Never the Same Chili

I love my crock pot.  Working full time I get home and have about 20 minutes before I need to get dinner on the table and feed my ravenous boys.  Needless to say without any prep work I would hardly be able to manage anything outside of a bowl of cereal on a daily basis.  Chili is a staple in our house and I am a big fan of pre-soaking dried beans beforehand rather than spending the extra cash on the canned ones.  

The chili recipe below should just be used as a guide, every time we put it together it comes out a bit differently but I figure that is part of the fun.  I have also been trying to cook a bit more vegetarian food recently so did not include meat below but you can easily add ground beef, ground pork (our favorite!) or ground turkey, I would just suggest precooking it before adding it to the pot.

What you need:

• Around two 14oz cans or 3 cups of diced tomatoes
• 4 good sized handfuls of  dried beans soaked overnight (I use garbanzo beans, black beans, kidney beans and red beans)
• Around half a head of crushed garlic
• 1 – 3 tablespoons of chili powder depending on how spicy you want it
• 1 tablespoon of salt (more to taste as needed) 
• 1 medium sized chopped onion
• Whatever veggies you happen to have, my usual choices are carrot, celery, pepper (whatever color), broccoli and eggplant 
•  A bit of grated cheese as a tasty garnish

Throw everything in the crock pot and give it all a good stir.   Cook it on low for around 8 hours, stir it every few hours to make sure it does not stick to the pot.  If it seems to be dry I usually add about ½ a cup of water to help.  Serve with rice and a bit of grated cheese!  This will make a ton of chili so we always have leftovers, for whatever reason it usually tastes better the next day.