Recession Special: Chili Con Tofu

my fellow americans:
in these troubled times, a lot of us are unemployed/semi-employed/freelancing/begging for change on the subway platform, and that often means cutting back on our food budgets. would you like to hear a secret? sure you would. guess what? veganism doesn't have to be expensive! here is a lovely recipe for those of you who are unemployed weirdos like me - a huge delicious pot of chili which you can savour for like, what would be a week to most normal people but ends up being roughly 3 full days for someone who eats as much as i do. today i bought all the ingredients and they came out to a whopping $17, which is a pretty sweet deal. this is ideal for your purposes, because it's filling, delicious and loaded with precious protein. i stole this recipe from somewhere on the internet and adapted it for my own needs.

here's what you need:

except i forgot some stuff in the picture. whatever. maybe you'd prefer a list?

INGREDIENTS:
- 4-5 cloves garlic, diced
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
- 1/2 a package of white mushrooms, sliced
- 1 package extra firm tofu, crumbled
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 1 tsp cumin
- 2 tbsp or more chili powder
- a whole lot of cayenne pepper (or 1/4 tsp if you're a pussy like elena)
- 14-16 oz plain canned tomato sauce (whatever's on sale, dude)
- 28 oz plain diced tomato, with liquid
- 2 28-oz cans red kidney beans, drained

sooooo you're gonna put the olive oil and garlic in the pot and heat that up a little over a medium-high flame, and once that gets going you'll add the onion and start moving that around - make sure the onions are starting to get a little transluscent before you add the other stuff. add the mushrooms next, sautee, etc. after that, add the crumbled tofu.. i prefer larger chunks, but you may feel differently. add green pepper and stir until the pepper's just barely tender - about five minutes. add spices liberally.

now you're gonna bring the flame down as low as it'll go and add your tomato sauce, diced tomato and drained kidney beans. awesome. i'm sort of a masochist so i like my food as spicy as possible - i continue adding cayenne to taste, and often throw in this insane hot sauce i bought at tears of joy in austin, tx called BEYOND DEATH SAUCE.

you can't tell in the picture, but someone stuck a post-it note on the neck of the bottle that says BE CAREFUL WITH THIS SHIT! sometimes one drop is all the chili needs.

after this you're gonna put a lid on the pot and let it simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. the longer you simmer, the better it'll be, but it's gonna start smelling really amazing and you're gonna start losing willpower about 20 minutes in. be strong. maybe while this is going you could make some brown rice, cos a huge bag of that is only a few bucks and if you eat your chili over rice, you'll get full faster.


then you eat it.


the best part? you just made a LOT of food, dude. it's gonna last you a while. the longer it sits in your fridge (within reason), the more the tofu sucks up the flavors and spices, which is a definite bonus:


also, i made this chili for my carnivore dad once and he liked it.