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Sweet potato-black bean chili warms up a cold night

Recipe: Spicy vegan chili simmers in the slow cooker

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED NOV 1, 2020

Vegetable chili and a red ladle — After six-plus hours in the slow cooker, the chili is ready. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

The color changes of fall happen inside as well as outside the house. In the kitchen, it's the season of orange vegetables, as winter squashes, pumpkins, carrots and sweet potatoes come into their own.

Sweet potatoes finally are being used for more than marshmallow-topped casseroles -- hello, seasoned fries! -- but these vitamin A-packed tubers have a lot of unexplored potential.

In this recipe, freely adapted from one I found on the New York Times Cooking website, the root vegetable pairs with black beans for a hearty, spicy main dish. A side of cornbread or a green salad are all you need to add to the meal. (Bonus: The kitchen smells amazing while the chili is cooking.)

I simmered this in my slow cooker, but it can be put together on a stovetop without too much trouble. I recommend choosing fire-roasted tomatoes if you're buying cans; I used a 15-ounce can of fire-roasted and a pint jar of home-canned crushed tomatoes in this.

I also peeled one sweet potato and left one unpeeled, to see if there was any difference in texture after cooking, but there wasn't. And I used the cayenne and all 4 chipotles, which kicked the temperature to pretty-hot, but this chili will taste great at any spice level.

Any leftovers can be frozen for a later lunch or dinner.

Spicy black bean and sweet potato chili

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked black beans, rinsed and drained (two 15-ounce cans), divided

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

6 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped

2 large sweet potatoes, about 1-1/2 pounds total, peeled or unpeeled as desired

3-1/2 to 4 cups crushed or diced tomatoes, including juice

1 cup vegetable broth, plus up to 1/2 cup more if needed

Juice of 1 lime (about 1-1/2 tablespoons)

1 to 4 chipotle peppers from a can of chipotles in adobo, chopped, plus 3 tablespoons of the adobo sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, optional

Ground black pepper, to taste

1 cup or more of frozen corn, rinsed to almost defrost it

Optional topping(s):

Crushed tortilla chips, minced red onion, slices of avocado, chopped cilantro, shredded vegan or dairy cheese, or nondairy sour cream

Instructions:

Chili before cooking — Everything's in the slow cooker and ready to simmer.

After draining the beans, set aside 1/2 cup, reserving at room temperature. Put the rest of the beans in the slow cooker.

In a skillet on medium-high heat, heat the oil and gently cook the chopped onion just until soft. Add the garlic, and stir, about 1 minute. Don't let the garlic brown. Add onions and garlic to the beans in the slow cooker.

Chop the sweet potatoes into 1/2-inch pieces and add those to the slow cooker. Stir in the tomatoes, broth, lime juice, chipotles and adobo sauce, brown sugar, cumin, salt, cayenne if using, and plenty of black pepper to taste.

Cook on low setting for at least 6 hours. At that point, check the sweet potatoes; they should be tender. If the chili seems watery, mash the reserved black beans and stir them in. If the consistency is fine, stir in the beans without mashing. If it seems too thick, add some of the extra vegetable broth until it's the right consistency.

Taste and add more salt or pepper as desired. Finally, stir in the corn to warm through. (One cup seemed fine to me, but add more corn if desired.)

The chili can continue to cook for up to 2 more hours, depending on serving time, or it can hold on warm.

Chili topped with chips — A healthy, spicy chili is perfect for a cold night.

Serve in bowls with desired topping, or set a selection of toppings out on the table and let everyone choose among them.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipe recipes chili fall gardening Sacramento beans fall cooking backyard produce produce management sweet potatoes

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

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Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

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