25th Annual Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship

Last Sunday, Taylor and I competed again in the Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship, America’s longest running vegetarian chili cook-off. We were joined by Taylor’s parents and her good friend Linda for a long, fun day of cooking, serving, and eating chili. Having won first place All-Veg and People’s Choice last year, we had a lot on the line defending our title. Due to its overwhelming success last year we decided to stick with our Black Bean, Eggplant, and Lentil Chili (click for the recipe!).

Our day started bright and early at 8 AM when we arrived to the competition site, had our ingredients inspected to ensure vegan-compliance, and then got to work prepping our ingredients. We then cooked our first 3-gallon batch to begin serving the public tasters at noon. Meanwhile, our second 3-gallon batch stewed away so that we would have enough to serve the hundreds of people who came by our booth until about 4 PM. At about 5 PM winners were announced by the competition’s organizer, Brendan Good of  the Vegetarian Network of Austin. Coseppi Kitchen ended up taking 2nd place in the All-Veg (no meat-substitute) division, and also 2nd place in the People’s Choice award. While we didn’t end up sweeping the competition like we did last year, we definitely felt the level of competition and quality of chilies increased this year, meaning a big win for everyone involved.

Congratulations to Whole Foods for taking 1st place All-Veg and Primarily Primates for their People’s Choice award! Primarily Primates has a great mission of providing a sanctuary to house, protect, and rehabilitate various non-native animals (mostly apes and monkeys!).

We also want to thank Johnson’s Backyard Garden for providing such great organic vegetables for us to use in our chili!