Hot Hot or Spicy Hot?

I woke (very) early this morning to an intermittent whirring sound coming from beneath our bedroom, after talking yesterday about how we should get the boiler serviced/renewed and then deciding against it I thought we had managed to totally jinx ourselves and that it was finally giving up the ghost.

I valiantly stumbled downstairs to investigate and it became apparent that in my half awake/half asleep weary haze I had totally forgotten that we had put the bread maker on a delayed start so we would have some fresh this morning, and the noise was just it happily kneading away in the corner......at least we don't have to fix the boiler (touch wood!!)

It's been a relaxing day of cooking and planning the details of our upcoming honeymoon and I took a quick blip of these chillis earlier on. They are currently in a pan all nicely chopped up and flavouring the Jailhouse Chilli I am making for dinner, it is THE ultimate chilli recipe and it smells gorgeous!


Edited to add the recipe for anyone interested, I can't claim any ownership of this recipe, as its out of a Cajun Cookbook!

Jailhouse Chili

Serves 6 - 8.

2 large onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, chopped
6 tbs olive oil
3 tbs chili powder
5 red jalapeños, finely chopped
1kg minced beef
500g stewing steak, cubed
6 rashers streaky bacon, diced and fried
2 tbs ground cumin
2 tbs oregano
1 tbs cayenne
1 tbs turmeric
500ml dark beer
500ml beef stock
3 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
2 tsp garlic salt


Saute onion and garlic in olive oil, after a few minutes add half the chili powder and half the diced jalapeños. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the onion mixture to a large casserole dish, leaving the oil in the pan.

In a mixing bowl, combine mince, steak, fried bacon, the rest of the jalapeños and half the cumin, oregano, cayenne and turmeric. Mix well.

Brown the meat in 3 or 4 large clumps in the onion pan until brown on the outside. Don't worry about it not being cooked in the middle. Add this to the casserole dish.

Add the tomatoes, beef stock, half the beer and the second half of the cumin, oregano, cayenne and turmeric to the casserole dish.

Simmer on a very low heat for 1 hour.

Add second half of chili powder, the garlic salt and the rest of the beer. Simmer on a very low heat for another hour (or more) until the beef is cooked.