Chilli con carne - well, my version of it anyway!

For dinner on Thursday night and tonight we had chilli con carne.  I make it the way my mum always made it, which is a bit different from a normal chilli as we use baked beans instead of kidney beans, and I serve it with pasta instead of rice.  A lot of people think it's a bit strange, but as it's the way it was always made in our house I've never questioned it.

So to make my chilli I used a 800g tin of chopped tomatoes (€1 on special offer), 1lb of mince (€3 from my local butcher), 1 onion (39 cent for a net, 6.5 cent for one), punnet of mushrooms (99 cent per punnet), heaped tsp hot chilli powder, a tsp of hot papkira and a can of baked beans (€2 for 4 on special offer, so 50 cent for one).  I fry off the mince in a non-stick pot until cooked and then add the onion and mushroom after slicing them.  Then I add the spices and cook them for a few minutes before adding the can of shopped tomatoes and the can of baked beans.  I then simmer for about 15 minutes.  Usually I put my pasta (49 cent for 500g) on during this time.

This recipe makes make enough to do dinner for three for two nights, plus two portions for lunch, making it under €3 per meal.  I usually freeze one portion to use a night when I'm too busy to prepare something from scratch.  As it is this dinner is quite quick to make, but on the second night it only takes as long as it takes the pasta to cook for this meal to be ready as I heat the chilli up in the microwave at the same time.