concoctions

My parents love chili. Growing up they'd frequently make a big pot of it for dinner and I'd make some alternate meal for myself. I didn't like beans, had never liked beans and so chili was not my meal of choice.

Then I moved to Texas, the land of Tex-Mex and black beans and I discovered that I do actually really like black beans. Which led to me discovering a recipe for vegetarian black bean and corn chili and falling in love with chili for the first time.

Black bean love led to liking other beans and now chili is one of my favorite recipes to experiment with. There aren't a lot of beans available here in Mongolia, but you can get cans of kidney beans and tomato sauce.

So when I was craving chili a few weeks ago, I took what was in our pantry/fridge and created perhaps one of the strangest versions of chili yet:

The original recipe calls for no beans, lots of beef, crushed tomatoes and red wine vinegar.

I used a can of kidney beans, a bunch of leftover lentils, a can of stewed tomatoes, a little bit of leftover ground beef, onions, garlic and balsamic vinaigrette instead of vinegar (we didn't have any).


It was admittedly a pretty bizarre combination and not particularly chili-like, but it ended up being exactly what my veggie-loving self was craving.