Chili TVP

I helped my friend Lau­ren move to Tremont on Sat­ur­day and then fixed a batch of chili for every­one to eat after­ward. It turned out pret­ty good, and though I was a bit leery of using some­thing as strange as TVP, it did­n’t roil me gut like tofu tends to do. Actu­al­ly it was pret­ty good. Even bet­ter reheat­ed the next day.

Ingre­di­ents:

1 c. TVP
1 14.5oz can of stewed toma­toes
2 15oz cans of black beans
2 15oz cans of hot chili beans
.5 c. frozen corn
4 c. water
2 T. brown sug­ar
2 poblano pep­pers, diced
5 cloves gar­lic, crushed/diced
1 small onion, chopped
1 stalk cel­ery, chopped
1 T. olive oil
chili pow­der
cayenne pep­per
cumin
black pep­per
salt

Direc­tions:

1. Put the oil in a stew pot and sauté the onion, cel­ery, pep­pers and gar­lic till the onions are softy.

2. Dump in the rest of the ingre­di­ents and sim­mer for a half hour.

Things to watch for:

4 cups of water is alot. The TVP soaks up a bit, but I think 3 cups would be plen­ty. Of course, you can always add more TVP and stick with 4 cups. Patrick rec­om­mends using ser­ra­no pep­pers [not this.] to make it a bit spici­er. or putting in some whole habaneros while it sim­mers. It was pret­ty good.

9 thoughts on “Chili TVP”

  1. that chili was some of the best chili i had in a long time, actu­al­ly. i haven’t had a good chili since i went veg­gie. i like sim­ple, hot chili, and it is hard to find that kind of thing with­out meat in it. i mean, i don’t real­ly find chili i like with­out meat in it. good job with this stuff.

  2. Sor­ry for find­ing amuse­ment in your diges­tive ail­ments, but I have to say I find that incred­i­bly iron­ic, since I can no longer digest beef or pork.

    Your chili was real­ly good, btw. I make a damn good veg­gie chili too. I think we should have a veg­gie chili cook off. Any­body else game?

  3. TVP is awe­some in just about any­thing that orig­i­nal­ly con­tained beef. Try it in soft tacos some­time, or in enchi­ladas. None of my meat eat­ing friends can tell the dif­fer­ence.

    TOfu is amaz­ing too, if pre­pared prop­er­ly. I’ve noticed that it nor­mal­ly upsets the stom­ach if it is under­cooked (not unsafe, just not stom­ach friend­ly). Bread it and deep fry it, and it tastes like lit­tle chick­en wings. mmm!

  4. The prob­lem most peo­ple have with tofu is lack of knowl­edg in prepa­ra­tion. Yo can’t just take it out of the pack­age and use it as is, unless you want some­thing like a taste­less jel­lo. You have to press and some­times freeze it. If it’s done right, it gets the tex­ture of white meat chick­en.

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