So, like other food preservationists and kitchen tinkerers, I love to dry things -- fruit slices, fruit leather, cheese, beef jerky, etc. In the heat of summer the sun does the work for me. But the other ten months of the year in Northern California, however, I usually rely on my oven on a low setting, door slightly ajar to release moisture, to do the job. And while effective, each bite contains the residual taste of enviro-guilt that comes from leaving the oven on and the heat blowing upward for several hours. The results are excellent, but I cannot help but be haunted by the fossil fuel energy loss necessary for a homemade Fruit Roll-Up.

Certainly I could buy a food dehydrator (and I still may), but my gas oven runs therms, plug-in dryers run watts, and I’m not science-geeky enough to know if they are truly more energy efficient. Plus, I thought, I already own a large piece of heating equipment that dries sopping wet clothing in record speed (also fueled by gas), that spins with convection-like capability.

The Newton’s apple (orange?) that struck me with the idea was a perfectly shriveled piece of orange peel found at the bottom of the clean laundry basket. Had I been sitting on (and ignoring) the world’s best food dehydrator next to the washing machine and not taking advantage of its power? Is it possible to more efficiently dry fruit, vegetables, and meat in the high-heat, high-motion clothes dryer in one round of Permanent Press? Sadly, at least in my scientific exploration, the answer is no.

I quickly sliced a navel orange into 1/8-inch slices. My hope was that a regular high heat setting would yield chewy, moist results. I didn’t want the fruit to touch the walls of the dryer directly, as I feared a future of sticky laundry as I scraped orange sauce from the inside of the machine’s barrel. I thought fabric assistance would help wick moisture and hold the fruit in place, so I grabbed a clean cotton dishtowel. Oh, and a knee sock. Everything’s better with knee socks.

I laid a dishtowel out into a rectangle shape and then arranged two rows of orange slices horizontally across the middle. I folded up the bottom and folded down the top, making sure fruit was tucked into towel completely. Then I folded one encased row over another to sandwich both rows of oranges together.

I used rubber bands to cinch the sides of the towels together and to keep the fruit from falling out. I had first tried this with clothespins, but they banged around too much and some of them broke. Safety pins work, too.

Then -- my genius move -- I cut the toe from an old knee sock (don’t worry, I’ll still wear it!) and wiggled the sock down like a tube over the entire length of the towel and fruit to secure it. Note that I first tried this with a polyester sock, a fiber known for keeping moisture in. Rookie error! Go with all cotton.

I moved the whole fruit-towel-sock contraption to a mesh laundry bag. If my experiment worked, my hope was that I could put several batches of fruit into the laundry bag and dry them all at once.

After 70 minutes on Permanent Press, the good news is that I managed to contain the fruit and I didn’t have to clean the machine. The bad news, however, is that the fruit was still very, very wet. I tried one more cycle but then gave up, because after two hours, it wasn’t drying nearly as quickly as it does in the oven. If you try a different method and you have any success, please let me know!

In the interim, I’ll go back to drying fruit the old-fashioned way in the oven (OK, modern old-fashioned, because true old-fashioned would be drying it over a fire).  Here’s how I usually do it.

Chewy Dried Orange Slices

Time: About 3 hours

Despite my continuous protests, my mother mails me Honeybell oranges from Florida every year. They cost her a fortune. Some of them always arrive moldy. They’re not organic. And, uh, I live in California where the oranges nearby are outrageously good. I feel bad just using them all for juice, so I dried them with just a touch of sugar to balance out the tanginess of the dried fruit. The finished results are far more complex than they appear: moist, sticky, and chewy, super tangy and super flavorful -- like a slice of the best marmalade or orange candy you’ve ever had. Eat them straight up, or use their jewel-like demeanor to stunningly top iced cookies, cupcakes, or cakes. Of course, you can also do this with navel oranges or any other sweet variety.

