Lamb and Bean Hotpot

How to turn $2.44 of meat and the few remaining contents of the vegetable crisper into a glorious meal.

4 lamb sausages
2 onions, cut into 1/8ths
2 large carrot, diced
6 potatoes, diced
1/2 bag mushrooms, cut into chunks
garlic
1 ea tin kidney beans and cannellini beans
1 tbsp mushroom soy sauce
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
~1 tsp beef stock powder
2 tbsp cornflour

Boil the sausages to remove fat, dice. Saute onions until translucent, add mushrooms and cook until they start to release moisture. Add sausages and garlic and cook for a minute or two. Deglaze bottom of pan with mushroom soy sauce and a little bit of water. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for cornflour, plus two or three cups of water (until just below the level of the other ingredients). Cover and simmer until root vegetables are nearly tender, then uncover and allow the sauce to reduce a little. When cooked through, dissolve the cornflour in 1/2 cup cold water and stir through the stew, stirring until thickened.

Recipe Dump

Some recipes I've tried recently which I don't want to lose...

Vegan Pastry - shamefully, I'm totally crap at pastry. This is the only recipe I've had even moderately good results with!

Basic Biscuits - these are quite light with the SRF, but not too sweet.

Chocolate cake in five minutes

I am so going to try this recipe the next time I have a craving for chocolate!

Making from scratch

I have added two new recipes to my repertoire in the last couple of days - custard and mayonnaise. Mmmm... yum!

Plum Cobbler

This recipe for plum cobbler is simple but very very yummy. I made it with a large tin of plums, which was slightly disgusting because they had to be halved and seeded and it felt like disembowelling small rotting animals. But it tasted good.

Meat! Cooked!

I asked my Beloved what he wanted for dinner, and his answer was the above. Sending him out to the freezer to see whether we did in fact have any meat! which could be cooked! revealed a package of mince but no further inspiration, so I googled for recipes. For some reason, I liked the sound of "hotpot" so I added that to the search term. After one or two false starts I found this recipe: Prater Pie (otherwise known as an authentic Lancashire 'Ot Pot - look for the recipe added by Barbara about halfway down the page). Since I am not daft, and had half a red cabbage waiting in the refrigerator for this very recipe, I took her advice and accompanied it with Pickled Red Cabbage and Apple. And lo, it was very bloody good.

Dessert Recipes to Try

Since I am now broke for the next two weeks I am going to try cooking a healthy(ish) dessert every night so that I can have a sugar fix without having to spend heaps on empty calories. I've done dessert for the last three nights (for a change) so I'm on a roll. So far we've had golden syrup dumplings (there are 6 in the freezer), banana cake, and baked apples (or in this case, nashi fruit). I still have 3 squashy bananas to use up so I'm going to increase my banana cake recipe by half again and make muffins.

Here are some other suggestions:

Fruity Pikelets (good because they are customisable rather than the fruit being added to the batter).

Date Pudding.

Eggless Carrot Cake.

Appleberry Crumble.

Baked Rice (or quinoa) Pudding.

Rhubarb Custard Meringue (one for when we actually have rhubarb we can harvest, as well).

Fruit Compote (for a non-B night).

Plain yoghurt with honey and cinnamon is very yummy, probably acceptable to B, and a good way of adding extra calcium. Plus I can make the yoghurt myself. And it's about time I learned how to make proper custard.

Yummiest Breakfast Scrommelata Evar

I have discovered the ultimate in morning luxuries - eggs scrambled with cream. Mmmm...

Ingredients:
2 slices bacon, diced
leftover roast veges, about 1 cup
1 garden-fresh tomato
3 leaves chard, shredded
about 1 cup diced capsicum, mushrooms, etc
2 eggs, fresh from the chooks
2 dessertspoons cream
1 tbsp parmesan
1/2 tsp onion powder (in lieu of onions)
black pepper
1/2 cup grated Cheddar (optional)

Saute the bacon, then add all the veges (chard and tomato last) and cook til chard has just wilted and everything else is nice and soft. Beat eggs and cream together with the Parmesan, and season.Pour over the veges, tilt pan to spread evenly, and cook til set on the bottom. Sprinkle over grated cheese and put under the grill til top is set. Serve on toast, and prepare to swoon.

Bacon Muffins

This recipe (with some judicious editing - the idea of making muffins with cream of mushroom soup nearly made me barf) Woz Not Bad.

Beef, Beans and Greens

Mmmm...must go and buy some navy beans tomorrow. I have a hankering to make Boston baked beans, and also to make this stew with the chuck steak and kale I now have hanging around.

Curried Sweet Potato Soup

1 onion
1-2 tsp green curry paste
1 large sweet potato
1 carrot
1/3 cup red lentils
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 small tin lite coconut milk


Cook. Then blend. Then eat. It's yummy!

Random recipes

Made this recipe for sweet and sour dipping sauce tonight. We had DIY rice paper rolls (which would have been rather more successful if E and then B had not dropped the packet of wrappers!) for dinner.

I want to try this recipe for Green Tomato and Apple Chutney this week. I am requesting apples from the trees on the way to riding school tomorrow, so I don't have to experiment with expensive ones! *g* I do probably need to buy more brown sugar, vinegar and sultanas, though.

