#bean chilli

Tempeh Bean Chilli 🌶️

Ingredients:

tempeh

beans

onion & garlic

veggies (diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, peas, corn, sweet potato, avocado, lime)

herbs (cumin, paprika, chilli, oregano, coriander)

rice

⏱️ ~30 mins

Love 🤍

NOTE if you use mild fajita sachets (sweet and smoky) this won't even be spicy, but you can make it as hot or as not as you like. In any case it's a nice way to eat some healthful beans.

Q: wtf is mushroom powder A: dehydrated mushrooms that are powdered, added for a savory flavour. Only worth buying if you make this or vegetarian stews regularly.

1 dice onion fried until soft in a few tbsp oil. Move onion to side and add tomato paste, a tbsp or 2 and cook until dark red and beginning to adhere to the bottom. Then add sundried tomato paste or red pesto, 2 tbsp. Scrape the fond from the pan while adding A splash of liquid smoke (do you need it? not really) A tbsp white vinegar and a splash of water. Break up and add 1 vegetable oxo 1 (sachet) fajita seasoning mix 2 tbsp mushroom powder and half teaspoon of Marmite (also don't need it but nice to have) add water from a big corn can to loosen the dry ingredients, add more plain water until consistency you want. The fajita sachet will thicken as it cooks. 500g mixed beans cooked weight. which is 2 regular cans around these parts. whatever beans you want really.

Heat up all the beans in the pot of stuff and make sure everything is mixed n cooked n a good consistency before you add the big can  of corn. you don't want to overcook the corn bc it's cooked already. also it cools the chili down enough for you to add the NUTRITIONAL YEAST (3 tbsps but measure with your heart) which is best added to not scalding hot food. Taste. Season. this is burger king you have it your way. Some seasoning suggestions at the end include salt, black and white pepper, chili powder if you want it spicy, paprika, cinnamon, and Chipotle chili flakes (might want to toast these in a hot dry pan first for 1 min)

Three bean chilli

Vegan Black & Kidney Bean Chilli

Beans, sometimes called pulses/legumes are one of my favourite foods because they are cheap and nutrient-dense. Beans come in many varieties including haricot, lava, cannellini, black, pinto beans, chickpeas and lentils. They are a rich source of protein and fibre, and other nutrients including folate, iron, zinc, phosphorus and magnesium. Beans are naturally low in fat, practically free of…

During breakfast on Sunday, (I have mine snuggled up in bed while listening to Classic FM) David called me downstairs. He had spied a new visitor to the yarden. It only stayed briefly and I didn’t have time to take a picture but I think it was a male Black Cap. He probably just used the yarden as a pit stop on his way to better feeding grounds, much like the Chiffchaff earlier in the year.

By Tony Hisgett via Wikimedia Commons

David cooked Sunday dinner. He used a curry base and added spices to make a very tasty Rogan Josh.

Rogan Josh

Emily Dickinson

We attended a family funeral mid week. Funeral services always make me think of this Emily Dickinson poem

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –

After reading Kate Riordan’s second novel, I bought her first novel the Girl in the Photograph. It was only £2.75, second hand from Ebay. It’s another one of those novels that has parallel narratives.

While passing the University of Liverpool, I caught sight of this very striking statue in the quadrangle!

For Saturday’s meal I cooked a vegetarian bean chilli. However, I made a few adjustments to the original recipe, which you can find here. I just used what I could find in the store cupboard. I swapped borlotti beans for pinto, used red lentils instead of puy and left out the marmite altogether! It made for an inexpensive yet healthy meal, even if it was rather hot with two teaspoons of chilli powder! I thought it was very tasty!

Bean chilli

snake’s head fritillary

For the final picture, in the past few weeks I have been monitoring a strange plant that has been growing in the yarden. At first I didn’t know what it was but now that it’s budded, I remember planting snake’s head fritillary bulbs a year ago.

Have you had any strange looking plants grow in your garden? Cooked any yummy meals recently?

Christine x

Sunday Sevens was devised by Threads and bobbins.

So Day 28, in preparation for a Mexican feast with my friends, I got the apron on and became a domestic goddess for one night only. My day always begins with something to calm my raging sweet tooth so I figured I’d start my cooking the same way. I baked myself (and the thieving fingers of my Dad) seedy cookies to start. I’d like to think they are somewhat healthy with oats, pumpkin, sunflower and poppy seeds, spelt flour and a dash of golden syrup. Oh, and a little butter too. And maybe some sugar…

Next, it was on to preparing a Mexican dish or two for the dinner party. I made a simple but yummy baked bean chilli. All it takes is two cans of baked beans, two peppers of your choice, one onion, a dash of cumin and garlic. Mexican food just isn’t the same without dips so I decided to make a hot avocado dipping sauce (I blame my red hair for liking things extra hot). Again, it was so easy and yummy! Two avocados, juice of two limes, coriander, garlic, olive oil and cumin. Et voilà (sorry I don’t know any Spanish, French will have to do):

Cooking is very thirsty work so some juice was desperately in order. Two glasses of carrot, pear, apple, ginger and wheat-grass juice for my Dad and I.

And then it was time to spend an evening with friends in Mexico, or at least our imagined Mexico. Slowly but surly the table grew with all sorts of dishes, some that would literally blow your brains they were so hot. A few dare-devils even tried eating raw green chilli!

Good food makes for very happy people. Great friends makes for even happier people. But together, they make the best life and the happiest people. Thanks to Mireia for the picture.