Recipe: Little Grove Chili (vegan)

Yesterday, I visited Phipps Country Store (formerly known as Phipps Ranch) in order to pick up some beans. I am participating in a chili cook-off today and have created a chili that makes use of delicious heirloom beans and wheat berries.

This is what I picked up:

Pinquito beans and Desert Pebble beans
from Phipps Country Store and Farm in Pescadero, CA

The pinquito's are a real delight. Slightly sweet with a complex heartiness to their flavor. They are the perfect chili bean. The Desert Pebbles are inspiring as well. Although lacking the richness of the pinquito's they enjoy the same steadiness of flavor as potatoes do and I expect they'll take on the chili flavors very well.

I also picked up a good chili powder. I ended up using the entire bottle for the competition batch. The recipe below is family-sized.

Little Grove Heirloom Bean Chili with Wheat Berries

Ingredients

1/2 cup Phipps-grown Desert Pebble beans (dry)

1/2 cup Pinquito beans (dry)

3/4 cup - 1 cup hard winter wheat berries (dry)

1 cup chopped onion

3 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon safflower oil

1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes

4 tablespoons Phipps Country Store chili powder

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

1 cup water (optional)

Directions

1. Prepare the beans: Soak beans in enough water to cover overnight. Alternately, place beans in large pot with 2" of water to cover. Bring to a rolling boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit 1 hour.
2. Rinse beans thoroughly after soaking.
3. Prepare the wheat berries: Rinse wheat berries in cold water. Place wheat berries, salt, and 1 3/4 cup water in saucepan. Bring to a boil then simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Drain and let sit while preparing next ingredients.
4. In large pot, heat oil over medium high heat. Saute onions and garlic until onions are translucent.
5. Add tomatoes, chili powder, beans, rice wine vinegar and brown sugar to pot. Simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Add red pepper flakes and wheat berries. Allow to simmer another 30 minutes.
7. Add water, if desired, to preferred consistency of chili.

Enjoy!

Update: I didn't win the cook-off tonight but I did get to enjoy many other excellent chilis!

Nutrition information courtesy of NutritionData.com

Tomato Seeds

When my husband and I became engaged, he told me that he had a storehouse of seeds from a crazy time period when he had 80 plants going at a time.

This morning, I pulled out the seed box and we have been chatting up a storm about these seeds most of the day.

Many of them are from 2000 and 2001, but we expect that they'll germinate reasonably well. I am taking some time this evening to list what we have and what we'll be planting this year.

Key:
P - Purchased seeds (all other seeds listed are harvested from the indicated year's crop)

Key	Tomato		Key	Tomato
P2000	Aker's West Virginia		P2000	Marmande
P2000	Anna Russian		2001	Marmande
P2000	Aunt Ruby's German Green		2001	Mortgage Lifter
2000	Aunt Ruby's German Green		P2000	Mountain Princess
2001	Black Plum		2001	Mr. Stripey
2001	Black Zebra		2000	Mule Team
P2000	Blue Ridge Mtn		2001	Nebraska Wedding
P2000	Box Car Willie		P2000	Nepal
2001	Brown Flesh		2001	Nepal
2000	Burgess Red Stuffing		2001	Nimitz
1999	Campari		2001	Odoriko
2001	Carmello		2001	Orange Strawberry
2001	Cherokee Purple		2001	Oregon Spring
2001	Cherriette of Fire		P2000	Orenburg Giant
P2000	Costoluto Genovese		2000	Pineapple
P2000	Delicious		P2000	Pruden's Purple
2000	Dona		2001	Purple Brandywine
2000	Early Cascade		2001	Purple Calabash
2001	El Camino Real		P2000	Red Brandywine
2001	Enchantment		P2000	Red Robin
P2000	Erica D'Australe		P2000	Riesentraube
P2000	Eva Purple Ball		2001	Russian 117
2001	Evergreen		2000	Sandul Moldovan
2000	Flavoremore		2001	Sausage
2001	Fourth of July		2001	Sigona's Giant Yellow
2001	Fruity mix		2000	Special Stupice
2001	Fuzzy Mix		2000	St. Pierre
2001	Georgia Streak		2000	Striped German
P2000	German Johnson		2000	Stupice
P2000	German Red Strawberry		P2000	Super Sioux
P2000	Glasnost		P2000	The 1884
P2000	Grandpa's Cock's Plume		P2000	Totem
2001	Great White		2000	Valenera(?)
P2000	Green Zebra		P2000	Violaceum Krypni-Rozo
2001	Green Zebra		P2000	Wes
P2000	Hillbilly		2001	Yellow Ruffled
P2000	Hires Rootstock
P2000	Isploin
2001	Lime Green Salad

I will need to update this with links to the varieties higher up in the alphabet that I missed.