Vegan Chili — The Stew That Made Her Feel Less Alone

Dad had a bad night on Tuesday. I don't usually write about this because it feels private in a way that other things don't, but it happened and I'm sitting here at midnight unable to sleep, so here we are.\n\nHe was in the garage. That's where he goes when it's bad — the garage, in the dark, sitting in the camping chair next to his workbench. Mom knows not to turn on the light. She brings him coffee and sits on the step and doesn't say anything. She's been doing this for seven years, since he came back from Kandahar. I used to think she was being passive, just sitting there. Now I understand she's being a wall — a solid, warm, immovable wall that says: I'm here. You're home. Take your time.\n\nI don't know what triggered it. Sometimes it's obvious — a car backfire, a scene in a movie, the Fourth of July (we don't do fireworks anymore). Sometimes there's no trigger at all. He just goes somewhere inside himself that the rest of us can't reach, and we wait.\n\nHe was better by morning. Made eggs for breakfast, which is his way of saying 'I'm okay.' Dad communicates through actions, not words. Eggs means okay. Gardening means good. Garage in the dark means not okay. We've all learned the language.\n\nMom and I cooked together tonight. Really cooked — not me helping, but us cooking side by side. She's making her beef stew for a church potluck tomorrow, and she let me do the browning while she prepped vegetables. Donna Abernathy's beef stew is legendary in at least three Navy communities. The secret — and she would kill me for sharing this but she'll never read this — is a tablespoon of soy sauce and a splash of red wine. Not enough to taste specifically, but enough to make the broth deeper and richer and the kind of thing that makes people say 'What IS that?' and she says 'Just stew' with a straight face.\n\nWe stood in the kitchen and she told me about the first time she made this stew. She was twenty-two, Dad was deployed, and she was alone in base housing in Jacksonville with baby Megan and no idea what she was doing. She made the stew from her mother's recipe — Grandma Carol's recipe, the one that goes back to West Virginia — and she sat at the kitchen table and ate it alone and cried. Not because the stew was bad. Because the stew was good, and the person she wanted to share it with was on the other side of the world.\n\n'You get used to eating alone,' she said tonight, chopping carrots with the efficiency of a surgeon. 'You get used to it, but you never like it.'\n\nI don't want to eat alone. I don't know what that means yet — whether it means I want a husband or a family or just a kitchen with someone in it — but I know that food tastes different when someone else is at the table. Better. More real.\n\nSeven weeks until graduation. Dad is okay. Mom's stew is simmering. The house smells like home.

I’ve been thinking about what my mom said—that you get used to eating alone, but you never like it—and I think that’s exactly why this stew matters so much. It’s not just dinner; it’s the thing she made when she had no one, and it’s the thing that somehow made her feel less alone anyway. Tonight she walked me through every step, and for the first time I wrote it all down—Grandma Carol’s recipe, the one that goes back to West Virginia, the one that smells like home.

Vegan Chili

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2-28 ounce cans fire roasted diced tomatoes, divided
• 1 small carrot
• 1 cup parsley leaves and tender stems, loosely packed
• 2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce (or use this substitute)
• 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from 1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce), plus more to taste
• 1 large yellow onion
• 1/2 green bell pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 15-ounce can crushed tomatoes, fire roasted if possible
• 1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained
• 1/2 cup dry quinoa
• 1 tablespoon each chili powder and garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon each onion powder, cumin and oregano
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Garnishes: Pickled Jalapenos (or Pickled Onions), Vegan Sour Cream, lime wedges, sliced radishes

Instructions

1. Blend the base. In a blender, blend the one can of diced tomatoes, carrot (peeled and chopped into a few pieces), parsley, Worcestershire sauce, and adobo sauce until fully combined.
2. Sauté the aromatics. Dice the onion and green pepper. In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the onion and green pepper and sauté for about 6 to 7 minutes until tender.
3. Simmer the chili. Carefully add the blended vegetables, the second can of diced tomatoes, the crushed tomatoes, drained beans, quinoa, spices, kosher salt, and 1/2 cup water. Simmer gently for 25 to 30 minutes until the quinoa is tender and cooked through, stirring occasionally. Taste and add additional salt and adobo sauce as desired (we added 1 teaspoon adobo sauce and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt).

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 213 | Protein: 8.7g | Fat: 6.2g | Saturated Fat: 0.9g | Carbs: 33g | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 5.8g | Sodium: 176.9mg | Cholesterol: 0mg