Chili Cookoff.
When it comes to competitions Chuck is in, and I am out. This year, per usual, his work was sponsoring a chili cookoff to raise money for The United Way.
A few months ago I had tried a new vegetarian chili recipe made with bulgar. It was actually quite tasty, and the bulgar helped to bump up the texture of the chili. Chuck decided that night that he would enter the chili in the competition.
He spent a whole day promoting the chili before the actual competition, by handing out the recipe to all he came across. Several of his co-workers do not eat meat so he figured our chili had a fighting chance to place.
We spend the night before whipping up two batches. Chuck was quite impressed with my organizational skills as I had prechopped and measured all the ingredients for both batches. After sautéing the onions and peppers, we primarily just had to dump the other ingredients into the pot to simmer.
Now I wish I could say that we walked away from the competition in first place or even second or third. Technically, we didn't place, but Chuck said the chili was well received by all who tried it, and there was none left in the end. Heck, Chuck didn't even get to try any.
He was a little bummed when he got home for losing, but I told him it's hard to compete with traditional chili. People carry a bias, and pretty much have there minds made up ahead of time. I guess part of the reason I'm not competitive with anyone else but myself, is I can't stand the feeling of losing.
Overall, though, Chuck and I enjoyed getting to work together to pull off the "Vulcan Vegetable Chili," and that was a winner in my book.
I'm including the recipe below, but I did leave out the cinnamon and the cayenne.
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