Recipes from The Green Patch Garden - Chilli
12 weeks ago
Serves 4. If you'd like to batch cook or make more servings, increase the amount of potatoes, tinned tomatoes & beans to bulk it out! We like to add tins of 'mixed bean salad' to ours, for a bit of variety and it is a cost effective way to sneak more veg in. This is a great dish to batch cook and put in the freezer for a rainy day. We like to add roast sweet potatoes to our chilli, to bring some sweetness and thicken it out. It might be best to cook in a deeper pan so that you can add your tins and have space to stir.
Ingredients:
1 tsp oil
2 sweet potatoes
1 onion
2 carrots
2 celery sticks
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 tsp chilli powder (to taste)
1 red pepper
1 tbsp oregano - fresh or dried
1 teaspoon tomato puree
1 stock cube
1 mug of water
1-2 cans of any bean; red, baked, kidney, mixed bean salad etc
1 tinned tomatoes, or 8 fresh tomatoes
1tsp sugar or honey
1 lime
Serve with:
240g rice
Optional Additions:
Yoghurt
Coriander
Avocado
Method:
1. Prepare your veg. Roughly chop your carrots, onions, celery & peppers in to 1cm cubes. It's important to make sure all the veg is roughly the same size so it cooks at the same speed - so if you prefer your veg a bit bigger, just make sure everything else matches!
2. Roughly chop your chillis & garlic. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C. Peel & chop potatoes into cubes of roughly the same size, about 1/2 inch. Season with salt & pepper.
3. Add some oil to the pan & add the peppers. Cook for 3 mins. Then add your onions, carrots and celery to the pan. Cook for a further 6 mins, or until your onions are softened. Be careful not to burn the onions as that will make the chilli bitter, so if in doubt, start the heat low and cook them slowly.
4. You can cook your sweet potato in the oven or air fryer.
For oven: cook at 190C for 15 mins. Toss, and return to the oven for another 10 - 15 mins, or until cooked. The larger the potato cube, the longer it will take to cook - so if you have chopped your potatoes smaller, keep an eye on them!
For air-fryer: Peel & chop potatoes into cubes of roughly the same size, about 1/2 inch. Add to a bowl and season with salt & pepper & oil. Add to air fryer tray & cook at 200C for 20 mins. Check on them after about 10 mins, toss them and make sure they are evenly spread.
5. Add the chilli and garlic to the pan, keeping the heat low and stirring so the garlic doesn't burn. Cook for 3 mins.
6. Add the oregano and the juice of half of the lime and stir.
7. Add the tinned tomatoes, chilli powder and a stock cube and some extra water if needed. Experiment Opportunity: You could also add 1 tsp paprika, parsley, marmite, Worcester Sauce or a blob of your favourite hot sauce if you wanted to add more flavour. When the potatoes are cooked, add them in to the mix, including any juice in the pan. Add tin of beans.
8. Once this has simmered for anything from 30 mins to 1hr, it's a good idea to add either 1tsp sugar or a blob of honey because the tomatoes can become bitter when they cook.
9. Make your rice. We normally cook rice at quantities of 1-2, 1 cup of rice to 2 cups water. For this recipe, we are using our friend Jehan's fabulous method! Use 240g rice and 480g water. Add 480g of cold water to a pan. Add your rice, and bring it to the boil. Once the water is boiling, add a lid and turn down the heat. Leave for roughly 10 - 15 mins until rice is fluffy. Try a bit with a spoon - if it tastes nutty but there's no water left, add a bit more water and pop the lid on for another few minutes.
10. Plate up and enjoy! We like to serve with chopped coriander and a wedge of lime. We also add cheese or yogurt if you're not making it vegan.
Chilli is a great recipe to experiment with. If you have other veggies, such as surplus broccoli, courgette, spinach, kale, cauliflower etc you can use this too! Anything thin that shrinks a lot, such as spinach / kale, needs to be added towards the end. Harder veg like broccoli, courgette, cauli should be added earlier to ensure it is cooked.
If you don't like rice, you could double up your serving of Chilli and use pita, toast or tortilla wraps to dip! Enjoy, from your friends at The Green Patch 😊
If you do try this, let us know, send us a picture or even send us your own recipe to share so we can get more people cooking.
