Vegetable Chilli Pot

For those of us in colder climates, that need warming up - I offer you a virtual bowl of 'vegetable chilli', it makes a nice change from bowl of soup.

Its full of vegetable goodness such as mushrooms that are plentiful, tinned or frozen sweetcorn that many of us have lurking in the back of our cupboards, even tinned beans.  I've used kidney beans here, but you can use chickpeas, butter beans - whatever takes your fancy.  As you can see there are chunky carrots here too.  You can use the good old variety of carrots for this dish, but this time of year I prefer to make the most  of little dumpy baby carrots known as chantenay carrots.  In fact you can use any vegetable you wish, but the colours of these just shout warmth to me. 

Vegetable Chilli Pot

Serves 4 – 6

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, finely sliced

3 – 4 cloves garlic, crushed

2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon oregano

2 - 3 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

1 teaspoon unsmoked paprika

1 x 400g can tomatoes, chopped

300g Chantenay or baby carrots, whole and unpeeled

250g chestnut mushrooms, chopped in half if large

150g sweetcorn, frozen or canned

2 x 400g can mixed beans, drained and rinsed

400ml vegetable stock

To serve

Fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped

Optional: Soured cream or cheddar cheese, grated or vegan alternative

Method

In a large pan with a lid, heat he oil and then fry the onion with the garlic until soft. Add the spices and dry fry for a couple of minutes or until the spice aroma arises from the pan. Then add in the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes for the flavours to mingle. Add the carrots, mushrooms, beans and sweetcorn and stock and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook for around 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Check after 15 minutes or so if the sauce is a little thin uncover for the remaining cooking time to thicken.