Ingredients
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 large Honeybell oranges
• 1 tsp. flaked sea salt (like Maldon)
• Crushed black pepper, to taste

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper, and pour the sugar into a bowl or small plate.
3. Using a serrated knife, slice the rind and pith from the bottom and the top of the oranges. Stand the fruit straight up and cut off all of the skin -- first cut from top to bottom and then flip the orange over and slice from top to bottom again to remove it all. Thinly slice the well-peeled fruit into horizontal rounds about 1/8-inch thick and move them onto a clean dish towel in a single layer. Once all oranges have been cut, lay another clean towel on top and press on it gently to absorb some of the juice.
4. Dip one side of the orange into the sugar and place it onto the baking sheet sugar side down. Follow suit with all of the oranges until the tray is full -- it’s okay if the oranges touch one another, but don’t let them overlap.
5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place them in the oven on a low rack, and leave the oven door ajar with a wooden spoon.
6. Check the oranges after about three hours. They should be tacky on top and may pool some syrup, but not fully dry. If not, check them every half hour for doneness.
7. Eat them warm or pack the oranges in a single layer separated by sheets of wax paper in an airtight container. Store refrigerated for several months.

Occupy Oakland General Strike on November 2, 2011. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Have you moved your money yet? A lot of imperatives have come out of the Occupy movement of late; this one is both concrete and far-ranging, something that anyone can do.

What does it mean? It started with a call to action for people to pull their money and investments out of the big banks, and put them into smaller, locally-owned and locally-responsible credit unions and community banks. It's like voting; the amount in my tiny checking and savings accounts means nothing to MegaBankUSA, but add my numbers to thousands and thousands of others, and suddenly a bank could feel some impact.

That's just one part. Like the concept of eating locally, which started with food miles and then grew into a much larger movement, even revolution, about how and what we eat, the idea of "moving your money" can be applied in so many ways.

And it's not limited to how or where you spend your actual cash. On the style blog Ironing Board Collective, my friend, writer and health coach Sara Seinberg, has posted a great Move Your Money gift guide, with suggestions for everything from art-museum memberships to shared activities and bartered services. Her list, and the fact that right now, like so many of us, I am luckily rich in friends, family, and good intentions, and not-so-rich in disposable income, have got me thinking even more about value this time of year. About surplus. About what we use to get what we need, and how we can support the needs of others--friends, family, your community, your neighborhood and beyond. This holiday season, what do you have that can bring delight and deliciousness to those you love, while keeping your money out of the coffers of the big corporations?

How about chocolate? There are lots of locally-made chocolate treats available to sweeten your holidays. Or you can make your own with this easy chocolate truffle recipe. Dandelion's bean-to-bar chocolate store will be opening in San Francisco next month or early next year; until then, find them at local farmers' markets, including the Mission Community Market and the Noe Valley Farmers' Market.

With the explosion of books, classes, and blogs dedicated to food preservation for fun (or profit), it's easy to spend a little time whipping up a gift batch of something, especially if you turn the simmering or brewing into an all-afternoon stir-and-gossip session. What do you like best to make? It's a little late in the season to make jam, but there's always apple butter, pear butter, slow-roasted quince paste (so tasty with cheese), Meyer lemon marmalade or tangy lemon chutney. WorkshopSF has classes in beer-making, tea-blending, cheese-making, even vintage apron sewing coming up in December; take one yourself, or take a friend along.

Does everyone rave about your ramen, your cranberry bread, your caramel apple pie? Do you want to share your mom's recipes with everyone who loves her? There are dozens of print-on-demand services that let you turn those scribbled-on recipe cards into a surprisingly chic and stylish personal cookbook. Pop-up holiday markets are also a good place to find quirkily perfect host/ess gifts made by your friends and neighbors. On Dec. 9, La Cocina is holding its 3rd Annual Gift Bazaar, featuring unique products developed in La Cocina's incubator kitchen in the Mission.

Or, depending on what you have to spare, you can give money, time, or expertise to organizations who redistribute the wealth across the Bay Area's tables. Did one (or ten) of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers post Mary Risley's hysterically practical YouTube video, Just Put the F*cking Turkey in the Oven? Now, with over 100,000 hits, let's hope she can make the follow-up, Just Give Your F*cking Leftovers to Food Runners.

Risley isn't just a cooking teacher, she's the founder of Food Runners, which moves thousands of pounds of fresh, useful leftover food from restaurants, grocery stores, and catering businesses into the kitchens of shelters, low-income senior and youth programs, and other organizations that serve the needy. Mary talks about Food Runners on this episode of Food & Wine This Week in Northern California.

