Chili with Beans

This chili recipe is so simple you might think that it can't possibly have much flavor but you'd be wrong because this chili with beans dish is absolutely jam-packed with taste. Made with just a few ingredients and prepared in fifteen minutes of less, this meal is tailor made for boaters, campers or busy people that don't have the time to cook.

I prefer to cook with fresh ingredients and make everything from scratch but then I really enjoy cooking. For those that don't particularly like cooking or for campers or people that live on boats (like me) or for people in areas where obtaining fresh produce is just out of the question, this recipe is perfect.

I rarely used to cook with canned food but, when a friend of mine asked me to help skipper his boat to Hawaii, I started thinking about what we were going to eat since we wouldn't have fresh food. Once I started experimenting with tinned food I was genuinely surprised by the powerful flavors you could coax out of them. It was an experience that mirrored my shift from meat-centric meals to vegetable focused cooking.

When I first considered vegetarian cooking my skin crawled. I imagined eating lettuce and soup and possibly growing long floppy ears like a rabbit! But I soon realized that making tasty food was about flavors not individual ingredients. I learned to combine spices, herbs and ingredients to make delicious meals and I am finding the same things work with canned food too.

To be honest I came up with this recipe because I somehow inherited a can of enchilada sauce and I was looking for a creative way to use it. Fortunately, this chili with beans recipe turned out so good that I will be making it again using the same sauce. Enchilada sauce is a simple way to add some flavor to chili without hours of cooking.

Adding the McCormacks Grill Mates Spicy Montreal Steak seasoning really makes this chili taste like it has meat in it even though it's a vegetarian meal. t's a trick I learned when cooking things like mushroom burgers for my carnivorous friends. To be clear, I eat meat too but I live on a sailboat with no refrigeration so I've learned to cook without meat and I don't miss it at all.

Not that this recipe needs it but, if you wanted to add a few other levels of flavor to this meal, I would recommend paprika, garlic and chipotle Tabasco.

Just like when you make chili using all fresh ingredients, the longer you cook it, the better it will taste. To get the maximum flavor out of this recipe you would steep the onion flakes and steak seasoning for a few minutes, then add the enchilada sauce and simmer those together for ten minutes. Then add the beans, cook for another ten minutes and then add the vegetables and heat through. You add the vegetables last because canned vegetables tend to turn into mush when you cook them for too long.

You can use any variety of mixed vegetables you prefer, as you can use any kind of beans and any brand of enchilada sauce.