Vegetarian Slow Cooker Chili

I realized the other day that I had 178 recipes pinned to my Recipes board on Pinterest.  Of these 178 I had made approximately none.  Ok maybe three...ish.  But why am I hoarding recipes if I'm not going to make them?

So since I'm out of the cast and into the annoying-ass boot (which, by comparison, is awesome, but still may befall a fate which will render it accidentally and unavoidably...um...burned) I've decided I need to start cooking again.

So I started out slow and easy, with an easy slow cooker recipe.

I saw a post on Skinny Ms.' Skinny Slow Cooker Facebook page showing a delicious looking Chicken & Dumplings recipe which, like most slow cooker recipes, called for a cooking time of 6-8 hours.  I commented that it looked great but it would be burned before I got home from work and two things happened:

The site admin posted a bunch of recipes which called for more like 8-10 hours.

I found out that they make slow cookers with timers just for this reason.  Who knew?

So last weekend I bought the ingredients for both that chicken & dumplings recipe and a chili recipe which had a significantly longer cooking time.   And I committed to cooking and writing about it.

And...here we are.

I made this chili recipe for last night's dinner, but instead of using ground turkey I used six Boca All American Flame Grilled Burgers, and I opted for the vegetable broth option, making the recipe vegetarian.  If not for the cheese in the Boca burger it might be vegan but, alas, no.

I cooked it a total of 10 1/2 hours and when I got home I was disappointed to find that it appeared to be burned.  But when I stirred it I found that it was fine.  A tinch on the dry side, but I only used 1 1/2 cups of vegetable broth and the recipe says to use 2 cups if you prefer a thinner chili.

Being the OCD numbers geek that I am, I ran the nutritionals and it comes in a bit higher calorie than Skinny Ms' version.  Next time I might cut back to four boca burgers, because it was super...umm..?  faux-meaty?  And maybe next time I'll use water.

The best thing about slow cooking, aside from good food, is coming home to a house that smells like Becky Homecky has been slaving away all day in your kitchen, and this definitely fit the bill for that.  Making some nice homemade (or even a Jiffy mix) cornbread would have enhanced the effect, but my Friday was just a big ol' dollop of cold gravy topping on a shit sandwich of a week, so I stopped at Giant Eagle and got some of their pre-made cornbread muffins.

Becky Homecky can kiss my ass.

So 10 minutes after I walked in the door I was on the couch with my feet up, wearing my jammies, with a nice a hot bowl of clean-eating, healthy, low-ish calorie, extremely tasty chili that includes no ingredients that ever had a face.

And to think some people go OUT on Friday night.

Served on my bejammied lap with cornbread mixed in, as God intended chili to be served.

It was so good I'm having it again tonight.  

Oh yeah, and today I bought a crock pot with a timer.  Because really who DOESN'T need three slow cookers?  

Chicken & dumplings here I come.