Nikki Henderson. Photo: People's Grocery

A new class at UC Berkeley is getting a lot of buzz. Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement is all about food politics. In an unusual step, Cal is opening up the 13-week course to the general public. Well, the class was open to all. Three hundred free tickets for the first night were snatched up in less than fifteen minutes. Student enrollment filled up just as fast. Edible Education is being organized, and funded, by Alice Water’s Chez Pannise Foundation. Nikki Henderson, the executive director of People’s Grocery in Oakland, along with author and U.C. Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan, will co-teach the semester course.

Michael Pollan. Photo: Alia Malley

Think of the sustainable food movement as a dinner party. Edible Education will take a look at the guest list and topics of conversation. How do the slow food movement and food justice fit together? What does corporate food look like? The class will feature immigrant farm workers telling their own stories. Each week will include a guest lecturer.

Here’s the line-up:
• 8/30: The Global Food Movement, Founder Carlo Petrini with Corby Kummer
• 9/6: Building a Successful Movement, Peter Sellars
• 9/13: The Politics of Food, Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H.
• 9/20: Perspectives on Race, Place & Food, Alegria De La Cruz, Rebecca Flournoy, Yvonne Yen Liu
• 9/27: Nutrition, Health and Diet Related Disease, Patricia Crawford & Robert Lustig
• 10/4: Corporations & the Food Movement, Jack Sinclair, Jib Ellison, Michael Pollan
• 10/11: School Lunch and Edible Schoolyards, Ann Cooper
• 10/18: Global Economies of Food: GMOs, and Feeding the World, Raj Patel
• 10/25: Agriculture and Social Justice, Eric Schlosser, Greg Asbed & Lucas Benitez
• 11/1: What is an Edible Education? Alice Waters
• 11/8: Food and the Environment, Frances Moore Lappé & Gidon Eshel
• 11/22: Van Jones
• 11/29: Place Based Models of Change, Brahm Ahmadi, Hank Herrera

The class is every Tuesday from August 30th through November 29th, 6-7:30pm (doors open at 5:30pm) at the Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley.

Tickets will be available, free of charge, six days before each class.

Bay Area Bites will provide coverage of the course.

Related Articles:
Nikki Henderson: On the frontlines of edible education by Sarah Henry (Berkeleyside)

It’s no secret that online coupons are exploding in popularity, especially for foodies looking to spend less on a great meal. I’ve purchased more than my fair share. And a recent study released by BlogHer even states that 51% of all women online are using coupon sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.

However, a recent New York Times article discussed whether restaurants actually benefit from the online coupon trend. It seems to be a trade-off with some establishments finding them a positive marketing tool while others claiming the discounts do not boost profits.

Let’s breakdown the different types of online coupon sites recently popular with food lovers.

Sites like Scoutmob and Blackboard Eats offer users a discount passcode to various eateries that they can access on their mobile phones and use the next time they frequent that business. There’s no pre-purchasing a certificate or gift card, involved. Blackboard Eats, however, does charge $1 for each passcode you want, or a fee of $20 for unlimited access to their discounts for one year.

Restaurant.com allows you to purchase gift certificates to a large list of pre-determined restaurants affiliated with the site, at a huge discount. Many times, you can find a discount code online for up to 80% off the listed price, which can bring a $25 gift certificate down to $5. There are many restrictions, though, and they differ with each restaurant, so it pays to read the fine print before you confirm your order.

That brings us to sites like DealPulp, TownHog, LivingSocial and Groupon, which require you to pre-pay for a largely discounted deal at a variety of different merchants, including eateries. Deals are usually 50% off or more, and have less restrictions than a certificate from Restaurant.com. Deals change daily, so you have a limited amount of time to purchase it.

There have been horror stories of some merchants being overwhelmed by the popularity of their online coupon or discount, and not being able to handle the response. But the owner of Milkshake Werks, Leslie Widmann in Redwood Shores had a great experience working with one of these sites.

