Recipe for chilli (with variations)

We had some friends round for dinner last night, and one asked for the recipe for the chilli I'd cooked. I figured that if I was going to type it up I might as well do it on the blog and let everyone use it. So here it is, also with variations to make it vegetarian or to comply with Slimming World.

Ingredients (makes ~10 portions)

• 4 medium/large onions, chopped
• 2 red peppers, chopped
• 2 tins kidney beans
• 3 tins tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tins other beans (whatever you prefer)
• 900g/2lb mince beef (or quorn mince for veggie)
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 4 teaspoons of ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons of paprika
• 2-4 teaspoons chilli powder (2 = slightly spicy, 4=hot)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 tube of tomato purée
• veg oil for frying

Directions

1. Fry the onion and peppers in a wok or large frying pan until they start to brown, adding half of the cumin, coriander, paprika and chilli powder half way through.
2. At the same time, in a large heavy pan, cook the mince beef with the other half of the cumin, coriander, paprika and chilli powder.
3. Once the mince has all turned from red to brown, add the chopped garlic.
4. Once the vegetables are browning, add about 1/4 tube of tomato purée and keep frying for a few minutes.
5. Add the vegetables to the large pan with the mince in it, and keep cooking for a few minutes.
6. Add the tins of tomatoes and beans, keeping the heat medium-high and stirring.
7. Add the salt, sugar and the other 1/4 tube of tomato purée.
8. Once it's all heated up and is bubbling, reduce the heat to minimum, cover and leave to simmer for at least 30 mins, ideally an hour. Leaving it longer still won't hurt it at all!
9. Serve with rice.

Veggie option: either replace the mince beef with quorn mince, or miss out the mince altogether and just use more tins of beans.

Slimming World version: I'm no expert at this, but I am reliably informed that the recipe will be syn-free on the 'Extra Easy' plan if you:

• use extra-lean mince or quorn mince
• replace the tomato purée with pasata
• miss out the sugar
• use fry-light instead of veg oil for frying

Maybe I'll put my onion bhaji recipe up soon, though I should really charge for that! :-)

Mike

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An afternoon in the woods

For various reasons we've not made it to the woods for a couple of weeks, so it was great to get back up there yesterday afternoon, and also have some friends from church visit. We're looking at using the wood for a couple of different groups to visit for BBQ or camping - I just hope we get more weather like yesterday's!

The mixture of recent rain and strong sunshine has really made the plants shoot up, some of the coppice we cut last winter has grown a few feet already!

Also in that area there are Bluebell seeds now ready to grow - we might collect a few and scatter them more widely I think...

Further up the hill, where we cut the previous winter, the foxgloves are still putting on a good show:

Deeper inside the wood everything is very green, but there's more evening shade now:

This winter we think we might selectively cut some of the coppice stools along the rides, to create alternating ages and a permanent 'shrub layer' which should be beneficial for the wildlife.

Speaking of wildlife, we saw a few hornets near the camp today. Don't forget these aren't any more dangerous than a normal wasp, and are in fact less aggressive. I only managed to get a poor picture of one - wrong camera setting, so entirely my fault! Here it is though:

Remember that's a chestnut leaf it's on - the insect is over an inch long!

Anyway, now work has calmed down a bit we should be visiting the woods more often, so normal service shall be resumed on this blog!

Mike

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Ashden Awards 2011 ceremony video

We've just uploaded the video from last week's awards ceremony. Enjoy...


There's more videos from last week on the Ashden Awards YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/ashdenawards

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The end of a busy week at the Ashden Awards...

Well, that was a long week - but a good one! I've been staying in London most of the past week, as we had the Ashden Awards Conference all day Wednesday and the Awards Ceremony Thursday evening. Both went really well, and you can see more pictures and read about the winners on the Ashden Awards website.

Also, you can see all the documentary videos about the winners on our YouTube channel, including footage of the conference, but here's a couple to give you an idea of why I've been busy with work for a few months....

Mike

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Red Arrows over Rye!

Today was a special day for Rye - we had a Red Arrows display overhead! They were preceded by a Spitfire, and there were also military vehicles on display and various other activities. Let's start with the highlight though:

Here's a video of some of the best bits of the display:

There was a Spitfire too, than came by a little while before the Red Arrows:

Again, I took some video too:

Back down on the ground, there were various other activities, including an impressive array of military vehicles from WW2:

And even a 1940s bike!

All in all, a fun afternoon!

Mike

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