Friday 3 January 2014

Sara's chilli con carne

Sara's chilli con carne
So, today we tried the crock pot for the first time, with the recipe for Sara's chilli con carne. I went for this recipe because we haven't done a grocery shop since the New Year and I knew that I had some minced beef in the freezer.

Adjustments
I didn't have quite all the right ingredients though: I used 600g lean minced beef, and no oil. We just had one pepper, and only hot chilli powder. I reduced the spices slightly, according to the advice contained in the machine's instructions. We had no sundried tomatoes, so I used a few tablespoons of sundried tomato paste instead. 3 tins of kidney beans seemed like a lot, so I just used one.

Preparation
I followed the Tip near the end of the recipe, to use a slow cooker. This meant browning the onions, adding the garlic, spices and herbs, and then browning the meat, before putting everything in the crock pot. Luckily I was not working today, so I had time. But I couldn't do this on a normal morning. Otherwise, everything was amazingly easy and I found myself at 6pm twiddling my thumbs, wondering what I needed to do, apart from cook the rice.


The Result
The chilli was delicious: lovely texture and flavours. Everything was beautifully cooked. Next time I might add a little more chilli powder, for an extra kick. It easily fed a family of 4, with leftovers. As expected, there was quite a bit of liquid, but not excessive, and could easily be mopped up with the rice.

The Verdict
Everybody here gave it a thumbs up! Even Ms Fussy Eater herself did not complain about the onions, though she gave her beans to her brother. When asked for marks out of ten, the result was unanimous: both kids gave a 10/10.

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