“Groupon helped us set up a structure that would be good for our business. It was a great experience for us. The result was almost instant increased awareness of our business. Even folks who didn’t purchase the offer came by because they didn’t know about us. Now many of them are regulars.”

But success in the world of online coupons for a merchant doesn’t necessarily translate into dollars. It’s more about marketing.

Widmann explains, “You have to look at it in terms of effective advertising and where you’re going to spend your ad and marketing dollars. We’ve done some print ads and the effect was very subtle. The urgency and instant name recognition of a site like Groupon sparks excitement and people feel like they have to take advantage of the deal right away.”

Scoutmob’s social media manager, Nicole Jayne, has a similar theory for why online coupon sites are so successful.

“In the past, for a local small business, the only advertising options they had were billboards, radio, television and print. There was no real way to measure the success of that type of marketing. Online coupon sites allow these businesses to measure the effectiveness of getting their name out there almost instantly and translate that into traffic and revenue.”

There’s also no doubt the popularity of these sites is due in part to the recession and unstable economy. However, couponing is no flash in the pan trend, says Denise Tanton, the senior community manager at BlogHer. She, herself, recently started writing a popular series of blog posts about extreme couponing. “I started noticing couponing blogs more and thought this was a new trend. But after researching, I realized it wasn’t new, it’s just that the media has caught on because of the recession. And now TLC has latched on to it with a new show.”

She says coupons have been popular since the seventies. Even with the slowly improving economy, coupons will never go away, just evolve.

“I think we’re going to see more e-coupons, texted and mobile coupons. As smartphones become more pervasive, we’ll see more companies offering digital and smartphone based coupons. Companies will get more control over their offers that way.”

As for the money-saving food lover like me, there are three rules I live by before I hit “purchase”:
1. Would I actually go to this eatery, even if I didn’t have this coupon? If I don’t answer yes, I’m out.
2. Did I read the fine print? Some of these places don’t allow you to use your offer on a Friday or Saturday, have restricted times, or have expiration dates that are sooner than you’d like.
3. It’s not a deal, unless you actually use it.

Food swappers checking out the chow at the East Bay Homemade Food Swap in Oakland on Saturday.

When in under two weeks The New York Times runs not just one but two stories on a food phenomenon popping up around the country it's clear there's a trend cooking (from scratch) in kitchens across the country.

The food swap is making a comeback. As Debbie Koenig notes in her Times story on an edible exchange in Brooklyn, there's nothing new about trading, say, currant scones for pickled beets. In the days when doctors made house calls, they sometimes received produce in lieu of payment for services rendered.

These days, artisan D.I.Y.ers have added a modern, culinary spin to the food swap, which is gaining traction during the lingering economic downturn. The appeal: Discovering new foods, meeting fellow food lovers and stocking the pantry. While home-grown eggs, greens and herbs, along with handcrafted jams, breads and spreads are often in the mix, less common homemade fare like fava leaf pesto, basil liqueur and avocado pound cake may also be up for grabs.

On Saturday afternoon at the East Bay Homemade Food Swap 25 mostly female home cooks who hadn't bartered before descended on Kendra Poma's cozy Oakland bungalow and set up a small space showcasing their wares in anticipation of the silent-auction style swap.

The room was packed, the vibe friendly. A table in the back served as a tasting station, swappers wore name tags, and filled in paper slips describing their offerings. The presentation was impressive for a group of mostly self-taught cooks. A food swap feels like an affordable and accessible way to stock your pantry with both familiar and unusual foods, says Renee Avalos, a personal chef whose main client is filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia (The Future of Food, Symphony of the Soil), echoing the sentiment of other attendees.

Host Kendra Poma makes an edible exchange at the food swap in her home last weekend.

Poma, a seasoned clothes swapper who was inspired to hold her own edible exchange after watching a video on a Portland food swap, plans to hold seasonal meet ups; the next event is slated for July. Future swaps will be held in local businesses, which can accommodate a few more swappers, though Poma says about 25 to 30 participants feels about right. "I like to be able to greet each person as they walk in the door," says the 27-year-old.

