Mass catering - Chilli for 20 - and getting published

Another day, another ridiculous quantity of food to prepare: chilli for 20.

It's for the Scouts (of course) - the Husband is off later today on 'winter camp'. "Rather you than me", I say, (under my breath of course), and plan a distinctly more comfortable weekend. I did, however, agree to cook a chilli for the Scouts to take with them to have this evening once they have arrived and pitched camp (and, hopefully, lit an enormous camp fire. Fingers crossed they are actually prepared, and someone remembers to take some dry wood).

Before I share with you how easy it is to knock up chilli for 20, let's just ponder a moment the fact that the Husband and 2 (I think) of the other leaders are planning to give up a weekend taking 17 kids camping in the middle of January. My hat goes off to them.


 I think the Husband is wonderful anyway (I married him, of course I do) but it takes a special amount of commitment to do the extra for a voluntary organisation like Scouts. This is his last hoorah with the Scout troop he's been involved with for some years. It's a great group of leaders (we're going to miss you so much when we move) - all of them in their late 30s/early 40s with demanding jobs and young families, but they are prepared to give up extra time to run the scout troop here. There are adult helpers too - as I've said before, none of them with any appreciable 'time on their hands', but all busy with families, jobs, studying - who are prepared to give their time to run a thriving active Scout group. 

I think (like all volunteers, in whatever field) the fact that they do this deserves some recognition. So, apart from the fact that I think you are all at least a little but bonkers for even contemplating camping this weekend, here's to the Overton Scout Leaders. I'll be thinking of you this weekend as I sup a glass or 2 of wine at the annual non book club Book Club meeting.

And if they can give up their time doing this, the least I can do is cook them a chilli.

I'm also quite excited because I had a variation of this published in the UK Scouting magazine recently. Get me.

Chilli for 20

Put your enormous pan on the heat...

An enormous pan
1 good slug of sunflower oil
4 onions, peeled & finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled & finely chopped
1 tablespoon each mild chilli powder, ground cumin & ground coriander
2kg beef mince
4 red peppers, deseeded and chopped into chunks
1 kg mushrooms finely chopped (I pulsed them in a food processor - small is good when feeding mushrooms to children, I find)
5 beef stock cubes made up to 1.2 litres
1.6 kg tinned chopped tomatoes
salt & pepper
1.6 kg tinned red kidney beans



Put your enormous pan on the heat, add the sunflower oil and when it's hot, chuck in the chopped onion and garlic, and sweat for 10 minutes or so. 

Add the chilli powder, ground cumin and coriander into the onion, stir well and cook for another couple of minutes. 

Take the pan off the heat.

Heat a frying pan and brown the mince in batches over a relatively high heat. My pan is non-stick so I didn't need any extra oil, but you might want to use a tsp or so of oil for every chunk of mince you brown. AS you brown the mince, add it in to the onions in the enormous pan.

Once all the mince is browned and in with the onions, put the enormous pan back on the heat, add red peppers, mushrooms, the 1.2 litres of stock, the chopped tomatoes and a good grind of black pepper and a couple of good pinches of salt. Bring it all up to a simmer, and cook for 20-30 minutes, then add in the kidney beans and simmer for another 20-30 minutes, checking to see if you need any more liquid.

Tape on the lid and tuck into the back of a minibus ready for eating later on.

Good luck, guys! I'll pray you don't get too much weather.

Curry for 48? No worries...

Do you like shopping?

You do?

Then I must tell you about the epic shop I went on yesterday. 3 of us - good friends - went.

A much planned trip, in anticipation of one of our annual highlights.

We were gone for 5 hours, while the children languished with various friends, and as the afternoon drifted into evening, with our respective husbands.

We spent over £1,000. I know. £1,000.

It took us 2 cars - well, actually a 7 seater people carrier type car and the camper van to get our spoils home.

Because, yes, this was no girly clothes shop (we wish), and the event is no swanky done up to the nines new outfit occasion. Oh no. This is Scout Camp.

We leave tomorrow. For the Derbyshire Dales. Via Leicester Forest East services (for us) to hand the dog over to my mother).

Shopping for scout camp is one of those things that I don't think I will ever get over. Normally, the thought of food shopping in any kind of supermarket fills me with fear and dread, but there is something so spectacular and so utterly hilarious about shopping on this scale, that somehow, the fear and dread leaves me and I start to enjoy it.

To be fair, I didn't draw up the list. The senior scout wife does that, although I am in charge of catering the curry feast on the last night. Oh yes. My list for that particular meal starts off with 16 onions, 16 cloves of garlic and 2 jars of lazy ginger...

While our menfolk, all Scout leaders, prepare climbing and abseiling expeditions, worry about how many minibus places there need to be, whether we need one or 2 trailers or whether a horsebox will do instead, and organise surprise drop hikes for our charges, we scout wives squirrel ourselves away with a bottle of gin and come up with the food and the craft. Every now and again, the men drop  in helpful comments like  - "Oh yes, so and so doesn't eat pork" or "Don't forget there are 2 scouts with nut allergies". Fortunately, on this occasion, we had at least 12 hrs notice before the shop. 

Yes folks, those 3 trolleys - they are all ours...

In the end, it took 3 cash and carry trolleys, stacked to the gunnels, followed by 2 trolleys in Morrisons for the 'sweep up' (including the all important chocolate custard and Angel Delight). We try and get as far as possible all the non-perishable goods for the week, and fresh to get us through the first couple of days so we can get our breath before playing sat nav roulette to find the nearest peddlar of groceries to where we are camping. This involves things like 325 packets of crisps, ditto cereal bars, 56 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes and 1 catering pack of approx 3 kg. 100 tortillas (for the turkey fajitas we're having on Sunday of course) and 4 kg of turkey, of course. 18 tins of pear halves and 92 pieces of fresh fruit. Your mind would boggle at the amount of cereal we anticipate 48 scouts, leaders and hangers on will eat.

The same applies in the actual cooking. Eggy bread for 48? Nothing to it. But you do need rather a lot of eggs...

So there we have it. For the next week, it's good bye Recipe Junkie and hello Scout Wife. But I'll be back, knackered, covered in mosquito bites, and wearing my mass catering badges on my sleeve (or at least a couple of decent burns). Oh, and if you're that way inclined, please pray that it doesn't rain too much...