I surprise myself sometimes

It's a boring day and suddenly i have the urge to unleash that inner chef talent that i have in me. So, i have decided to cook chili beans for dinner served with salad (i'm trying to be healthy here). Went to Giant and get all the ingredients that i need to prepare my chili beans, with the help of my mom (she just won't leave me alone with the cooking, she just have to add in some stuff without me seeing it).

Firstly, diced a whole big onion, a clove of garlic, 1 red paprika, some straw mushrooms (it's optional, but i just love mushrooms) and a few strips of sliced bacon. Toss the bacon into the pan with some olive oil, stir till the bacon turns brown. Next, put in the onion and wait till it turned brown and finally toss in the garlic and in a little bit, throw in the mince beef (it really depends how much meat you want).

Chopped big onions


Slice the Bacon


Minced beef


Red and Yellow Paprikas

Kidney Beans

Chick Peas

Bacon and a generous amount of olive oil

Oh, at the same time you want to boil some water and toss a few tomatoes in to make you own tomato puree. After a few mins, peel off the skin and sliced it. It is super hot, so you would want to do this with running cold water so you won't burn your fingers.

Tomatoes in boiling water


Peel off the skin

Slice it!

After the minced beef is cooked, put in 3 table spoons of chili powder(i like it spicy, you can add on or decrease the amount of chili to your liking).

Minced beef cook and add in the chili powder.

Mixed it well and you can see the meat turns red, add in the paprika and the straw mushrooms. After that, then you can add in the sliced tomatoes and also a can of whole peeled tomatoes that you can get it off the shelf from hypermarket. It's a little sweeter than the ones we boiled ourselves it also have some puree with it so your chili beans won't be too dry.

Canned whole peeled tomatoes

Lastly, put in the chick peas and kidney beans with the rest. Add some chicken stock and shimmer it for half an hour on low fire.

Add in the chick peas and kidney beans

Voila! You have your Chili beans cook to perfection. You can eat it just like that or dipped with french toast if you want. Yummy!!!

It really taste so good.

Muahaha!! I have release the inner chef in me! Not bad eh..my chili beans was a success!!

Recipe - courtesy of 'Chef at home' with Micheal Smith