The 107th recipe I made with the Eating with Ellie group is Ancho Black Bean Chili with Orange Essence, and can be found in Ellie Krieger's book Whole in One, on pages 27.
Ingredients: olive oil, onion, red bell pepper, garlic, ancho chili powder, cumin, salt, oregano, cayenne pepper, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, black beans, orange zest, orange juice, honey, Greek yogurt, and cilantro leaves (I used parsley).
How many chili recipes can one have is always a good question here. Mark loves chili (it’s one of three recipes he knew how to make in college), especially in basketball season, so I try different recipes whenever I come across them. This one doesn’t have meat, so I did put ground beef into the recipe (replacing half the black beans with ground beef) as I knew this was going to be around for March Madness and it is nice to have a good full-meal deal in a bowl ready to go so I don’t need to be cooking and missing too much of any of the games, that’s how we roll here.
Another thing that makes this chili different from any other chili I have ever had, is the addition of orange zest and orange juice. This seemed so odd to me when I read the name of the recipe and looked at the ingredients. I have never once thought orange and chili go together like this, but you know what? I may always add a bit of orange zest to my chili from now on. Mark wasn’t particularly sold on this, although he did like it just fine, but the citrus-lover that I am, I liked it a whole lot. From now on, I’m grating a little orange zest and stirring it into my bowl of chili. The rest of the recipe is pretty much standard chili making procedure. Definitely repeat worthy.