Pasta Leftover at lunch, but we make a chilli tonight with lentils instead of mince. Luckily we know about soaking the lentils for 30 minutes now so are better prepared. Although I’m using an online recipe for the base of the chilli. For the first time Phil let me blog his secret recipe for the flavour. It’s the best chilli I’ve had, and friends and family agree.

We use up the last halves of the peppers and onions but I add carrot too to bulk it out. I also have half a pot of chickpeas in the fridge to use up so I mix them with a tin of kidney beans.

We would normally have chilli with some nachos and cheese, but today it’s with rice, which makes a nice change. As usual we make far to much rice, it always looks like not enough when you see it in the pan before hand, so you add a bit more, then a bit more. I like to rinse my rice 3 times to get rid of the starch. It helps to stop it going too stodgy.

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Thursday

Breakfast
Porridge with raisins or toast and lemon curd

Lunch
Leftover pasta and salad and a dough ball each

Dinner
Chilli and rice

Snacks
Orange, Brownie

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RECIPE

Veggie Chilli

Serves 6

Ingredients

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
300ml vegetable stock from 1 cube
100g frozen peas
Leftover mushrooms, chopped
1 red and 1 green pepper, stalk and seeds removed, and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
175g dried green lentils
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
1 can kidney beans, drained

Method

Place the green lentils in a large bowl and pour boiling water over them. Leave to soak for 30 minutes, then drain.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion and garlic together with the chilli and cumin, for about ten minutes or until the onions are soft.

Add the peppers, carrots and drained green lentils and cook for five minutes, stirring all the time. Add the tomatoes, purée, stock, rest of the spices and peas, bring to the boil and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. Add the mushrooms and simmer for five minutes more. Season to taste.

Add the cooked kidney beans and any other spare beans you might have (we had baked beans and chickpeas leftover so I added these) and simmer for five more minutes.

Serve with cooked rice.