Yeah… I am lame, but that made me snigger!
Dubai has recently been gong through a bit of a winter period. Thankfully it is only about 1 month of the year, but this year seemed extra long and worse than normal. I don’t know if that is because I’ve been here longer or because it was just extremely pants weather!?
(This was also written a couple of weeks ago, but I had other more exciting things to post. The weather in Dubai is now sunny and hot again, and I feel the threat of an apocalypse has been lifted! Hoorah! Anyway…..)
Who knows. The one thing I do know is that when it’s all grey and gloomy outside, then your tummy needs some nice warm food to cheer it up! A good dish for that is always a chili.
Sadly, my past experiments into making a chili haven’t been incredibly successful and I really wanted it to be good this time as I was making it for lunches and it makes a long week if your dish sucks!
That’s where the lovely packet mixes come in. I don’t know if they are really that good or if they are just what I grew up with so think they are good? So many questions today!
There is one slight problem… The Boy loves kidney beans and they make me wretch. I did figure out though that I didn’t have to put them in the actual chili, but just add them to his portions when it was all cooked! I felt so much better after I worked that out!
I had bought a bunch of packet mixes back from the UK but I know you can get them in Choithrams (probably Waitrose and Park’n’Shop too), but only the “normal” one… which could be a good and a bad thing depending on how hot you like it!!
CHILLY WEATHER CHILI
Ingredients
- 500g Lean Mince
- Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
- Tin of Kidney Beans
- Large Onion
- Red Pepper
- Mushrooms
Method
- Brown the mince in a frying pan, and drain excess liquid.
- Pour on the packet mix and stir until all the mince is coated.
- Add the rest of the ingredients (unless you too hate kidney beans) and heat through.
- Simmer for 20 minutes.
- While the chili is simmering, cook your rice to go with it. Or, watch tv if not!
- Serve & Enjoy!
Additional Information
The spice mix works out to 2.5 syns per portion if you divide the recipe by 4. They are very adequate portions. The rest is syn free. If the chili is too hot for you, you can cool down with some low/no fat plain or Greek yogurt.
If you have any questions, please let me know via the comments section below.
Happy Munching!!
Blonde On The Move's Blog 
If you run out of packet mix
Paprika,
Cumin
Chilli powder
Garlic cloves
Beef stock cube
Half tube tomato purée
This is really all you need to make a really flavoursome chilli – and it you want it a bit more fiery then chop a chilli (including seeds) into it 👍🏽
I throw all of these in by visual guesstimates!
As long as you make sure you cook all the spices from the beginning that’s your job done.
I sometimes add chick peas by the way if you don’t like kidney beans x
Thank you! I shall pop this into my little book so I can try it out. The Boy says thanks too!!!
No problemo 👍🏽👍🏽