Portland food swap in progress. Video courtesy of Cooking up a Story

For the first hour or so people milled about, chatting and checking out the chow. When Poma, who swapped peach-and-ginger kombucha, homegrown herbal teas and vegan boysenberry swirl chocolate cake, announced it was time to start making swaps, the room got really quiet as people focused on taking care of business, scribbling on the swap slips notes like "I'd like to trade my radish onion relish for a jar of your ginger pear butter." Once everyone had had a chance to make their swap choices known the actual trades took place. Informal, verbal requests for unclaimed items followed once written swaps had been honored. The idea, after all, is to go home with different foods.

An assortment of preserves, pickles, fermented foods, and baked goods for exchange at Saturday's food swap.

Surprisingly, a lot of participants polled on the day said they opted to make something new -- be that blood orange marmalade or their mom's kick-arse kim chee -- rather than play it safe with a tried-and-true recipe. Some got ideas for what to bring next time: Drinking vinegars, in the case of Christina Stork, owner of the yarn store Article Pract, who makes fennel, orange, and pomegranate drops.

More savory and less sweets, for Keri Keifer of Grand Avenue Bakeshop, who felt a small sting of disappointment when one of her proposed swaps was declined. Alas, liqueur maker Andrea Bornschlegel was shying away from sweet treats. In the spirit of the event, though, she swung by at the end and offered Keifer a half full tasting bottle as a token, which Keifer happily accepted.

The youngest swapper, budding food entrepreneur Cameron Kaplan, 12, included a cardboard sign about her novelty concoctions on a stick she calls Lollicakes, a savvy strategy that endeared her to many in the crowd.

Fueled by social media and a seemingly endless interest in urban homesteading, the edible exchange seems like a natural fit for local food fanciers. While a couple of participants on Saturday had sold goods via the Underground Market, they enjoyed the low-key, cash-free nature of the homey food swap. "It's a great place for me to trade excess inventory or offer a small batch of something, like my green gage plum jam," explains Becky Spencer of Urban Preserves.

Since no money changes hands, such meet ups aren't subject to health department scrutiny, and nobody raised concerns about food safety at Saturday's gathering.

Poma ran a smoothly choreographed event, part edible exchange and part social mixer, that went off without a hitch in just under two hours. She advises anyone interested in holding their own swap to visit the PDX Swappers Facebook page and The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking for pointers.

Other local swaps include canner Karen Solomon's monthly organic baby food exchange and Simran Singh and Stacie Dong's family dinner swap, both hosted by 18 Reasons in San Francisco and Forage Oakland's occasional produce and preserve exchanges. Coming soon: Belly to Belly Bartermart, hosted by local chef Ellen Johnson, according to Twilight Greenaway in her Times story on the Bay Area's food swap culture.

Of course, home cooks have been swapping (or simply gifting) preserves, pickles, cakes, and cookies for years in an informal way. Formal swapping, though, adds something a little special to the exchange, explains Keifer, contently filling her backpack with a cornucopia of interesting eats she swapped for her candied peels and cardamom cookies.

"Whether it's Belgian beer, tomatillo sauce, or backyard eggs, you have a sense that someone has really nurtured whatever it is they're exchanging," she says. "Bartering in this kind of setting is a truly underground experience and a great way to network with like-minded people and create community without any money changing hands."

A few months ago I began leading tours for Edible Excursions (run by epicurean concierge Lisa Rogovin) around North Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, which includes visits to the Cheeseboard Collective, photo ops in front of Chez Panisse, and the occasional celebrity sighting (or what counts as celebrity in that town--don't blink but there's Michael Lewis buying pie with one of his kids.)

Many participants ask about other tours the company offers, which I don't lead, but I realized pretty quickly I needed to know what was on the menu so I could share the details with potential repeat customers.

So I recently shadowed the Taste the Mission tour (arguable the real Ghetto Gourmet these days) and what struck me on that food store and restaurant jaunt, as we spent three hours hoofing around the 'hood, was the different business models employed by the people in the kitchens trying to survive--or even thrive--during recessionary times.

What I came away with from that afternoon (aside from an impressive food baby after hearty sampling at nine spots) is a bit of a metaphor for life--there's no right way to do it, different strategies work for different people, love what you do, work hard, and the rest will follow.

Below, a trio of approaches to ride out the recession.

