Great chili

Here's a recipe my mom wanted for some turkey chili I made. It's low in salt, fat and other nasty things, but super high on flavor — but surprisingly unspicy considering all the hot pepper that goes into it. Also it will make a ton. I made it like this back in Arkansas:

Chop up an onion and any leftover onion bits you have.
Chop up a green pepper and any other bits of pepper you have.
I forgot to add garlic, but you can squeeze some cloves in iffin you want.

fry above ingredients over med-hi heat in a dutch over/big soup pot. Stir.

When they are kinda cooked down add

two finely diced jalapenos.
A package of v.v. low fat turkey (if you are veggie make this a vegan dish by popping in a couple packages of tofu that has been frozen and defrosted and crumbled)

Make sure you stir a lot and break up the turkey into little bits. Unlike beef, it will stick all together (what with the lack of fat and all).

When turkey is browned, dump in
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes.

Cuss because you think you screwed up — you bought diced tomatoes special for this recipe!
Add 28 oz (or equivalent) of diced tomatoes.

Dump in three cans of beans, which have been drained and rinsed to get rid of excess salt (and no, that liquid is not all that good for you, it's like it's all full of corn starch!). I recommend two cans dark kidney beans and one can black beans.

Stir and put the heat down so there isn't splatter everywhere.

Now for the spices. Get out your Cumin and put a wooden spoonful's worth in there. A lot of cumin makes chili. Do you have chili powder? A wooden spoonful. It won't burn. Trust me. Cayenne? Sure. I used that before, and a lot of it. I paired it with a bunch of paprika. Add paprika anyway, it's wonderfully sweet and savory. Is that all a lot of spice? Yeah, but you know what, that's going to be a lot of chili, too.

Let everything stew together for however long you want it to. Let it come to a thick, grotty clottiness. Boil off excess water. Eat with relish (although a little diced cilantro or shredded cheddar would taste better). Enjoy the cheapness of your work lunch (for the next week and a half), gross out your yoga classmates afterwards.

For Mediterranean farty goodness, here's my ratatouille recipe (and my mom's, but it's less a recipe than a series of guidelines).

Get the biggest pan you can find — bigger than the 9x13. This will be what you roast in. Keep the dimensions of this big pan in mind as you chop up (but not too fine because all the veggies will shrink dramatically): zucchini (aka courgette, 2-3), an onion (oignon, pronounced "onion" with a fransh accent), an eggplant (aubergine, which does not sound like albourge), roma tomatoes (tomates 2-3, at least. They will not keep their shape too good, but instead melt into a nice tomatoey glaze for the veggies) and mushrooms (champignons, baby bellas are good, a pack or so).

Mix these veggies either in a bowl or, if possible, in the roasting pan, with olive oil. The idea, as mom would say, is to think of it as a salad and the oil as its dressing. I found it's a lot easier if you grease up everything else first (minus the tomatoes) and add the eggplant after everything else is coated. Eggplant soak up oil like a sponge and are not good at sharing. On the plus side, they are the funnest of all the vegetables to cut. I am serious.

Once the veggies are pretty coated, get out the dried oregano and basil. The proportions you are going for are roughly two parts basil to one part oregano. But each part is a big honking part. When the veggies are in the roasting pan, you tump over the basil until it looks like a lawn is sprouting. Then add the oregano in an equal proportion. You will be shocked and offended by the sheer amount of herbage in the pan. Mix everything together until the herbs are kind of decently spread out. But it will never be as perfectly spread as you want it to be, because the basil and oregano will really be kind of sold on the side of the veggies you so lavishly sprinkled them on. So you basil up the other parts of the veggies with a vengeance. You will make yourself sick and giddy at the same time with each shake of the dried basil container. This is how you know you are doing the right thing, when you feel like a profligate wasteful American with the conscience of a European — nay! A citizen of Japan!

The oven should be preheated to 400 or so. I forgot. It doesn't matter. You leave the veggies inside the oven, uncovered, until they are appropriately shrunk. You may have to give the veggies a stir at some point. Some bits might be a little charred. You don't care. You are still under the heady influence of the fragrant fountains of green you let fly from your spice cabinet. I guess the appropriate time to check them is when you are once again able to stand up and concentrate on such mundane matters.

There you go, two recipes that will be so healthy and keep you so regular and yet so offensive to your exercise partners. Being healthy and fiberriffic has its downsides, it is true.