6 quarts. Makes 24 1-cup servings.

I make this in my 7-quart slow cooker, but you could make this on the stove top, or cut the recipe in half if you have a smaller slow cooker. It freezes beautifully, so we split it up into servings, freeze them, pop them out of the containers into individual bags, and grab them for lunches.

I use all organic ingredients. Using conventional ingredients will not affect the nutritional counts, only the flavor and your health.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups chopped onions
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced

2 large green peppers, cleaned and diced
1 bag (12 ounces) Morningstar Farms Grillers crumbles
1 6-ounsce can tomato paste
2 29-ounce cans diced tomatoes, juice and all
2 14.5-or-so-ounce cans of each: black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, or six cans of any other beans you like, drained and rinsed
1 29-ounce can white or yellow hominy, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon maple syrup (or the same amount of any other natural sweetener)

2 tablespoons dried basil
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes (or ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes – Penzey’s sells Aleppo)
1 tablespoon cumin

2 cups water.

Heat the olive oil in a pan, then sauté the onions until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and green peppers, and sauté for another minute. Add the herbs and spices, and sauté another 30 seconds before adding the other ingredients. Place the sautéed mixture into the slow cooker, and mix in all of the other ingredients, making sure that the tomato paste is thoroughly mixed in. Cover and heat on high for two hours, and low for four hours, or on low for six to eight hours.

This recipe makes a flat six quarts, so if your slow cooker is not at least 6.5 or 7 quarts, cut it in half.

Nutritional information: serving size 1 cup. 168 kcal, 2.2 g fat, 0.2 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 577 mg sodium, 28.3 g carbohydrate, 7.8 g fiber, 9.1 g protein, 65 mg calcium.

Joey