Double pig lentil chili

I made lentils stewed with pork sausage and bacon, thus it became known as double pig chili. What would a triple pig chili be like? Maybe with prosciutto also? The mind boggles. Anyway, it was yummy. I happened to be making chicken stock that day so I had some ready to go but you can use whatever floats your boat for the liquid.

First diced up one medium onion, 2 large carrots and about 4 celery stalks. These got sauteed in about 1 tablespoon olive oil--I didn't want to add too much oil because I knew that there would be some sausage and bacon getting in there as well to grease things up.The pork sausage was from the pretty blue-eyed meat guy at Morningside Farmer's Market. I feel really lucky to have this great local source for meat because a.) he's cute and b.) I think it's even more important (although often more difficult) to buy locally for meat than it is for vegetables/fruit.I had half a package of bacon in the freezer so I cut it into chunks while it was mostly still frozen.I started the onion, followed with carrot and celery, then in goes the pig. After it had all had a chance to brown, I cleared a space in the center to add in 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1/2 tablespoon cumin, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes. I usually use tiny green french lentils because I like the way they keep their shape. These are from my beloved Your DeKalb Farmer's Market. I added a can of crushed tomatoes, 3 cups of chicken stock and let it come to boil, then added in 1 1/2 cups of the lentils. After about 10 minutes, I added 1/2 cup of diced sweet potato--I wanted it to stay sort of firm and keep its texture so I added it later than I usually would for hard vegetables. Continued to cook over medium high heat until the lentils were soft and it was totally delicious--about 30 minutes. Right before serving, I removed from heat then stirred in 1 tablespoon cider vinegar.