It seems I can cook faster than I can post. This was actually Saturday night's dinner, made in a bit of a rush before #ConfinedKitchenCocktailHour...
I had 500g of mince, and wanted something that wasn't lasagne. I love lasagne, but I didn't have enough milk to make a bechamel sauce, and the shop only had it in humungous quantities which wouldn't have fit in my fridge. So I ignored the many, many cookbooks on my shelves, had a Google and found this recipe. The blog I got this from is geared up to people following the Slimming World plan. I was a SW member for a year or so at work, before the group leader moved on, and the nice thing about it is that it's an eating/weight loss plan for people who actually enjoy cooking (rather than buying branded ready-meals) so there's a big community of people out there swapping recipes.
The other thing about SW recipes is they don't stint on herbs and spices. I halved the quantity of chili powder in the recipe and substituted some chipotle flakes for the rest.
Another attractive thing about this recipe was that there were instructions for the Instant Pot. If you haven't seen an Instant Pot, it's one of these. It's a slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, frying pan and a few other things. It works directly or on a timer. And, as you can see, it is large. When it's standing on the counter top, I have to go on tiptoes to see into it. Which means that it has to earn its keep. And so far, in the nearly 3 years I've had it, I've only used it about a dozen times. This must stop...
So, I basically followed the recipe, apart from the mince being 12% fat rather than extra lean; I used two of my pre-chopped packs of veg; and I used vegetable stock rather than beef because although I think I have a pack of beef stock cubes somewhere, they didn't come to light in the hour I had on Saturday night. 12 minutes on the pressure cooking setting of the IP, and voilà. Parsley on the top rather than coriander...
It was really tasty; would definitely make again! I think the only thing I'd change is that I'd use less chili powder and more fresh chili or chipotle flakes - the chili didn't have quite enough time to mellow in the cooking process... But for a simple one-pot-plus rice recipe it's great. And made three proper-sized meals...
I had 500g of mince, and wanted something that wasn't lasagne. I love lasagne, but I didn't have enough milk to make a bechamel sauce, and the shop only had it in humungous quantities which wouldn't have fit in my fridge. So I ignored the many, many cookbooks on my shelves, had a Google and found this recipe. The blog I got this from is geared up to people following the Slimming World plan. I was a SW member for a year or so at work, before the group leader moved on, and the nice thing about it is that it's an eating/weight loss plan for people who actually enjoy cooking (rather than buying branded ready-meals) so there's a big community of people out there swapping recipes.
The other thing about SW recipes is they don't stint on herbs and spices. I halved the quantity of chili powder in the recipe and substituted some chipotle flakes for the rest.
Another attractive thing about this recipe was that there were instructions for the Instant Pot. If you haven't seen an Instant Pot, it's one of these. It's a slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, frying pan and a few other things. It works directly or on a timer. And, as you can see, it is large. When it's standing on the counter top, I have to go on tiptoes to see into it. Which means that it has to earn its keep. And so far, in the nearly 3 years I've had it, I've only used it about a dozen times. This must stop...
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| The Instant Pot - a mighty beast... |
So, I basically followed the recipe, apart from the mince being 12% fat rather than extra lean; I used two of my pre-chopped packs of veg; and I used vegetable stock rather than beef because although I think I have a pack of beef stock cubes somewhere, they didn't come to light in the hour I had on Saturday night. 12 minutes on the pressure cooking setting of the IP, and voilà. Parsley on the top rather than coriander...
It was really tasty; would definitely make again! I think the only thing I'd change is that I'd use less chili powder and more fresh chili or chipotle flakes - the chili didn't have quite enough time to mellow in the cooking process... But for a simple one-pot-plus rice recipe it's great. And made three proper-sized meals...
I bet this was really good the day after - hopefully all that spice mellowed down. Yum.
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