Bloody Red Hot Chili Con Carne




A month ago, I was seated on the couch flipping the pages of my favorite fashion magazine when hubby arrived. "I bought a kilo of red kidney beans", he told me.

"Oh that's great", I coldly replied and continued reading.

He left the room frustrated.
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One afternoon, hubby hinted that he's been craving for something spicy for lunch. I looked at him and replied, " Well I'm not sure that adding chili on your carbonara will do the thing."

He left the room disappointed.

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We were in the bookstore choosing some reading materials for our upcoming vacation. When I caught him with a book on eating healthy, "We should eat more healthy stuff like beans it's good for building muscle." he told me.

"Well we're too old to build muscle, aren't we" I jokingly replied.

He turned his back upset.


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Last night I dreamt that I was cut into pieces tossed up in a casserole of boiling red matter, tomato sauce I suppose. With lots and lots of chili. Playing dream analyst still catching up my breath, "I wonder what this gory dream meant" I thought when I woke up.

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Today I finally decided to cook some chili con carne. When hubby smelled what I was cooking, he looked at me and said "That sounds delicious darling." He then added with a sneering smile on his face, "By the way, in case you don't know just repaired your broken computer that's been broken for a month now you can start blogging again."

He then left the room whistling.

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That's what I call an, "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."



This is of course my entry to Andrea's healthy monthly blogging event GYO, "Grow your own". Definitely not only for green thumbs but for all gourmet lovers outhere. This is recipe is great with your garden grown tomatoes and chilies. Go check out the round-up!



Chili Con Carne

half a kilo of ground beef
250 g of dry red beans (cook in pressure cooker until soft and mushy)
2 big onions chopped
2 red bell pepper
1 kilo of tomatoes
3 pieces of mild green chili peppers chopped
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of cayenne powder (more or less depending on your taste)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
some salt and pepper

Start by putting your tomatoes, red bell peppers on an oven dish, put a tablespoon of olive oil and roast it in the oven for an hour at 200° celsius for forty minutes to sixty minutes. Once it's cold, peel off the skin and chopped them together. In a big casserole, put the rest of the olive oil and brown your onion. Add the ground beef then all the spices; cumin,cayenne, salt and pepper. Put the chopped chilis, roasted tomatoes and bell pepper. Stir. Add the tomato pasted and let it simmer over low fire.

As a rice topping it's perfect!

Try my other spicy dishes:

Canneloni Diablo
Devil's Beef Stew




Honey Walnut Cake with hot chocolate fudge



A very strange thing happened a week ago: it snowed here in Southern France.

Have you ever felt this weird feeling that you've been just zapped to another dimension. The normal blue sky cool weather and the fragrant green rosemary and thyme decor turned all of a sudden into an immaculately white blanket covering the landscape.

If you think it was fairylike well there's the other half of the story; our region was paralysed for a week (highways were inaccessible ) and oh my God we had some power interruption. While I would like so much to complain as normal french people does on situations like this, I went on the kitchen and tried to work on some magic to bring myself some sun. I was glad it worked for me; a slice of my walnut cake brought me to Tahiti for a moment.

And by the way, my daughter finally had her first taste of snow: literally and figuratively :-) he he he


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Ps. Oh my goodness I just realised how much I have been lagging behind my post and on checking out your blogs' guys. I am so "has been". I really feel so bad about it. I blame my busy schedule and "fourth world like" internet connection. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I'll try to make up.

And I'm sending this off to Lore of Culinarty for her fabulous Original Recipes blog event. Check out the round-up tomorrow.


Honey Walnut Cake
(my own recipe)
for 4 slices
150 grams of flour

50 g of butter
1 egg
100 g brown sugar

1 big heap of honey

2 tablespoons of milk

100 grams of chopped walnuts

10 g of melted butter for greasing the pan

optional: chocolate hot fudge


Grease your baking pan and preheat the oven at 180°celsius. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, melted butter and egg. Mix well. Add the honey and milk. Continue mixing well. Fold in the chopped walnuts. Pour on your greased pan and bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Serve with hot chocolate fudge on the top.

In front of our house.....

My little darling.....

Our parking area....