Yum!

 And we have a winner

So I've been trying to cook a new dish just about every day the past month.  It has been pretty fun, I am a person who likes to cook so it's not been a "job".  I've been perfectly satisfied with all but 2 meals I've made since switching to wholefoods/vegan, which is a pretty good ratio of good to bad for sure.  The one thing I've been worried about is that I haven't run into much of anything that I can see myself really really craving- like "oh I need to make this because I'm dying to have it".  Last night I hit the mother-load and finally have found that food I've been dying to find.

The following recipe was found on recipage.com (which as of this post was not loading for some reason) and was posted there by Cassie Johnston.  This recipe is worth the time it will take me to type it out =)

Vegetarian Thai Quinoa Chili

Prep : 20 min
Cook time: 1hour

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon red curry paste (if you can't find this in your local grocery store call local health food stores that's where mine was finally found)
• 1 tablespoon Cumin
• 4 cups vegetable broth, divided
• 1 small onion, diced (I personally can't stand onion but I pureed it and put it in anyway)
• 1 large green pepper, diced  ( I used half an orage and half a yellow sweet pepper because it's what I had)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced (weird, right?  Don't leave it out it really works)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cans dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 3/4  cup dry quinoa, rinsed
• 1/2 cup light coconut milk
• 1- 28oz can crushed tomatoes
• Salt and Pepper, to taste
• Optional- sliced green onions for serving
• optional - pain greek yogurt, for serving ( I used better then sour cream since I"m not doing dairy and some veggie cheese- YUM)

Instructions:

•  In a large dutch oven or soup pot, whisk together the chili powder, curry paste, cumin and a few tablespoon of broth over medium-low heat until smooth.
• Add in onion, green pepper, garlic, sweet potato and olive oil and saute for 5-7 minutes or until veggies are tender.
• Add in remaining broth, beans, quinoa, coconut milk, tomatoes, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. reduce to simmer and cook for about an hour, or until flavors are melded and quinoa is cooked.
• Serve topped with sliced green onions and plain yogurt.

This is going to be a recipe I make very often- thank you Cassie Johnston!