Sexual "Zucchini" Healing

For the lastest installment of WMPC, when Kerri of Dinner Diary tweeted me and asked whether I had a toaster in the kitchen at work, alarm bells started ringing, because a) we don't have one and b) it left me thinking, "She's gone and bought me Pop Tarts, that's no bloody dinner!"

Of course I should have known better as I have been scouring Kerri's food blog, which is also co-written by her fiancé Stephen, for some time now. To say it's comprehensive would be an understatement, so to assume they were ducking out by providing some sickly sweet 80's cardboard snack would have been insulting on my part. When I met Kerri at Embankment tube station yesterday morning, she said herself "I bet you thought I was bringing you some Pop Tarts!". Little did she know that my nervous giggle was in fact hiding a huge sigh of relief as she handed a lunch bag containing a much coveted portion of Two Bean Chilli, along with some grated cheese and sesame roll (if I had the toaster it would have been pitta bread - "ah so now I see")

For the exchange, I siphoned off a small portion of Veronica, my sourdough starter of 5 months, into a jam jar and named the offspring "Velma". I can only hope that she does her mother proud. I also went down to the allotment to pick a few spuds, some curly kale, a couple of courgettes and some of the pretty flowers that grow from them. I must admit cutting the flowers off did leave me with some trepidation as there had been an online discussion in the week with KaveyF and hollowlegs on twitter regarding what flowers to pick and pollenation. Take too many of the boy flowers away and you could leave the plant sterile. So I tentatively cut just two off yesterday morning. It is my plan though to go down to the plot this afternoon, place a bottle of wine and some Marvin Gaye playing extra loud on my iPod by the courgette plants and leave the bees to do the rest. Just to make sure, you know.

So how was the Two Bean Chilli? Well like I said before, Kerri and Stephen obviously cook a lot and this dish really showed off their talents. Sometimes this dish can be fairly one dimensional, it's served up in the pub across the road from where I work and it is just full on fiery, nothing else but this effort had lots of nuances and subtleties flowing through it. It had a nice amount of heat and you really could taste lots of individual spice flavours and I think the fact that there was no meat in it to dominate helped. I'm forever buying tins of beans and pulses and then leaving them in the cupboard gathering dust so will definitely be making this at home in the future.

I'm always a fan of cheese on chilli so thanks also for providing that Kerri, I know you were a little short on time so how you baked that sesame roll first thing is beyond me! ; )

Fantástico!

Two Bean Chilli