Crockolate Chili

I've been meaning to do chili in my crockpot for some time now and finally got around to it tonight (well, last night and all day today...). There was a crockpot issue of the Hungry Girl newsletter last week, and it was the kick in the pants I needed to get crockin'.

Here's the monkey wrench: I wanted to buy as little as possible in the way of groceries to make it happen. Having had success with frozen veggies in the crockpot before, I decided to limit myself to what was already in my freezer where the produce was concerned. That left only the protein and tomato products to purchase. I spent all of about $8 on that, so considering the batch yielded about 8 servings, I shall consider myself Penny Crockpotter from now on! The fun part about this recipe? There's chocolate in it. You heard me.

Crock it to me:

• 1 tube Gimme Lean ground beef style soy protein
• 29 oz can tomato sauce
• 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 big-ass bag of mixed "fiesta style" frozen veggies. Ole.
• 90g frozen corn
• 100g frozen bell pepper slices
• 150g frozen diced onions
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp Worstershire sauce
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• about 1/2 oz 70% dark chocolate, crumbled

I browned the soy protein to break it up a bit first, then combined everything in the pot (sprayed with cooking spray first). Since I did it last night, I put the cover on top and put the whole thing in the fridge overnight. Then this morning, I took it out and let the crockpot cook on low while I was at work all day (8:30am-5:30pm). When I got home, I turned it down to "keep warm," and I stirred in the chocolate about a half hour before I planned to eat.

Que bueno! I highly recommend making el crockpot-o your beyotch-o and letting it make dinner for you while you work all day. I haven't figured out how to make it clean itself yet, but give me a few more tries. I may figure it out.

For dessert, I kept it hot and heavy with a decaf soy chai and one o'them Newman's Own dark chocolate PB cups you hear so much about.

...And maybe I ignored to my rule of no-more-TV-shows and caught up with Lost a bit online. I feel the need.

The need.

For Sayid.