Chili Con Carne

I FOUND an (undamaged) packet of red kidney beans on the street. Obviously it had fallen out of some Guardian-reading, round glasses-wearing bicycle-riding Labour voter's shopping (not that I'm prone to stereotyping) and I decided to make the most of it. So these unattractive, hard pulses have been languishing on my shelf for nearly a month. And just when I felt like eating them (because the cupboard was otherwise bare: I'd even run out of tea, milk and sugar) I found you had to soak the blighters overnight before consuming. Dur! I do remember this from uni days when my socialist friends collected weird things in teacups on the fridge, but always thought then, as I do now, why not just buy 'em tinned~??!?

So having turfed said beans into one mug, which they rapidly outswelled, then into two mugs I was greatly "appointed" to find a full-on recipe for chili con carne on the packet's side. I spent £12 on two burgeoning bags of shopping at Morrisons this morning, forcing myself to stock up on the less convenient (ie not ready in 2 minutes fresh stuffed pasta type stuff I'm prone to) comestibles like brown pasta twirls (I cannot handle spaghetti after a bad experience) and brown rice. Isn't brown supposed to be better? It's certainly going to make everyone think I'm anti death penalty (which I'm not: I think rapists, murderers and paedophiles should be put out of their misery).

For my carne I bought the slightly pinker minced (ground) beef at £2 for 800g. I always thought supermarkets were dearer for meat ~ they always used to charge double for pie steak (when they bothered to stock it) and lamb chops. Grew up a bit lamb chopped out and so nowadays go for any other cut. Neck was cheap and nice ~ but then again the supermarkets never stocked it cubed, which I, coming from Blunt Knife Land found greatly inconvenient.

I can't even parrot out this recipe I'm about to travesty, though I can say it requires something like tinned tomatoes or Ragu base (got both), garlic (tubed far out-conveniences fresh bulbs, which dry out and stink out my fridge before I ever remember to use them...) and mushrooms and onions and broccoli, all of which my refrigerator's soon to be replete with.

Isn't my life fascinating! Gotta go before all the frozen crap I bought thaws out ~ cheery-bye!

PS here's a baby robo with a baby ruby-eyed "normal" (Syrian) hamster. The robbie baby isn't that much smaller than full-grown, but the Syrian will grow to four times that size