On Mondays, Michael explores the world of environmentalism and its intersection with queer culture in the column It’s Easy Being Green, despite what Kermit says. Home-cooking vegetarian food is a great way to reduce your environmental and carbon footprint.

Chili is the perfect winter food. It’s hot and hearty, and can both warm and fill you up on a cold winter day. One big complaint of mine with making homemade chili is that the usual chili bean, the kidney bean, requires a lot of soaking and cooking before it can be used in a recipe. Unless of course you buy them in cans, which is heavy and expensive and worse for the environment than using dry beans. The quick and easy solution to this is to use lentils instead of kidneys. Sure they are not your traditional chili bean, but you don’t have to do a lot of prep work to use dry lentils and they taste really good. Here’s my recipe for lentil chili.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 brick extra firm tofu, grated
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 large can crushed tomatoes
• 5 cups of water
• 2 cups of lentils
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 small zucchini, diced
• salt and pepper to taste

The Way

Add the oil to a large soup pot and place on a hot burner. Dice the onion, add to the pot and stir.  Grate the tofu with a cheese greater.  If the tofu is firm enough, it should end up looking like grated white cheese.  If not, it might get kinda mushy.  If your tofu is too soft to grate, just crumble it with your fingers.  Add the tofu and garlic to the pot and stir for a few minutes, letting the onion, garlic and tofu all get some time at the bottom of the pot.

When the onion starts to look translucent, add the can of tomatoes, water, lentils and chili powder.  Stir and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes and then add the diced zucchini.  (The lentils take longer to cook than the zucchini, so we give them a head start.)  Add more water one cup at a time if the chili is starting to look too thick.  Bring back to a boil and simmer for an additional 20 minutes or so until everything is just about cooked.  Stir in salt and pepper to taste.  (If you’re like me, you’ll want a good 4 tablespoons of salt.)

Another option is to use half lentils and half brown rice.  Rice and beans combine to make a “perfect protein” which makes a great meat substitute.  Of course, the tofu in this recipe adds not only texture but more protein.

Serve hot with fresh made corn bread or a slice of crusty bread.