Plumpciousness

I meant to blog something longish and meaningful about this and that but I am now too full of plumpciousness to do so. I made cheats beef bourguignon aka beef casserole with added zing. It was lovely and worth the (not really that much) effort. My chief taster and bottle up washer, he who is blessed with an acute taste bud and healthy appetite agrees.



The recipe

all amounts, techniques, timings and temperatures are approximate

braising steak ~ 600 gms trimmed of obvious fat and cubed
3 smallish onions roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves peeled
350 gms button mushrooms
4 or 5 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons of mustard powder (Dijon mustard would do just as well but we don't have any)

~ 1/3 of a bottle of red wine
~ a good slosh of brandy
1 squirt of tomato puree
2 teaspoons of corn flour dissolved in a glass of water
some olive oil
enough flour to toss the beef in
a plastic bag

pre heat the oven to gas mark 3 150 Centigrade. Put the flour into the plastic bag season with salt and pepper, toss the cubed beef in the flour ensuring it is covered.

In a frying pan heat some olive oil and when it is hot, brown the beef in batches, put the browned beef into the casserole pot when done. Once all the meat is browned put the onion in the pan to soften off and soak up any of the juices. Then put the softened onion in with the beef along with the wine, mushrooms, brandy, salt and pepper to taste, the mustard and the garlic, give this lot a good stir then put the lid on the pot and bung it in the oven for 3 to 4 hours at gas mark 3.

At about an hour before the end of cooking stir in the squirt of tomato paste and the cornflour mixture, these will thicken up the liquor a bit. About 10 minutes before serving remove from the oven it will remain warm enough in the pot but won't be so hot that it takes the roof of your mouth off.

Serve with whatever you want we had it with brown rice the more traditional way is to have it with mashed potatoes.

This dish is relatively easy as there isn't a lot of slaving over a hot stove and it's very tolerant of inexact timings and amounts. It will also keep and possibly tastes even better for being made the day before

Been Busy

On Saturday we went to Norwich, we did our bit for Norwich's economy well, John Lewis's, getting the last of Simon's outfit for the day and other sundries. We were on our way to Castle Mall when we spotted a Charity shop - The Big C that had a bridal boutique upstairs.

It was a treasure trove I got myself a tiara £6.50, we had a look around, of course a charity shop's stock is always changing, they had some great stuff amongst perhaps the slightly tired and worn. Retro wedding dresses mostly from the 60s 70s and 80s but they even had one that dated back to 1947, it was stunning, in ivory satin with shoulder pads and a bias cut. Definitely worth a look for anyone looking for clothes for a wedding.

And then today we made chutney, rather like Dan we had a bit of a surfeit of produce but unlike Dan we didn't grow it ourselves rather Simon's granddad donated it to us either from his garden or from when he went scrumping in Sandringham. I prepared the spices first, I had to make the quatre épice then spoon out the right amount for the chutney (the rest is in the fridge awaiting the next casserole). The smell of cloves, light brown sugar, ground ginger, raisins and nutmeg was Christmas cooking. We had to start out in two pans as I underestimated the volume occupied by the uncooked ingredients but we got down to one in the end.

We bought jars especially for the chutney yesterday, there was more than enough of the mixture to fill all three jars.


We zizzed up what was left over in the blender to make our very own special brown sauce and boy is it smashing! Very smashing indeed.

We've Been Busy Today

Over the last couple of weeks it has become impossible to find any clothes in our measly closet, it's not big enough for one person's clothes let alone 3 different sets of clothes. So we decided that today would be the day that we would sort through what we've got in there. We now have one bag ready for charidy and more space for the clothes we've been having to store in some alternative, nay some would say innovative places.

Therefore I've not had much of a chance to think deeply about anything for the blog so instead let me share this recipe I put together the other night.

Ingredients

for about 2 people

for the marinade

1 stalk lemongrass
1 clove of garlic
1 whole chilli red or green
juice of one lime
one tomato
soy sauce
some rum
rice wine vinegar
a pinch of sugar
some water

some meat finely cut ie, pork or chicken or beef
a bag of stir fry vegetables or whatever suitable veggies you have, spring onion, greens, shredded peppers and the like.

noodles cooked then blanched in cold water

oil for stir frying

salt and pepper to taste

top and tail the chilli, skin the clove of garlic and clean and chop the lemongrass put all the ingredients into the blender zizz together well then poor over the meat. Let the meat marinade for at least one hour but overnight would be even better.

