beef and borlotti bean stew

Using up: ribeye steak, tin of borlotti beans, 2/3 jar roast yellow peppers

As previously mentioned, we brought back some meat from our Wales camping trip.  Neither Pete nor I are that fond of steak in its natural form these days - we are too old and badgery to digest it properly :) But we still had three left (P stirfried one a couple of nights ago, and it was delicious).  However, we do like a nice casserole.

So … rummaged in the cupboards and this is what I concocted.

Chopped up 2 sticks of celery, 2 carrots, 1 large courgette into small dice.  Sautéd these down with a chopped onion, several cloves of minced garlic, and a sloosh of olive oil.  I just stuck a lid on the pan and let it get on with it for 20 minutes or so.

Found two tired mushrooms in the fridge and chopped them very small - more for flavour than appearance. Retrieved the jar of roast yellow peppers that I opened last week and had forgottten (oops), and sliced up the remaining contents. Sliced the steaks into chunks and put all these in a big cast iron casserole dish.

I added a tin of borlotti beans that was so old it was going rusty (!), a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a glass or so of red wine, the sautéd veg, seasoning, and sage / thyme / rosemary from the garden.

This sat on a very low light at the back of the cooker while I cooked our supper (we always try to leave casseroles till the next day, they taste so much better), then it was put in a very slow oven to cook overnight.

At about 2.30 a.m. the smell was driving me mad, so I came down and switched it off.  I found Liessa sitting on the worktop beside the cooker, basking in the heat from the oven :)

This morning, I decanted most of it into three tubs for the freezer, while leaving enough for our supper tonight (nom nom nom).  So three steaks have made eight servings - not bad :)

p.s. Photograph taken before it went into the oven, as the “after” pic didn’t come out very well.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

sausage, runner beans and stuff

Using up: runner beans, sausages

Apologies for lack of posting - we have been camping for a few days in West Wales, and we should have taken an ark rather than a tent.

I brought back three fat butcher’s sausages, and this is what I did.

Drizzled the sossidge with a little olive oil, and set them in a tray in the oven at gas 6.

Headed, tailed and sliced up the runner beans that were ten days old {mea culpa], put them in a pan with cold water, brought to the boil, and simmered for 8 minutes.

Chopped up an onion and some garlic, removed some of the sausage-y oil from their pan, added a bit more to it, and sauteéd it in a pan.  Chopped sage and rosemary from the garden, and added to the pan.

Drained the green beans, and put in about 2/3rd of them - the rest will go into a wrap with some other bits for a lunch.  Looked at it all and decided it wasn’t quite right, so opened a jar of roast yellow peppers, cut up about half, and slung them in.

Cooked some macaroni, and while that was going on, cut the sausages into 1″ chunks and put them in the frying pan.

Then macaroni and cubed feta added, with a good grate of black pepper.  It really was *delicious*.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

from veg to meatballs to pasta bake

Using up: veg

As stated last week, we are over-vegged, and need to use it up before we go away for the long weekend that’s coming up.

So, on Friday night, I chopped up four red peppers, two onions, several mushrooms, and four (I think) courgettes.  These were sautéd down in my huge shallow Circulon pan (the one that’s too big to go in any of the cupboards) with some olive oil, a fair bit of garlic, and sage and oregano from the garden.

Then I took a bag of Ikea meatballs (great standby for the freezer!) and turfed them into the mix, and added a carton of creamed tomatoes (another great standby).  Bit of salt and pepper, and left to cook through for about 20 minutes.  We consumed two goodly portions with spaghetti.

On Saturday morning, I put another 3 meals’ worth into 2-portion tubs, and froze them, keeping back about 300ml of veggy sauce.

And on Sunday evening feeling, as we were, rather depleted, due to an *excellent* party on Saturday, 120 miles from home, we boiled some pasta shells, dumped a can of borlotti beans into the leftover sauce, and mixed the pasta and sauce together.  A mozzarella chopped over the top, and some basil from the garden, 20 minutes in the oven - bosh.  Dinner.  Hardly any effort, and really nice.

So, one bag of meatballs, an assortment of tired vegetables, a tin of borlotti beans and a carton of passata - 10 meals.  Gotta be good :)

Powered by Bookmarkify™