Chilli and Hot Chips, and Tacos (a.k.a More Beans)
Once again it has been quite some time since I updated and although there has been a number of meals I wanted to write about I've now forgotten what they were, and I still haven't had my camera fixed, so here is another post with no photo...
Yesterday I had a craving for hot chips with chilli to dip them into. I love hot chips, and like them even more when there is hot sauce. A couple of times I've experimented with roughly mashed chilli beans (so the sauce they come with becomes thicker and bean-ier :) and it was good but not quite what I was looking for. So last night I put some oven fries in the oven and made up this recipe for a chilli:
First I put some cumin seeds in the frying pan and then took them out once they were toasted and ground them in my mortar & pestle. Once grounded, there was about 1.5 teaspoons worth. I put about 2 teaspoons of ground coriander and 1 teapsoon of ground cumin (not the seeds I just toasted, but more cumin) into the frying pan - you may want to add less in case you don't like corainder and cumin as much as I do! Then I put some olive oil in the pan, on the opposite side to the spices and fried about 2/3rds of a chopped onion (I chopped it quite roughly and in hindsight think that finer would have been better), two cloves of crushed garlic and a few chopped chillies with the seeds.
Once this had cooked, I added one can of tomatoes (I can't remember what brand but they were Mexican flavoured, had some paprika etc. in them), one can of large kidney beans (drained) and one can of black beans with the brine or whatever they're in (I can't remember the brand, but they're the organic ones - I prefer the taste). I then added a bit of water, and brought it to the boil. Once boiling, I then turned down the heat a bit so it could simmer. Towards the end I added the cumin seeds, a couple of teaspoons of crushed chilli from a jar (it wasn't spicy enough!) and some salt. It was sooo good!
I had thought about using a can of brown lentils in place of one of the cans of beans, so I might try that next time. It also would have been good with some vegies such as finely chopped mushroom, peas / carrots / corn, capsium, brocolli etc. It might be also be good with some fake cheese or nutritional yeast sprinkled on top.
The night before that we made tacos for dinner. Fiona heated up a can of chilli beans and cooked the taco shells (both just from the supermarket) while I made guacamole from avocado, crushed garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper. We then made a salad with baby spinach leaves, bean sprouts and a chopped green chilli, with lemon juice and balsamic vinegar. Put the beans in the taco shells followed by the guacamole then salad. Top with chopped cherry tomatoes. Yum!
Can you tell I'm still obsessed with beans?! Tonight I'm going to the Ponsonby Food Court where once again I'll have a delicious Mexican meal with beans!
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