Lekker: Vegan Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili

Hello there, and Happy Thanksgiving pals!

As a foodie I'm sure you can imagine that this is very nearly my favourite holiday of the year. Christmas is my actual favourite, but only because it's LONGER.

Because Thanksgiving is just one day I feel like it never really gets its proper due, so when I "grow up" one day I plan to host Thanksgiving dinners at least twice a year. It's such a great excuse to get together with friends and family for quality time, and besides, there's just too many cool recipes I want to try. Once per year is not cutting it. Bollocks.

(That plan hinges on the obviously faulty logic that I will, in fact, one day grow up--but nevermind.) 

Surprising no one I've been planning my Thanksgiving menu since sometime in September, and I ultimately decided that sweet potatoes were axed from this year's menu. Since it's just my Dad, my 20-year-old body building brother Champ and I for dinner this year it's quite the small party, and thus I had to be painfully limited with my side dishes.

Champ threw a hissy fit when he found out I wasn't doing sweet potatoes because OF COURSE he doesn't care about anything, ever, but the **second** I say no to something it's immediately the most important thing ever--but I'M IN CHARGE HERE DAMMIT!

However in light of the "family togetherness" of the holidays etc etc etc I yielded somewhat to the sweet-potato-based pressure by cooking up this vegan sweet potato and black bean chili for dinner.

None of us are vegans here but it's so lean, filling, and chock full of wholesome things, it'll make you feel better about yourself before you dive in face first to the gluttony and gravy-induced stupor that is Thanksgiving the following day.

Chili never looks particularly appetizing, but damn if it isn't delicious.

And yes, my father promptly ruined the "vegan" aspect by topping it with a mountain of shredded cheddar cheese.

VEGAN SWEET POTATO BLACK BEAN CHILI
serves 4

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 very large, 2 medium, or 3 smallish sweet potatoes, peeled and diced small
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 red or green bell pepper, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 green jalapeno, seeds removed and flesh diced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 3 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 2 15-oz tins; see my note below if you want to cook them from scratch)
• 4 teaspoons adobo sauce from a tin of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (if you like your chili more on the spicy side, feel free to add in one of the chipotle peppers, chopped)
• 1 28-oz tin diced tomatoes with their juice
• 1 teaspoon white granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup water or vegetable broth, to thin it out

Optional, To Screw Up The Whole Vegan Thing: Sour cream or shredded cheese, to serve

***On black beans from scratch:***

My Mother, God rest her soul, was born and raised in Guatemala on the traditional staple diet of black beans and rice. Do you think they use tinned beans down there? LOL, no. That's an American convenience, and it is convenient--but cooking your own is stupidly easy and SO worth it.

As the beans cook they release starch and flavouring into the cooking water, yielding this black salty broth that acted as my liquid in the chili recipe, and tastes AMAZING. Like I could sip that from a mug all day in bliss. These are the beans I remember from my childhood, and if you did a taste test of beans from scratch next to tinned beans, I absolutely guarantee without a doubt that the beans from scratch will come out on top, every time.

For God's sake, just make sure that they are fresh beans. The first time I made this recipe I used a batch of beans I dug up from the back of my Dad's pantry that I later found out were AT LEAST six goddamn years old. Turns out the older the beans are, the longer it takes to cook--which in this case was SIX HOURS PLUS AN OVERNIGHT SOAKING. It felt like forever. I felt like I was stuck in some kind of parallel universe where nothing cooked.

That's it for my rant on beans for now, but I'm planning on writing a recipe for cooking your own--and more importantly, why you should definitely, positively, should be putting them in and around your mouth.

WHAT YOU DO

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with foil. On it, toss together your diced sweet potatoes, paprika, salt and pepper to taste with only 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and spread out into a thin layer. Roast for 25 minutes, tossing once in between. Remove from the oven and set...somewhere. Aside. Out of your way.

Roasted sweet potato is the best sweet potato and there will be no debate on that fact.

2. In a large pot over medium heat, heat your olive oil and sauté up your onion, bell pepper, garlic, jalapeño, cumin, and oregano until everything is nice and soft. Add in the black beans, the tin of tomatoes, adobo sauce, sugar, and cocoa powder. Stir.

(Note: at this point, I added 1 cup of the black bean broth because the chili was too thick to simmer properly. If you opted for tinned beans, add in a cup of water or vegetable broth here.)

3. Bring the mixture to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and let it simmer merrily away for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add in your sweet potato. Simmer for another 15 minutes-ish or until all heated through nicely.

Dunzo!

There are zillions of chili toppings, of course, but in my house we dig shredded cheddar cheese and saltine crackers. Cheese is obviously not vegan, but there are vegan cheese options so if you're into it, by all means, have at it.

