le love

I adore my le crueset french oven. It was my first purchase when we started eating meat again. I'd wanted one for years, and while they're hellishly expensive, I'll be passing this one onto my great-grandkids they're so well made. It also helped that I waited for a 40 per cent off sale, and bought it with reward points from my credit card {ergo: it was basically free!}

The last two nights I've cooked two meals that have tasted better for being cooked in such pretty packaging. Last night I revisited an old childhood fave and made chilli con carne. Result? Better than remembered. Recipe? Follows:

600g lean beef mince

1 onion, finely diced

a couple of cloves of garlic, finely sliced

ground coriander

ground cumin

cinnamon

cayene pepper

400g tin of crushed tomates

2 cups of beef stock

1/2 cup red wine {I used one of my frozen 'ice blocks'}

400g tin of red kidney beans

4 squares of dark chocolate

Sweat the onions and garlic for around 10 minutes in a little olive oil, then remove and add beef to french oven. Brown and crumble the beef, toss the onions and garlic back in and add around 1/2 teaspoon each of the spices. Pour in the tomatoes, beef stock and red wine and stir. Bring to boil then simmer for around an hour. Add red kidney beans and chocolate, stir, simmer till it makes you salivate then serve topped with diced coriander on a bed of brown rice.

Spanish chicken and rice

8 chicken drumsticks

1/2 red capsicum, sliced 

1/2 spanish onion, sliced

1 chorizo, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 cups or so of chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 to 1 cup risotto rice

juice of 1/2 lemon

Saute onion, capsicum, garlic and chorizo in a little olive oil till soft and golden, then remove from pan. Add chicken drumsticks and brown in a little more olive oil, turning when they don't resist and are nice and golden. Remove. Add wine to deglaze the pan then throw all the browned ingredients back in. Toss some chicken stock and lemon juice over the top and throw in your rice {I had a little leftover in the freezer, add twice as much stock as rice}. Give it a stir, season, bring it to the boil then pop on a tight-fitting lid and throw it in a 180 degree oven for around 45 minutes. Then take off the lid for 5 - 10 minutes to let the chicken crisp up and serve.

I've been making spanish chicken for a while now and have always had too much juice going to waste - see, you need the juice to keep it moist. Throwing in the rice was the best result. It was a delish, rich risotto and the chicken was still ever-so-tender.

I needed a good risotto after watching the horror of a risotto served up on MasterChef last night - it looked wrong on soooooo many levels {big chunks of mushrooms, chunks of carrot - no GARLIC. C'mon people - if there's no garlic wipe risotto off the menu.}. Ooh, MasterChef time - till tomorrow xx