Crowd Pleasers

This past Sunday we had our small group over for bible study. The first time I hosted, I did it all wrong. I made 3 different kinds of pizzas and had a ton of little appetizers for people to nibble on, which meant that I was in the kitchen all day and through half of the bible study. This time around I wanted to give myself a break. So I made two types chili (we have vegetarians in our group) and apple turnovers, all of which were super easy to make and I could either prep ahead of time, throw in the slow-cooker, or whip up in a few minutes.

The vegetarian chili I made is a recipe I have adapted from a vegan chili recipe over on Oh She Glows over the years. It is hearty and delicious, and you don't miss the meat at all.

The main ingredients are black beans and sweet potato, and filled out with lentils, onion, and bell pepper. Taking note from OSG, I flavor it will barbeque sauce and some liquid smoke so it has a nice, rich flavor.

The beef chili recipe was a new recipe B and I sort of came up with together,and let me tell you, it was freaking delicious. I have to give the credit to B, because it was his idea to use bacon, and what isn't made better with a little bacon?

I cooked up some bacon first, then cooked the beef in some of the bacon grease. After the meat was all cooked, I cooked the veggies in the bacony-meaty goodness left in the pan, then added everything to the slow cooker to just melt together.

Instead of making 8 different types of deserts like last time (I get excited when I have an excuse to bake), I made 1 - an extremely easy apple turnover. Of course I still had apples to use, so I whatever I made was going to involve apples.

I loved this recipe, adapted from Taste of Home, because I basically just cooked up the apples, spooned them into store-bought puff pastry sheets, and baked them. Could not be easier, and they were a huge hit!

To view and print the Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili recipe, click here.
To view and print the Smokey Bacon Chili recipe, click here.
To view and print the Apple Turnover recipe, click here.