Most people have their secret Chilli recipe, but in case you don’t have one yet, you can share ours, or rather my husband Phil’s recipe. Some people like to add chocolate, some cocoa powder, some Worcestershire sauce. Phil’s secret ingredient is a teaspoon of sugar along with all the herbs and spices listed. You can’t go wrong with this recipe and among our friends in a chilli cook-off it came in 1st.

This is a great dish for cold winter days, but by making the Mexican salad it’s great for summer too. I also added nachos with cheese, but don’t bother buying expensive brands, as once you heat them up in an oven, you can’t tell they only cost 45p.

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Breakfast
Toast or Porridge

Lunch
Cheese and tomato sandwich or leftover rice with Jerk sauce

Dinner
Chilli con carne and cheese nachos with Mexican salad

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Chilli con carne
Phil’s secret recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients

300g minced beef
150ml beef stock from 1 cube
1/2 the red pepper, stalk and seeds removed, and chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 the red onion, chopped
1/2 tin kidney beans, drained (save back the last 1/4 for the Mexican salad)

For the Chill sauce

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion and garlic together for about ten minutes or until the onions are starting to soften, then add the mince and brown it evenly.

Add the peppers, and cook for five minutes, stirring all the time. Add the tomatoes, purée, half the stock and bring to the boil and simmer.

While this is simmering mix all the sauce ingredients together in the used tomato tin with a bit more stock to help it stir. Then add this to the chilli.

Simmer for 20 minutes then add the cooked kidney beans and any other spare beans you might have (we’ve had baked beans and chickpeas leftover before) and simmer for 10 more minutes.

While this is cooking heat up your oven and in a heat proof dish lay out some nachos and sprinkle them with grated cheese and a few thin slices of chilli and cook for about 5 minutes until the cheese melts.

We also made a Mexican salad by adding some tinned Sweetcorn and kidney beans to sliced lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, a few slices of chopped pepper and red onion. Dress this with coriander, salt, pepper, fresh lime and olive oil.