one of the ways I "love" on people. I came up with an idea a while back that I have done with several different dishes. I cook the base of a dish that is flexible enough to be finished either for a vegetarian or for a meat eater.

I did this today with a dish I threw together I dubbed "Confetti Chili" because of all the wonderful colors the different varieties of vegetables gave the dish. As is often the case this was a "let's see what's in the pantry, fridge and garden and see what I can come up with" dish. I was pretty pleased with the results. I put together all the vegetarian friendly ingredients, then separated out about 1/3 for my son and finished the rest with some ground beef I had in the freezer. You can change to spice mixture to suit your taste. The one I did has some heat, but is not overwhelming. If you like a lot of heat, add more cayenne.

Confetti Chili

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 bell peppers, one red, one green if available, coarsely chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic diced
1 medium can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium can corn
1 small can salsa picante
1 small can tomato sauce
1 medium can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon good quality chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
cayenne pepper to taste
black pepper to taste
salt to taste

1 lb. ground beef browned

Fresh chopped cilantro.

Sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese.


Saute in onions, peppers and celery in a pot until soft. Add the garlic and saute just until done, being sure not to burn it. Add the rest of ingredient except for the ground beef. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Add a bit more water if necessary. Set aside enough of the chili to serve those who want vegetarian chili. Cook another hour or so. Add the ground beef to the rest of the chili and cook another hour or so. Add the cilantro to both portions just before serving.

Serve chili with sour cream, cheddar cheese and soda or oyster crackers.

Enjoy!

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Delicious Fresh From the Garden Ratatouille

I am pretty happy with the way my garden is doing this year. The credit is due to most oldest son who is a vegetarian and natural food fanatic. He really labored in the garden in the spring and we are now enjoy the fruit of his labor. I picked some beautiful bell peppers from the garden and two nice ichiban eggplants. I decided to make a ratatouille with these ingredients as the base.

Ichiban eggplants are originally from Japan. They are great in a dish like this because the skin is thinner than regular eggplants and they are not as spongy, so they keep their shape in the vegetable stew. I used canned tomatoes because my tomatoes have not arrived in abundance yet. The sugar is to balance the acid of the tomatoes and to curb any bitterness there might be in the eggplant. If you prefer you can substitute a grated carrot. I served this dish as a side to grilled lamb chops.

Fresh From the Garden Ratatouille

2 T olive oil
2 ichiban eggplants or 1 regular eggplant
2 green peppers
1 medium onion
1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes or 6 peeled, seeded diced plum tomatoes
2-4 nice sprigs of fresh thyme
1 c. water
1 t. sugar
salt and pepper

Leave the skin on the eggplant. Cut the eggplant, green peppers and onion into a uniform dice about of about 1/2 inch. Put the olive oil and the onions into a cold pan. Turn heat onto medium, add a bit of salt and sweat the onions. When they are clear, add the rest of the vegetables, the water and thyme. Simmer over medium covered until vegetable are tender, about 45 minutes or so. Taste. Add sugar if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

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Brown Rice and Wheat Berry Pilaf

I had a side dish like this for the first time way back in the 80's when our family lived in Kearny, NJ. I had it at this great restaurant called The Park and Orchard. It is a great "whole foods" restaurant. I enjoyed the dish so much that I created my own version which has become a standard. Last night we had this with pan roasted shrimp and zucchini. Wheat berries are kind of an unusual ingredient. They are simply whole kernals of wheat. They should be soaked before cooking unless you want to cook the dish for an hour or more. They add a toothsome nuttiness to the pilaf.

Brown Rice and Wheat Berry Pilaf

2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
1/4 cup of soft white wheat berries
1 cup of brown rice
2 cups good quality vegetable broth
1 cup water
salt, pepper, fresh herbs to taste

Soak the wheat berries overnight or boil in small amount of water, let stand off the heat for 2 hours.

Sweat onion in the oil until they are transparent. Add the wheat berries, rice, stock and water. Bring to a boil, stir, turn down heat to low, cover pan and cook for 35-45 minutes until rice and wheat are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Taste and add seasonsings.

Enjoy!