What's your favourite home-cooked evening meal?

[Jon]

1. Must be relatively quick to make. i.e. preparation time under 20 minutes.
2. Cooking time doesn't matter.

That's it!

 

[Jon]

This isn't necessarily my favourite meal, but tonight I will be cooking a rump steak on the barbecue, to get that nice char-grilled flavour. I have some nice crispy sliced potato things and some peas. Sometimes, I get some Roquefort cheese and melt it in the microwave. It makes a great sauce. But today, I will just have some French's classic yellow mustard. Nom nom.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Before I got married, I lived in a place with an outdoor gas-fired barbecue grill. So I would trim up a steak to remove the outer rim of fat, grill to medium-well. Then a small can of peas and a small packet of instant mashed potatoes. I'm definitely a simple soul when it comes to food.

 

[Jane]

Chilli Con Carne - brown mince 5 mins. Add tin of chopped toms, tin of chilli beans, packet of schwarz chilli mix. Cook for less than 15 mins. If there's no time to cook the rice, just eat it with jacobs cream crackers. Yummy [food emoji if there was one!]

 

[Jon]

That sounds nice and easy. I am tempted to take that for a spin. I don't like the chilli beans in a chilli though. They remind me of chrysalis when I used to fish as a kid.

That schwarz chilli mix sounds super simple. How does it taste compared to a chilli ready-meal?

 

[Bee]

I use the same method as Jane - the Schwartz mix is the standard by which I define other chillis. However, I have used baked beans instead of kidney beans in the past. Not any more though - carbs are bad for me.

 

[Jon]

So do you concur with Jane that it is a good, easy to make chilli?

 

[Bee]

Absolutely. Though I often add half a cup of water to the mix also as it can be too thick.

 

[Jon]

I will have to give that a bash. Added Schwartz to the shopping list!

 

[Bee]

You can get it in two strengths. I like both, but the hot one can be very hot - so, it depends on how much of a wimp you are

 

[Jon]

I love to nuke my taste buds. I think I will go hot. If I make one from scratch, I normally make it so hot no one else wants any so I eat it all.

 

[Bee]

The beauty of making it too hot is that you can always add tomatoes or yoghurt to cool it down.

 

[Jon]

Do you not add tomatoes anyway? I had a Jamie Oliver recipe I used to follow. I think there were two cans of tomatoes in the big batch I used to brew up.

 

[Bee]

Yes - but the amount of tomatoes impacts the spices. More tomatoes = cooler taste. Fewer tomatoes = hotter taste. (That's another grammatical bugbear, by the way - incorrect use of fewer/less).

 

[Jon]

You have cross-pollinated the threads.

 

[Bee]

I am a Bee. That's what we do.

 

[Jon]

You get a Like for that wit!