Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash

I'm always on the look out for interesting recipes that contain winter squash. Sometimes, winter squash just seems like a one trick pony to me. It's delicious roasted, but you never really see much done outside of that. So I am playing around with the epicurious app on my (relatively) new phone and I find a recipe for Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash and Swiss Chard. I've actually got everything on hand, except the swiss chard, so I decided to attempt this squash recipe that is vastly different from any squash recipe I have ever seen.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Black-Bean-Chili-with-Butternut-Squash-and-Swiss-Chard-234146

Here are the substitutions I made:

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 small onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons chili powder (plus a little bit more)
2 tablespoons ground cumin (plus a little bit more)
1 1/2 cup dried black beans, soaked
2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 14 1/2-ounce can whole tomatoes in juice, diced


I've got a ton of dried black beans that I bought at the Mexican grocery store, so I'm substituting those for the canned beans in the original recipe. That means I have to start out a day before. I soak a cup and a half of dried black beans 24 hours in advance of making the recipe.

After the beans have soaked for 24 hour, we are good to go. I saute 3 small onions with 4 cloves of garlic. After a few minutes, I add the butternut squash and let that cook for another 5 minutes or so. Then I add the cumin and the chili powder. Let that cook for another couple of minutes.

Drain the beans, and add them to the pot along with the 2 and 1/2 cups of vegetable broth and the can of tomatoes. I added some black pepper and some french grey salt that my sister gave me.

Then I let it simmer on the stove for an hour. I tasted it, and added more cumin and chili powder. The crazy thing about this vegan chili is that it is incredibly meaty. It tastes just like regular chili.