Vegetarian Protein-packed Chili

I've been meaning to make vegetarian chili for awhile now. Partly, because it's starting to get more 'wintery' here, and also because it's a great meal to make a big batch of and then have for a long time. As for the recipe, I made this one up. I basically put any vegetable/vegetarian protein in it that I could think of that I thought would go well together. I'll list the exact ingredients out later (see pic below), but I used 3 kinds of beans, lentils and quinoa as the proteins, and carrots, celery, roasted red peppers, onions and spinach as the main veggies. The base of the chili was made from low-sodium vegetable stock, tomato paste, and canned tomatoes. 

I started to boil the veggie stock, and then added the quinoa. As this was cooking I was slicing the copious amount of veggies I used in this chili, and straining the beans and lentils. I added the tomato paste after the quinoa had cooked in the broth for about 5 minutes, as well as the canned tomatoes. Then when all the veggies were sliced, I added those and the beans to the mixture. I turned the stove up to high and cooked for 10 minutes. Then I took of the lid, stirred everything up and turned the stove to low. I left this pot of the stove for 1.5 hours, returning every 15 minutes or so to stir the mixture and add garlic powder/salt/pepper to the taste. Then I added the spinach to the mix, and left it on for another half an hour with the same procedure. Then it was finally done! I took a bowl of it, and left the rest on the stove covered with the heat off. It was such a great hardy meal. The quinoa had really helped it cook into this wonderful thick texture, and the beans, lentils, and large chunks of veggies really added to this dish profile. The spinach added a fresh touch to the dish, and the roasted red peppers added a little smokiness. This was such a wonderful meal, and is both vegetation, vegan and gluten free. Really this is the perfect meal to make if you are cooking for a lot of people with a variety of dietary conditions. I made so much that I had a ton of left overs to put in the fridge, I think I'll be eating this for the next 5 days!

Thoughts on this Dish:

• Here's a list of complete ingredients with the measurements
• 2.5 stalks of celery
• 2 carrots
• 1 brown onion
• 1 red onion
• 3 canned roasted red peppers
• 1.25 cups of quinoa
• 8 cups of low sodium vegetable stock
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 1 can of whole stewed tomatoes
• 1 can of lentils
• 1 can of cannelloni beans
• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 can of black beans
• 1 bag of fresh spinach
• salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the taste
• I think that this is the type of dish that you could cook all day and it would just make it better. Longer cooking will break the veggies down more, and also let the flavors steep into the ingredients. However, the quinoa got really really soft during the two hours so I'd want to play with optimum cook times.
• I also would have added corn to this dish, but canned corn is ridiculously expensive here.
• I used yellow lentils, but I think green or brown would be better in this dish.
• This recipe makes about 6 servings (maybe more this is me eye balling it) so perfect for cooking for a crowd, or freezing for later. 
• More seasoning wouldn't be amiss, I'll try to add some dried herbs next time.

Really pleased with this one, I think it could be slightly improved, but nice to know I have chili under my belt as a dis!