Summer Nights Sweet-and-Sour Chipotle Slow-Cooker Chili

There are two schools of thought on chili:

1. It’s a winter-only food, meant for heating you up from the inside out
2. It’s a year-round food, meant for heating you up in winter and cooling you down with mind-numbing and shiver-inducing sweating in summer.

I fall into the latter category. Hopefully you do too, because it’d be a shame to wait until snow falls to make this chili. Think of those late, cool summer evenings, and imagine this chili with fresh cornbread, then strawberry-rhubarb pie…

Sweet-and-Sour Chipotle Slow-Cooker Chili

If you don’t own a slow-cooker, just keep cooking this on the stove until the vegetables are softened, and increase the broth by 1 cup.

2 cups dried beans (kidney, pinto, black, black-eye, white, canary, or a mix), soaked in 6 cups water overnight, or 8 hours
2-540mL cans low-sodium whole tomatoes, drained (I use home canned, but who else has that?)
2 cups fresh, cubed pineapple (don’t use canned. You’ll hate me, and you’ll hate you. And more importantly, you’ll hate your chili)
2 stalks celery, diced
2 tbsp chipotle chile powder
2 tsp ancho chili powder
4 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth (or homemade, but again, non-chefy types don’t usually have it, and this recipe is supposed to be quick and easy)
4 cups water
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, to garnish

Optional: 2 carrots, diced; 1 zucchini, diced; 1 red pepper, diced, 1 onion, diced

1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Transfer to a slow-cooker. Cook on low 8-10 hours, or on high 4-5.

Yup, that’s it. Sure, you could sauté the celery in a little oil first along with the other vegetables. But that generates more heat in your probably overheated summer kitchen. And honestly, with the strong chipotle and ancho powders plus pineapple in this recipe, you’re not going to notice a difference. You just don’t want to put the ingredients in the slow-cooker cold or it’ll take forever to heat up. And if there was meat in the recipe it’d be dangerous because the meat would spend a long time at a low, unsafe temperature.

Optional step 2:

2. Find a bike-in (like a drive-in but with bikes) and watch Grease (1, not 2, though 2 will make you shiver for other reasons) and sing along with an appropriately named song…

Geeky? Yes. Cute? Maybe.