Pan Dulce on display at La Victoria Bakery. Photo: Courtesy of Edible Excursions.

Adapt or die: The best example of this approach can be found at La Victoria Bakery, an anchor institution at 24th and Alabama Streets that's sold conchas for some sixty years. Fast-talking owner Jamie Maldonado figured out that simply serving Latin pastries wasn't going to cut it in today's culinary climate. These days the cafe features a line of sweet treats from Wholesome Bakery, which turns out vegan cakes, cookies, and pies. Maldonado rents out kitchen space to Mission fixtures such as Iso Rabins of forageSF, and Danny Gabriner of Sour Flour, both of whom were at the cafe during our tour. And the cafe now hosts pop-up dinners by popular street-food chefs like Hapa SF and Soul Cocina.

Top left: Natalie Galatzer of Bike Basket Pies. Photo: Daniel Laing. Top right: Karen Heisler and crew from Mission Pie. Photo: Anne Hamersky.
Bottom left: Mission Minis sweet treats. Photo: Serena Bartlett. Bottom right: Manny Gimenez of Mr. Pollo. Photo: Serena Bartlett.

Start Small: This category includes many relatively new arrivals to the Mission District, such as bite-sized cupcakery Mission Minis, seasonal sweet and savory pastries from Bike Basket Pies, and the in-demand arepas from Manny Torres Gimenez of Mr. Pollo.

Consider, too, Mission Pie, which began as a slip of a store serving sweet tarts and took over the space next door when it became available at the busy intersection of Mission and 25th Streets. Store co-owner Karen Heisler says that the organic way the business grew made sense in terms of their overall business plan. "We wanted to make sure the community wanted us and responded to what we do," says Heisler, who sells affordable, sustainable savory and sweet eats made from ingredients sourced locally from places like Pie Ranch, Blue House Farm, and Good Humus Farm. Heisler says she's not interested in opening Mission Pie 2 or scaling up to sell wholesale, but wants to continue to solidify loyal relationships with consumers and vendors. (Heisler talks about her favorite local places in this previous BAB post.)

Street sign for the restaurant and bakery housed in one space. Photo: Serena Bartlett.

Diversify: Yaron Milgrom, owner of Local: Mission Eatery envisioned a village gathering place with a food focus. His business at 24th and Folsom Streets is essentially an inexpensive sandwich-soup-salad shop by day and morphs into a high-end restaurant at night. It also acts as a cookbook lending library and offers kitchen classes several times a month. Jake Des Voignes is the chef and his partner in life Shauna Des Voignes runs Knead Patisserie in the rear of the restaurant. Shauna sets up a cart in the establishment's entryway in the morning, catching commuters on the fly who nab lemon ricotta turnovers or brioche apple rolls on their way to BART.

Who makes it in the fickle food biz in the continually evolving Mission District remains to be seen. But the economic models employed here may well be instructive--as these food folks create community around good grub.

What other innovative approaches to selling food have you come across in the Mission or elsewhere in your travels?

Food and taste are cyclical in a person's life. A dish that is a hands-down favorite in your childhood may not seem so desirable as an adult. Take scrambled eggs. These were my favorite childhood breakfast, but once I was a teenager I detested their wobbly texture and thought their odor was slightly sulfuric. Then, when I was pregnant, I couldn't seem to eat enough scrambled eggs.

So what does this have to do with tamale pie? Everything. You see tamale pie is one of those dishes many of us loved in our youth, but then either forgot about or hated once we were in our 20s. The whole casserole thing belonged to a time of culinary naiveté from the 70s and 80s, and so we tucked the thought of tamale pie away with deviled eggs and Jell-O.

But now that I'm a mom trying to find new meals for my kids to eat, I have finally come full circle. What seemed unsophisticated a few years ago now seems like a completely legitimate dinner for a family with two kids. There is nothing urbane or refined about a weekday meal crammed in between homework and Girl Scouts and a quick casserole that is full of nutritious ingredients your kids will eat without complaint is the only appeal you need. From Creamy Chicken and Rice Casserole to Cheesy Enchilada Casserole, my weekday meals are relying more and more on one-dish recipes that fall into the category of comfort food and are easy on a kid's tongue. Bring on the casseroles and pass the sour cream!

