Home Cooking: Quick Vegetarian Chili

Another adapted recipe from Cooking Light-which is honestly a great resource. I like to play around with the list of ingredients, but for those purists, here's the real recipe: Quick Vegetarian Chili with Avocado Salsa

This can easily feed 2 people for 5 days and uses the handy Avocado Salsa recipe

Ingredients:

• Cooking oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1 cup chopped green pepper
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles
• 2/3 cup uncooked barley
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
• 1 (14.5-ounce) diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can vegetable broth
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (fresh is key)
• sour cream
• tortilla chips
• (optional) lime wedges

2 hours before meal time: cook the barley. The recipe originally calls for quick cook barley, but I couldn't find it. The regular stuff works just as good, but takes a bit of time.

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a soup pot at medium-high heat.

Add onion and bell pepper; sauté 3 minutes. Add chili powder and next 4 ingredients (chili powder through green chiles); cook 1 minute.

Stir in barley and next 4 ingredients (barley through broth); bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. Top with cilantro and serve with sour cream, lime wedges (optional), chips, and Avocado Salsa.