Chilli Con Carne with Broccoli and Kale

I've been on a new endeavour to prepare budget conscious, healthy meals ahead of time on Sundays to have lunches and weeknight dinners ready to go in the fridge and freezer. There are two types of meals that I make - vegetarian stews based on lentils or other pulses and slow cooked meat dishes with either cheap large cuts of meat or mince.

Chilli Con Carne is not really the sort of dish that you need a recipe for, but this is the way that I make it. Very simple, not very "gourmet" but a great way to prepare a few nights worth of meals ahead of time, ready to be pulled out of the freezer on a cold and tired night.

I decided to serve it with brown rice, broccoli and kale to make a wholesome and filling dish. I hadn't cooked or eaten kale before as it has not been readily available in Australia until recently. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the mild flavour and firm texture of the kale once it had been cooked. I'm looking forward to serving it as a salad with avocado and a sesame dressing.

Banana Oat PB Cookies

So the 2 or 3 ingredients super healthy banana cookie recipe is getting heavy circulation around the interwebs at the moment. This is my version.

I have added PB2 and dates to make the cookies more flavourful. I think they are great additions. These cookies are still super easy to make and are still very healthy and nutritious.

Osso Bucco with Creamy Mash

All of sudden it has gotten really cold and wintry here. The sharpness in the wind and the cool mist in the air in the mornings tells me that the summer days are gone for this year.

It the spirit of embracing the change of seasons and all the beauty that the changes bring, I decided to cook a lovely warming and rich dish. It's great to have the time to slowly cook a meal on the weekends, especially when you are trying to be budget conscious and buy cheaper cuts of meat which are much better suited to lower, slower cooking.

This recipe is inspired by the search for the ultimate mashed potato, which, as is so often the case when searching for ultimates, has involved many incarnations of Heston Blumental recipes. This is the way we did it this time. You can check the link I've provided to see the extra steps involved in the original recipe, or just go with this simplified version. Thank God for Heston and his thorough curiosity and experimentation!

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