Here's my Half-the-Meat Tamale Pie recipe. Unlike other similar casseroles, this one uses only a half-pound of meat (either beef or turkey is fine) plus two cups of whole beans. This makes it not only more heart healthy, but also incredibly inexpensive. The entire dinner for four to six people costs about $10 to make and includes fresh vegetables like Anaheim peppers and whole kernels of corn. It's also a dish my children love, and I have to say that although I wouldn't have made this dish in my 20s, I am rather fond of it now.

Winter has always been an ideal time for making a big pot of chili. Full of spices and served hot, it's the perfect anecdote to a chilly day. It's also the ultimate dish for a large group, whether you're having a big family dinner or a Super Bowl party.

I used to think chili had to have meat in it to be interesting. I figured the slow roasted beef in my recipe provided the stew's deep and substantial flavors. So I was surprised to find that a vegetarian chili I recently made had its own robust complexity that was just as satisfying. And, unlike meat chili, the vegetarian variety only took an hour to prepare and cost less than $10 to make for a family of four.

Now I do love my meat chili, but because it uses beef chuck, it takes hours to braise, so making it is a bit of an event. Three-bean chili, on the other hand, takes little more time than preparing a standard weekday dinner if you use canned beans. And, if you want something really special you can start your preparations the night before and boil up a batch of dried beans.

Preparing vegetarian chili is a bit like planting a flower garden. You want it colorful and lush without being overbearing. Using a variety of chilies, from fresh to canned, dried and powdered, is the key to achieving something that is smoky and deep with just the right amount of heat. And while some recipes I've seen out there call for a hodgepodge of vegetables, I try to avoid making my chili look like a version of vegetables on parade. Instead I like to partner my beans and the various chilies with other ingredients that will accent their flavors, like beer, coffee, corn and Mexican chocolate. Simmered together everything coalesces into a rich and hearty whole.

So whether you're making a weeknight family dinner, or in need of a dish that will satisfy a crowd, it's a good time to enjoy a pot of chili.

Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili

Makes: Enough for 5-6 people (can easily be doubled)

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp vegetable or corn oil
3 cans or 6 cups homemade cooked beans (pinto, kidney, black or some of each)
1 large onion chopped
2 Anaheim peppers chopped
1 small or a ½ large jalapeno pepper
1 carrot diced
2 medium or one large bell pepper (I use red or orange but green is also fine)
½ can tomato paste
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup medium-body beer (I like Negro Modelo)
½ cup brewed coffee
2 Tbsp chili powder (mild or Chipotle)
1 Tbsp ground cumin
½ tsp dried and ground coriander seed
2 Tbsp dried Mexican or regular oregano (crushed between your hands)
1 tsp salt
1-2 chilis from a can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (depending on how spicy you want your chili)
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernals
2 Tbsp masa harina or finely ground corn meal (optional)
2 tsp grated Mexican chocolate or cocoa powder (optional)

Note: you can just freeze the chipotle chilies you don't use

Possible Toppings
Sour cream
Diced white or spring onions
Grated cheese
Crumbled corn chips
Olives
Corn nuts

Preparation:

1. Heat a large heavy pot (I like to use a cast-iron Dutch oven) on medium high heat. When the pot is heated, add in 1 Tbsp oil and then add in your chopped onion, jalapeno, carrot, and Anaheim peppers. Sauté for 5-7 minutes or until onions are translucent.

2. Mix in the tomato paste along with the chili powder, cumin, ground coriander, salt and oregano. Let cook on medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add in the beer, diced tomatoes and chopped bell pepper. Stir and then mix in the beans, coffee and chipotle chili in adobo sauce.

4. Bring the chili to a soft boil and then cover and set the burner to simmer. Cook for at least 45 minutes to one hour, stirring every so often to make sure the chili doesn't burn on the bottom of the pot.

5. Once all the flavors have melded, stir in the chocolate, corn and masa harina.

6. If the chili seems too soupy, or if it's a little too spicy, add another tablespoon of masa harina. Mix in thoroughly.

7. Simmer for another 10 minutes and then serve with your favorite toppings and cornbread.