Lekker: Brunch-y Sweet Potato Hash

After my wild bumper crop of gigantic sweet potatoes from our back garden, combined with a spur-of-the-moment visit into town by one of my cousins this past weekend, I knew it was the perfect occasion for my favourite fall brunch dish: Sweet Potato Hash. This is perfect for the morning after Thanksgiving and makes such lovely use of seasonal produce. It can even be made up to two days in advance of when you plan to serve it, hence being perfect for Thanksgiving-morning-after: just reheat it in the oven at 400 for about 15 minutes until warm. With a fried egg on top it's a complete meal, filling and delicious.

Give it a whirl this Sunday, and gents--this is a surefire way to absolutely, unequivocally impress your lady friend the morning after. Don't say I never did anything for you.

My egg is not pretty here. I was being time-constructive and cooking several in a pan at once, hence the unattractive cut lines. But, an egg is still an egg and when you burst the yolk of this over-easy beauty it creates a lovely sauce to meld with the hash underneath.

Brunch-y Sweet Potato Hash
serves 4

What You Need
2 tablespoons butter
1 large or two medium onions, peeled and sliced into half-moons
about 1/2 pound (or 4 links) Italian sausage; I like to use HOT but you could use mild too
2 large or 3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into bite-sized pieces
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
Olive oil, about 2-3 tablespoons
salt & pepper, to taste

Large eggs, to serve--and some fresh grated Parmesan cheese, if you really wanna go all out (And come on, you're making all this effort, right? May as well.)

What You Do
1. Preheat the oven to 450. In a large saucepan or skillet, heat the butter until it melts and add your chopped onions. Cook over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes until they're well browned and nicely caramelised. It'll probably take about that long for your oven to heat up, plus you can be peeling and dicing the sweet potato and garlic at this time too.

2. Squeeze the sausage out of its natural casings onto a separate plate and break it up a bit with your fingers. Toss that into the skillet with the onions and cook over medium heat until it's well browned and cooked through, breaking up with a wooden spoon until it's all nicely crumbled.

3. In a large bowl, toss your diced sweet potato, dried rosemary, and fresh minced garlic with the olive oil until well coated and seasoned to your liking. Line a large baking sheet with foil.

4. So, your onions are now caramelised and brown and delicious smelling and the sausage has cooked through. Excellent. Toss that goodness into the bowl with the sweet potatoes and stir up nicely with a big wooden spoon. Spread out onto the baking sheet in one even layer, and pop into the oven.

5. Pour yourself a mimosa and enjoy your lovely brunch company for the next 20-30 minutes or until the sweet potatoes have roasted through. You'll know when you stick a piece with your fork and it goes through tenderly. I like to dice my sweet potatoes pretty small because they'll roast faster.

Just before the hash is finished roasting, you have the option to cook up some eggs to serve on top. Everyone in my little group wanted something different, so I told them all to shut up and they all got over easy. Everyone can make their peace with over easy! :)

Cheers to enjoying a beautiful weekend morning with beloved friends.

Original recipe found here, but I find the instructions a bit time-consuming for my impatient self (and really hate fresh rosemary) so this is my version.

Lekker: Sweet Potato Chippies

In my pursuit for ANY excuse to use my lovely new mandolin (I do so love new kitchen toys...oh, classic orange Le Creuset, how I lust after you...) and after a bumper crop of massive sweet potatoes in the back garden over the weekend, sweet potato chips seemed like the logical answer. I was pleased at the fact that there's no oil or fat of any kind involved, so these ACTUALLY ARE healthy and delicious. How's about them apples?

Or, you know, sweet potatoes. Whatever.

You don't need a mandolin to make these of course, you can just focus on slicing them as thinly and evenly as possible. If you do use a mandolin, I used mine on the thinnest setting at 1.5 mm. 

Sweet Potato Chippies
makes enough for 1 person to snack on; scale up as desired

What You Need:
 2 medium sweet potatoes--that's it!

Optional, to make Salt & Vinegar Sweet Potato Chips:
Rice vinegar
Sea salt

Yes, I made these into salt-and-vinegar sweet potato chips. You could just salt them if you like, or do salt and dried rosemary, or play around with cinnamon instead. Feel free to experiment!

What You Do
1. Preheat your oven to 425. Peel and slice up your sweet potatoes. Lay out on a baking sheet lined with foil with no overlap but squeeze as many as you can on there. They'll shrink down in cooking.

2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp. I had them go to I think 18 minutes, and that was a little long because a few of them turned purple in spots, which later became black--and as I discovered to my misfortune, those spots are really bitter and gross. So! Probably stick closer to 15-16 minutes and check every minute.

3. Remove from the oven, and don't touch them! Let them cool for a few minutes so they can unstick themselves from the foil. If you try to pick them up right away they won't release properly and you'll be sad.

4. Optional step: If you want to flavour them, once they're cool throw them in a paper bag and shake 'em up with whatever seasonings you're interested in. I sprinkled rice vinegar over them and salted to taste, then shook them up until lightly coated and then laid them back on the baking sheets to dry out.

I threw these into a bowl and sat down to watch the Lightning-Devils hockey game (*sob* my Lightning lost, though) whilst snacking...and then suddenly, two giant sweet potatoes had disappeared into my belly. Nom nom those complex carbs, bitches!