Eco Lesbo Vego

I found the original recipe online at epicurious here. It’s a tasty, if somewhat runny, chili with beans, spinach and butternut pumpkin (squash, for Americans). Yankee Elv tweaked it and made it for me.

Now, the original recipe calls for 2 tabs chili powder. I didn’t trust this, because the recipe was on an American site, and chile powder in the USA is way different to chili powder here. Chili powder in Australia is ground chili peppers. Chile powder in the USA is usually Texan or Mexican chile powder, and it’s a combination of ground chili peppers, ground cumin, majoram, mexican oregano, cayenne pepper sometimes… all kinds of things. My point is, it’s nowhere near as spicy. So I told Yankee Elv I thought it would be best to reduce the amount of chili powder. She did so – by half, the first time she made this dish.

That stuff still burned me to death. I was literally crying, I had to eat with a box of tissues beside me, blowing my nose every other bite. Now, I’m wimpy with spiciness, but not THAT wimpy. This was hardcore. Even Yankee Elv (who I think has a mouth made of teflon or something) thought it was spicy, although she was less affected than me. It was also more liquidy than a chili normally is, so every breath I took, a little of the liquid went to the back of my throat and threatened to go up my nose… so even that part of me was burning.

We drained it and tried it as a pasta sauce. I stirred sour cream into it (I was still eating that back then, but I’m not now). I ate it with cornbread. These things helped, and they tasted good too. My mouth, however, still felt like it was on fire.

But oh, if you could get past the burn, it tasted SO GOOD!

So next time, Yankee Elv reduced the amount of chili powder to about 1 tsp. That was still pretty spicy for me – but yummy spicy, instead of crying spicy.

Try it if you dare!

Spicy Bean Chili Stew

Spicy Bean Chili Stew with Cornbread

Ingredients

• 2 tab olive oil
• 2.5 cups onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2.5 cups butternut pumpkin (butternut squash if you’re American), peeled and chopped into 1/2″ cubes
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 3 x 400g cans beans, drained (black beans if you can get them, but we used kidney beans, butter beans or cannellini beans and mixed beans)
• 2.5 cups liquid vegetable broth (don’t make this up using dry stock and water because it turns out too salty)
• 400g can diced tomatoes, with juice
• 3 cups fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
2. Saute onions and garlic until tender and golden (about 10 mins).
3. Stir in pumpkin pieces and cook for about 2 mins.
4. Stir in the chili powder and cumin and cook for about 1 min.
5. Stir in the beans, vegetable broth and tomatoes. Bring to a boil.
6. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for about 15 mins, until the pumpkin is tender.
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
8. Add spinach and combine. Cook for another 5 mins. (Don’t allow the spinach to get too wilted).
9. Serve with rice, pasta, toast, cornbread , tortillas, corn chips, guacamole or whatever else takes your fancy.

Note: This dish freezes well, although the pumpkin gets a bit mushy.