Cornbread and Chili

This was eaten faster that a camera could snap a picture, so you'll have to use your imagination. I recently acquired a huge high-walled cast iron pan, big enough to fry up a birthday cake and still fit the lid on. It's from Australia and was made in the 17th century, more or less.

I wanted to make a surprise dinner for my love, one that would fully utilize the great pan's abilities. On a veggie recipe website that I can no longer find, it was revealed to me that one can:
1) Make chili in a cast-iron pan
2) Mix up some cornbread
3) Bake the cornbread on top of the chili, in the oven
My mind expanded, I immediately set forth to forge new chili and cornbread recipes worthy of this.

The chili was made by power-soaking 2 cups of mixed pinto, red, and kidney beans, then pressure-cooking them for 10 minutes. Power-soaking is what you do when you've forgotten to soak the beans for 8 hours. Bring beans to a boil at pressure, remove from heat, then ignore them for an hour or however much time you have left before they need to be food. Change their water, then pressure-cook 'em.

In a little oil, fry up
2 onions, diced large, then add...
2 cups of your favorite broth
a double espresso
about a cup of TVP
a can of tomato paste
a big can of whole tomatoes (fresh tomatoes are rare here, this time of year)
chili powder, pepper, cumin, oregano, and whatever else strikes your fancy
beans, as above
two Portabello mushies roasted in a dry skillet
a head of garlic, or two

My apologies to more authentic chili cooks. See, we live in a horrible deprived place where anything spicier than a bell pepper is dried, ground, and labeled only "chili" (or sometimes "chile").

Cornbread:
1 c soymilk
1 T apple cider vinegar
3 t egg replacer
.25 c water
.33 c butter substitute
.5 c whole wheat flour
1 c fine ground corn flour
.5 c coarse ground corn flour
.25 c brown sugar
1 T baking powder
.5 t salt
.5 t black pepper
1 can corn, or equivalent
1 can green chiles

Whisk milk and vinegar; whisk egg replacer and water; melt butter, mix everything together. Level chili, gently spread batter on top, bake at 350-375F for 15-25 minutes. This works because it's a thin layer of cornbread. If thick cornbread is more your thing, bake in an 8x8 pan.