Chili con... seitan!

It's no secret that I'm a copycat. So, when a friend of mine mentioned that she was going to use her crock pot to cook something delicious I was like, "Ooh, yeah! I want that too."

I love chili from a crock pot. But I thought after making a couple of chilis with just beans and veggies it's time to step it up. So, I stepped it up with a seitan sausage experiment.

 I made a small batch of seitan seasoned with chili flakes, Worcestershire sauce and other spice regular and cooked it until it was almost firm. Then I shredded it by hand into little pieces and fried them until firm. The texture and and flavor of the seitan was very pleasing by itself. I was ready to stop right here, but I was so excited that I had already invited people over for a chili dinner and couldn't turn back.

Not too long ago I learned that peppers, in general, are very good for your health in many ways. They help with respiratory problems, digestion and even knock out some of the daily vitamins. Isn't it crazy that the green bell pepper has more vitamin C than an orange? Anyways, I chose red bell pepper and poblano for this chili and sauteed them with garlic and onion with all of my chili spices before putting them into the crock pot.

In appearance this chili con seitan is not dissimilar to a Wheatberry chili I made a while back. The mouth feel, though, is very different with the seitan offering its own spin on meaty toughness. I think I'll make my seitan more ground in my next batch. And, as I find with most chilis, the leftover were even better than the original!