Archive for October, 2009

October 21st, 2009

Corned Beef and further exploits…

My first recipe to this blog actually has two recipes included in it. Because I’m crazy like that, and also its because its what we ate for dinner tonight.

We’re rather destitute at the moment, and so its come down to what I call ‘Survival food.’ Good, wholesome meals that fill you up but don’t cost you much of anything, as we don’t have much to spend! xD

Two days ago I rememebred that my mother had foisted a frozen beef silverside upon me and said “MAKE THIS” the last time we visited. As I’m rather partial to corned beef, I didn’t protest TOO hardly that she seemed to be handing over the entire contents of her burgeoning pantry to us and into my partner’s rather space-challenged car… xD

Thusly two days ago, I threw it into the slow cooker:


Slow Cooked Corn Beef

Ingredients:
1 Beef Silverside
3/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar (not Raw Sugar)
Bay Leaves
Whole Peppercorns
1 Large Onion, quartered
Water

Method:
Place beef silverside in slow cooker, fat side up. Drop in all of your ingredients, then pour in enough water to cover the cut of meat. Cook on the high setting for eight hours. At this point you can eat, but I like to put the slow cooker on low and leave for another ten hours.

Take the meat out and serve! Keep the leftovers in the fridge to slice off and put in sandwiches, other meals etc.

MY GOD IT IS HARD to not wax lyrical during recipe instructions! *laughs* I so wanted to put 893948209483 notes and such in that. You can add stuff to taste – more balsamic, more brown sugar? GO! xD. Personally, the long way I’ve found you don’t really have to do much, and the silverside can even be frozen. HURRAH! xD Less work for a big payoff = everybody’s happy.

Okay so this evening for dinner, we’re eating pov style, as I mentioned, and thusly I thought what better meal than corned beef on potatoes!? NOOMMMISH!


Corned Beef on Potatoes

Ingredients:
2 medium/large potatoes
2 slices Corned Beef
1 medium onion
grated cheese
olive oil
powdered chicken stock
white wine
pinch of sugar
freshly ground salt and pepper

Please note, this serves one, all you need to is times the quantities by number of people and delicious.

Method:
Quarter the potatoes. Place the potatoes in a microwave proof bowl, add a little water – just 1cm or so on the bottom – cover with cling wrap. Prick the cling wrap a few times then place in the microwave for ten minutes on high.

Grab a fork and separate the fibres of corned beef. Finely chop the onion and place in a frying pan/wok with a little oil. Sweat off the onions, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Add a little sugar to help the caramelising process, and some white wine for extra flavour. When the onions are translucent, add in your seperated corned beef. Sprinkle on a liberal dash of powdered chicken stock. Keep stirring until the corned beef has heated up.

Take onions and beef off of the heat, and remove potatoes from microwave.

Remove plastic from potatoes, pour off any residual water. Grind salt and pepper to taste on the potatoes, then pour the onion and beef mix on top. Drizzle a little more olive oil on top, and add a little grated cheese. DEVOUR!

WOW! Even the most simplest recipes that you just make up on the fly require a WHOLE LOT of writing. XD This’d also be great with a little cabbage cooked with the onions, using both sweet and white potatoes, and adding wasabi and horseradish to the onion/beef mix for a little more kick.

For a little more elegance to the presentation, flake off your cheese from a block with a potato peeler, and put some fresh herbs into/onto the mix.

I GUARANTEE NOMS!!!! :D

PS: I DON’T HAVE A PHOTO AAAUUUGH! But I promise to take one asap. xD

October 21st, 2009

Cooking for Kat…

An altered a caramel ball recipe to suit my needs as Bill had requested: Pink Icing, Caramel, Honeycomb for his cake, back in January 08

The results of a caramel ball recipe I altered to suit my needs as my friend, Bill had requested a specific birthday cake theme: Pink Icing, Caramel & Honeycomb, back in January '08

Recently a friend of mine, Kat, has been blogging about how she’s going to cook planned meals for a week etc and talking about how she’s attempting to domesticate herself. The impact of that was LOST utterly on me (I cook practically every day) until today when she explained that she and her partner eat out EVERY. DAY. And have done forever. She also claimed that that’s just how people were in her area and that basically everyone ate like that.

THIS. BLEW. MY. MIND! I come from a background where if I eat out even once a week my parents lament that I’m wasting too much money. We had home cooked meals for every meal – with large portions of the ingredients coming from our garden or locally produced – for my entire childhood.

Amusingly, and possibly because of our upbringing, my brother is a trained chef. He’d be working as one still if a tragic car accident hadn’t robbed him of normal mobility nearly half a decade ago.

I’m rambling, but all this basically means I cook, and I cook a lot, and I love to cook.

I’m a very VERY experimental, holistic cook, however, and when Kat asked me to post recipes for her I was excited at the idea but equally a little daunted. Rarely do I EVER cook the same thing twice!

BUT! I figured, food is just as inspirational as visual aesthetics, thusly I’ve decided to also post recipes/food adventures in this blog to help out a friend, and to look back upon with possibly wide-eyed disbelief. xD

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be tucking into my dinner. ^_^