Thursday's meals

I've half prepared the chilli con carne. I think this will make 8 portions, and give us a good stock for the freezer.

Yesterday I cubed 850g of beef. We picked a slow roast joint from our butcher. It was so soft and with very little sinew. I put the cubes in a plastic bag and sprinkled two tablespoons of plain flour over, seasoned with salt and pepper and shook the whole bag. Then I fried each piece in olive oil.

I cut one whole leek into very small pieces, and fried this together with 3 large onions. One of the onions was cut into tiny pieces as I want it to break down and thicken the casserole. The other 2 onions were cut into average sized chunks. Once the onions and leek were browning, I added two whole red chilli, including seeds, and 4 cloves of garlic. This mixture was added to the browned pieces of meat. Then I poured 2 glasses of red wine into the pan and turned up the heat. I deglazed the pan and poured this onto the mixture.

This has been marinating over night. Today I'll put it into a slow cooker and add the other ingredients after about 3 hours slow cooking: kidney beans, peppers and mushrooms.

For breakfast we are having yoghurt and cherries again. Lunch will be the leftover chicken strips from yesterday. (We had two good sized chicken breasts and these were cut into two good sized fillets, with the bits left over weighing about 120g). We'll have a hot chicken and bacon salad.

Dinner will be the chilli - which we'll have with rice, or may go for home made wedges? We'll see.

Being prepared is the main thing that helps our way of eating. You get into a good routine, and it becomes normal. OK there is a bit of shopping involved, but I'm now keeping track of our "frequent" shopping for fresh ingredients - and so far, I can honestly say, this is the CHEAPER option. No waste. Use everything. Very little - if anything - goes in the bin.