Sage and Garlic Bread

250g wholemeal bread mix
1.5 tsp dry yeast
2 tsp dried sage
large pinch salt
3 tsp garlic
1 tsp honey
150mL tepid water
milk for glazing
poppy seeds

Put bread mix, yeast, sage, garlic and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add honey and water, and mix together to form a dough.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic (about five minutes). Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and leave in a warm spot until dough has doubled in size.

Knead the dough again for a few minutes, then roll it into a long thin sausage and form into a circle. Join the two ends by moistening with water. Put it onto a greased baking tray, cover with a clean teatowel and leave somewhere warm for about 30 minutes.

Brush with milk and sprinkle with poppyseeds before baking in a preheated 200C oven for about half an hour. Eat warm and spread with butter!

Roast Vegetable Quiche

1 sheet shortcrust pastry
1/2 sweet potato
equivalent weight in Queensland Blue pumpkin
2 small onions, cut into eighths
1 small orange capsicum, cut into thirds
~1 tbsp pinenuts
1/2 cup grated cheese (mixture of cheddar and parmesan)
2 eggs
1/2 tub silken tofu
~1/2 cup milk
1 tsp egg replacer
2 tsp crushed garlic
slosh balsamic vinegar
black pepper

Dice the sweet potato and pumpkin and toss them and the onions in oil. Plonk in a roasting tray and stick in the oven at 210C for 30-40 minutes.

Put the capsicum pieces cut side down on another tray and roast likewise. When skins begin to blacken, remove and cover with a clean teatowel. When cool enough to handle, remove skins and roughly chop flesh.

Grease a square flan dish and line with pastry. Cover with a square of baking parchment and add baking beans. Blind bake for ten minutes. Remove parchment and beans, and roughly spread roasted vegetables over pastry base. Sprinkle with pine nuts and grated cheese.

Combine eggs, milk, tofu, egg replacer, balsamic vinegar, garlic and pepper in a food processor and whizz until smooth. Pour over filling and bake at 200C until cooked through.

Apple Chutney

Now I'm all fired up about preserving, I think I need to trial this recipe.

Collard Greens with Bacon

A new experiment from the Farmers' Market. I've read about collard greens for years without ever seeing them for sale, so of course I had to buy some to try. Googling for recipes brought up a number of common themes and some variations, so I zipped up to the shops for bacon, and ended up throwing this together as an accompaniment to fritatta.

1 bunch collard greens, stems removed and leaves shredded
1 small onion
1/3-1/2 cup bacon, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp paprika

Saute the onion and bacon together until the onion is cooked. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add greens, vinegar, sugar and paprika and stir together, cover and sweat over a low heat until greens wilt and are just beginning to change colour (you want to keep them green). Serve as a side dish, and lament that there wasn't twice as much!

This quantity fed E and me, but next time I will buy two bunches as I probably ended up with about half the quantity of leafage as in the average supermarket bunch of English spinach (as a comparison).

Menu Plan 1 Dec - 7 Dec

Saturday 1 Dec
leftovers

Sunday 2 Dec
leftovers

Monday 3 Dec
Roast Chicken
(sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, carrot, broccoli, green beans/steamed veges)

Tuesday 4 Dec
Risotto with Roast Vegetables, Spinach and Fetta
(pumpkin, sweet potato, spinach, onion, fetta)

Wednesday 5 Dec (B horse riding)
Tuna Pasta Bistro
(cheese sauce with tuna, and your choice of broccoli, red capsicum, carrot, peas'n'corn, SDT, etc)
Apple Crumble with Flaxseeds

Thursday 6 Dec
Lamb Curry(?); greens with coconut
(onion, potatoes, peas, sour cream; greens in season, onion, green capsicum)

Friday 7 Dec
Fritatta
(Onion, potato, SDT, olives, red capsicum, anything else left over)

Apple Teacake

We just tried out this recipe.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Mmm, yes please! Recipe from Elise's Simply Recipes blog.

Minestrone

The purchase of yummy Italian bread and lots of vegies at the Farmers' Market this morning required the making of minestrone this evening.

1 onion, diced
1 leek, sliced thickly
1 carrot, diced
1/2 head broccoli, cut into small florets
1 (very) small red capsicum, diced
1 tbsp crushed garlic
1 tub tomato paste
1L water
1/8 green cabbage, finely shredded
1 bunch pak choi, finely shredded (or use spinach or silverbeet)
1/2 zucchini, diced
1 tin cannelini beans
1 tin kidney beans
black pepper and basil to season

Saute onion, leek, carrot, broccoli and capsicum until beginning to wilt. Add garlic for a minute until fragrant. Add tomato paste, and gradually mix in water. Season. Bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add cabbage, pak choi, zucchini and beans, simmer for five minutes until heated through, and serve with grated cheese (preferably Parmesan, although I didn't have any tonight) and Italian bread.

We've been eating pretty crappily this week because I've been too tired to cook most nights, and I can just feel my body radiating gratitude at me for all those yummy vegetables right now *g* Maybe I'm a food snob, but I can't believe that some people eat the kind of processed crap we've been subsisting on this week all the time, and think that it constitutes real food...