Rubbishy Cookery

  Happy New Year! Let’s start 2026 on the right foot with a nice chili dinner! Ingredients: Directions: Start with a couple of good glugs of neutral flavoured oil (I’m using canola oil) in a big pot and heat over medium high heat. Chop an onion and add it to the hot oil pot: Sauté the chopped onion until softened: Then add 3-ish finely chopped garlic cloves and sauté further for a few moments until fragrant and maybe not as browned as I’ve done: Then add your lean ground beef, hopefully not still partially frozen like mine: Is fine! Brown the beef with the onions and garlic on medium heat until no longer pink: Still pink! Keep going: Perfect!  Now start adding spices: a really generous amount of chili powder, about a tablespoon of ground cumin, and a few shakes of ground chipotle powder: Golly it’s hard to see with all that steam! Stir that all together on medium heat until the spice aroma fills your kitchen with fragrant spicy goodness, then add a can of tomatoes: Pro tip: ma...

  Let’s make chicken tacos for a small dinner party! Olé! Ingredients: Directions: Cut up the chicken breasts into strips like so: That’s a lot of chicken, but it is  for a party. Slice up two onions, retaining some slices for taco garnish: Heat up some canola oil in a large nonstick pan on medium high heat and sauté the onions: Sauté the onions until browning: Then add the chicken slices to the pan: Sauté the chicken-onion combo until the chicken sears all over: That chicken doesn’t look seared because there’s too much chicken crowded in my pan and it’s steaming instead of searing. Shame. Add the spices to the pan: a generous amount of chili powder, chipotle powder and ground cumin: Stir and sauté, and maybe you need more chilli powder: Now lower the heat to medium and put a lid on to ensure fully cooked chicken: Meanwhile, warm your tortillas in a cloth napkin or tea towel in the microwave, 1-2 minutes or so: Set your party table with everything: the cooked chicken, the warm...