In a wok stir fry the meat in batches, once each batch is cooked drain it using a sieve, once all the meat is cooked stir fry the vegetables for about 2 minutes then add the cooked meat and the marinade stir fry for another minute then add the noodles. stir fry a bit more until everything is warmed through. serve with a wedge of lime.

We thought that it tasted fresh, hot and zingy, if you want to reduce the heat then remove the seed from the chilli before adding it into the blender. If we had had some I would have thrown in some fresh coriander to the mix at the end of the cooking and you could always do without the rum or substitute sake or sherry for it. But the lime and lemongrass really make it so keep those.

Enjoy

I Made My Cake

Well I made my cake, and with the yoghurt rather than the lemon curd too. It's not quite cake as we know it but, I think with a few more adaptations, like not making it lemon cake since Simon has told me he doesn't like lemon cake I could become a bit of a whizz at low fat, low calorie, gluten free cakes.

Proper Spelling

I've only just noticed but Blogger now offers British English or as we like to call it in the Mother Country "English" no longer do I have to center documents I centre them, I can use vivid colours and talk about jewellery and woollen socks as these are some of my favourite things to talk about. If only it could spot "gotten" as the misbegotten declination of get that it is.

In other news, the harvest is in full swing, the fields are being combined and the straw rolled up into bales. Then the farmers move it, I think that they are secretly moving straw amongst themselves, Farmer A is buying Farmer B's straw bales whilst he is selling his bales to Farmer C who supplies Farmer B and A with barley bales. Surely there can be no need for such long caravans of lorries loaded with straw bales? In some cases it's being hauled by beat up, rusty pick up trucks with a trailer behind but mostly it's big lorry loads of the stuff. I'm amazed at how much dust is thrown up by the combine harvesters I was expecting bits of stalk, irritated thunder bugs and wheat grains but not dust.

And finally I'm going to try to make Lemon Couscous cake tomorrow, I don't have any lemon curd so I'm going to try substituting it with mandarin mullerlight any thoughts?

There Are Times

When I think "God, I'm Good!" and do a sizzling finger mime in thin air. When the mood takes me I can really cook well, I'm not masterchef because I go for taste and enjoyment over presentation and poncerati-ness, I also avoid spending huge amounts on ingredients because it's just not affordable for me, but within those confines when I'm on my game I can whip a storm in the kitchen.

I would like to think that today was such a case. I thought I would do something inspired by a bath time read of the Wagamama cook-book we didn't have all the ingredients for an exact recipe from the book but we also have miso paste, mirin and fish sauce as well as soy and teryaki marinade in the cupboard as standbys.

I marinaded two large chicken breasts in a healthy splosh of rice wine vinegar, one finely chopped red chilli pepper and some crushed dried chillies (as I only had the one fresh chilli), one large finely chopped garlic, a healthy splosh of soy sauce, a slosh of fish sauce and a good dollop of honey, the sweetness counteracts the sourness of the vinegar so that's why I put it in, the last marinade I made was a bit too sour because I didn't put enough honey in. It doesn't make the marinade "sweet" it balances the savoury and makes it a bit more sticky.

one thinly sliced red onion and yellow pepper some more garlic and cos I remembered we had it about 1 cubed centimetre of fresh ginger sliced.

I cooked some noodles up before hand, enough for two, so they were ready to grab when the moment came.

So in the heavy iron griddle pan I heated up a little oil when that was almost smoking I put the chicken breasts on, cooking on both sides for roughly 4 mins each, in the mean while I made up about 150 ml of miso from one of the packets.

When the chicken was cooked I put it to one side to "relax", in the wok I quickly stir fried the chopped onion, pepper, garlic until the onions began to look translucent at that point I bunged in what was left of the marinade and the miso soup as well as the cooked noodles. Once that was cooked through, I let the miso reduce down a little the noodles mix was served up on to two plates. Finally I put a chicken breast on each plate and sliced them through for ease seeing as we were eating with chop sticks.

And it rocked even if I said so it was spicy and flavoursome and we both cleaned our plates.

I hope you don't mind but I've blogged this mainly as a reminder to myself of what I did for the next time I come to make it.