Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chilli

This is a really delicious meat-free alternative to a chilli con carne, absolutely packed with flavour and texture, and really versatile too!

With a fortnightly (wonky) veg box having become a regular occurence in our lives, I'm finding myself coming up with lots of new things to cook to use up the vegetables that we're sent (which are pretty much a surprise on the day we receive them), which is a great way to stop yourself from falling into a culinary rut!

I'd really got into roasting sweet potatoes with cumin seeds for a bit of crunch, and had sweet potato and butternut squash to use up, and thought it would be nice to stick them in the oven to roast while prepping the rest of dinner, and thought they would be really nice to add into a bean chilli, along with some peppers (which I quite like to add into my ordinary chilli con carne from time to time, to give it a bit of a twist).

So this was the end result, cooked with my usual blend of spices for a chilli, and one that's definitely going onto the meat free regulars - it's so tasty and filling!

Served with my spicy cornbread, rice, grated cheese, sour cream and coriander

You can decide whether to use squash or sweet potato or a mixture, depending on what you've got in, and also use your favourite beans - you'll get a tasty result at the end whatever you use!

Served in tortillas with sour cream, fresh tomato, avocado, lightly pickled onions
and some sour cream mixed with lime juice, topped with coriander and chillies

Serves 10-12 portions (recipe easily halved) from 155-187 calories a portion using butternut squash (depending on whether a tenth or a twelfth) to 190-229 calories a portion using sweet potato. Why not have a wedge of homemade spicy cornbread on the side - it's quite easy to make, and also very filling! My recipe is here, from 116 calories for a wedge.

Pressure Cooker Beef in Black Bean Sauce (includes Instant Pot method)

This is one of my absolute favourite Chinese dishes, and now I've converted it from a wholly stir-fried dish in the wok (using expensive cuts of steak) to a dish where the beef is cooked in the sauce in the pressure cooker. This means that I can use cuts of beef suitable for braising at less than a third of the price of prime steak, and still have delicious, tender slices of beef - what's not to love?

A really tasty, popular dish – versatile too, as you can substitute pork if you don't want to use beef, and play around with the stir-fry vegetables to suit your own tastes!

Want the original recipe to make this without using a pressure cooker? It's here.

Serves five to six, 286 calories per portion (for a sixth portion depending on cut of beef used, based on 136 calories per 100g). 

Cheat's Frijoles di Olla (Mexican 'Pot' Beans) and Frijoles Refritos ('Re-Fried Beans')

If you can't get hold of dried black or pinto beans, then use tinned in this quick cheat's version!

Save on the hours of soaking and boiling, by using pre-cooked beans and cooking them in a little of their own liquid with onions and garlic until the alliums are cooked out and the sauce thickens.

Serve topped with a dollop of sour cream (or dairy free substitute, or half fat Creme Fraiche, or even Greek yoghurt if you're counting calories) and Fresh Mexican Salsa, as a side dish, or use as a vegetarian filling for tortillas and tacos with the sour cream and salsa and some grated cheese and shredded lettuce or Napa cabbage. These were lovely served alongside my Chicken in Chipotle Chilli Sauce.

If you want to add to the authenticity of the flavour and texture, you can add a further tablespoon of lard to the beans while they're cooking, but I haven't included this in the recipe. For 'Re-Fried' beans, see Notes at the bottom. You could also cook them in an earthenware pot if you have one suitable to go on the hob, which is how they would be traditionally cooked in Mexico.

Serves six, 110 calories per serving.