Bastardized About-dot-Com Veggie Chili

From Mare Swallow

Mare (above, left) was a first-time Soup & Bread cook, but seized the moment with the can-do spirit she seems to bring to everything she draws into her orbit. A public speaking and professional development consultant, she’s most recently thrown herself into organizing the inaugural Chicago Writers’ Conference, set to run September 14-16 at Tribune Tower. She also produces a weekly podcast for the city’s Chicago Publishes website–and interviewed me in February of this year. For her soup debut, she settled on this chili after buying a slow-cooker cookbook, but deciding the recipes therein “looked gross.” “I wanted something easy and vegetarian that could be cooked in a slow cooker,” she says. “I found this veggie chili recipe on About.com, but I bastardized it to my own tastes and what I had (or didn’t) in the house.” Allergy sufferers should note that, unusually for a chili, it contains NO ONIONS.

Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red and 1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 carrots, grated or sliced thin
1 1/2 cups corn
1 zucchini, diced
2 cans kidney beans
2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water (skipped the water on the 2nd batch. If you use canned kidney beans, there will be plenty of water)
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 big sloppy dash Bronco Bob’s Mango Chipotle Sauce
dash Tamazula hot sauce

Preparation
Combine all ingredients in a crock pot or slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.