Winter is Coming: Veggie Quinoa Chocolate Chili

"Now is the Winter of our Discontent / Made glorious Summer by this sun of York..."

Richard III, Act I, Scene I

I hate winter.  I don't ski or snowboard, I hate the cold, and I hate how it gets dark early.  The only thing that winter has going for it?  It's the perfect season for slow-cooked soups, stews, chills, and roasts.

So for our first post here at Game of Scones, we will be making a healthy, slow-cooked, Veggie Quinoa Chocolate Chili.

What you need:

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 large butternut squash, cut into chunks
2 bell peppers
1 large zucchini
1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained & rinsed
1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
2 (15 oz.) cans diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
2-3 tablespoons chili powder, to taste
1/2 cup 60% cocoa bittersweet chocolate chips (or more, if you prefer)
1 tablespoon coriander
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Step 1:

Cut up the veggies.  Let me start this step by saying that if, like me, you like to cook but haven't quite mastered the art of chopping, you may want to forego the whole butternut squash and spring for pre-chunked, frozen butternut squash.  That was always my go-to, but for this recipe I thought I would boldly try my hand at dicing a butternut squash.  Mistake.  After hacking it in half, I realized I had no way to get the skin off, so I had to run out to the store to find a vegetable peeler.  Even once I had the peeler, however, it was still impossibly hard to peel, and equally as hard to cut into chunks.  After way too long, I ended up with many enormous chunks, and a few smaller ones.  Anyways, whether you chop the butternut squash yourself or buy it pre-chunked, once you have it in chunk-form, set it aside by itself.

Once the onion and peppers are chopped, put them aside together.
Then, dice up the zucchini and jalapeño, put them aside together and add the garlic.

Step 2:

Heat the oil in a pan or pot large enough to hold all those veggies you just cut up.  Add the butternut squash and cook for 5 minutes.  I alternated between covering the pot and stirring the squash over the five minutes.  Next, add the onion and peppers, once again cooking for 5 minutes.  Finally, add the zucchini, jalapeño, and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes.  When you're done, you'll have a delicious-smelling mixture that looks something like this:

Cooked Veg Mixture

Step 3:

Pour the cooked veggies into the crock pot.  Add quinoa, water, beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, chili powder, coriander, chocolate chips, salt, and pepper.  Stir.  Cook on high for 4 hours.

All the ingredients, pre-stirring

Step 4:

Enjoy!