Beef Pie

I thought the photo would be the best way to introduce this one. See how I made it all fancy with the pastry leaves?

Now this pie is not a fancy thing, it is an easy thing to do with impressive results, all thanks to a couple of sheets of butter puff pastry and a crappy cut of beef.

So here the recipe is for the meat inside the pie, and the only issue is that it takes time to cook because it is made with chuck steak or gravy beef or some other cheap yet tasty cut of beef.

My recipe, as you will soon discover, is not so much a recipe as a guide. I use whatever I have handy and there are a only a few things you really need to make this recipe, and the rest is all just extras.

Beef Pie Recipe

Essential Ingredients:

1 big piece of Chuck Steak (off the bone), diced into 1cm cubes (roughly, of course)

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

Worcestershire sauce ( a few shakes)

Tomato sauce or paste (a table spoon)

Beef stock (a couple of cups)

At least two sheets of butter puff pastry (the frozen, ready rolled type)

Extra Ingredients:

Diced mushrooms and carrot, even celery if you want.

Parsley

Celery salt

Tin of Guinness (or probably any type of beer or wine wouldn’t harm either, if you didn’t have any stout around…red wine would give it a bourguignon vibe which is never a bad thing).

Oven 180C (I don’t know, maybe higher…read the pastry packet…I just always put my oven on 180, to ensure everything cooks properly)

Method:

Saute onion and garlic in some oil in a big pot. Make it big, so you can brown everything nicely, in a small pot things will just stew. (This is also a good time to throw in the celery salt if you have some)

Turn heat up to high, get the pot hot and then throw in the meat, and brown it.

Then throw in any veges you want to put in, give them a stir for a minute or so.

Then pour in water or stock or guiness, and tomato paste/sauce and any sauces you want to put in. Stir up all of the tasty goodness that has accumulated on the base of the pot.

Then bring to boil for a moment, then turn heat right down to lowest and simmer on low for as long as you can. I suggest hours, but in a pinch, one hour will do.

Brush pie tin with some oil, then line with pastry. Tip in beef, cooled if possible, but not essential. Cover with pastry. Cook until it’s done. You’re only waiting for pastry to cook and beef to heat, so as long as the pastry is cooked, it should be fine. I think at least twenty minutes.

Notes on Recipe

If you’re short on time, as logic would dictate – cut the meat smaller….If you don’t already know this, cheap cuts are tough, so they need a long time to tenderise, and on low heat.

You could use a better cut of meat (perhaps round steak) if you have less time, but I think the flavour may lack, but then you could add beef stock.

Butter Puff is what I use but you could also use short crust if you wanted.

Yes you can egg wash the pasty, but I never do. Unless I am serving it up to someone other than my boys….or maybe not even then. I don’t play hostess much these days…

I can get away with two sheets of pastry. I put one piece as the base, supplementing the edges with the 2nd piece and then because there isn’t enough left of the 2nd piece to cover the top entirely, I cut it into strips and make a lattice type of thing. Economising at it’s finest.

Cut a hole in the top of the pastry if you’ve got it completely covered in pastry…like a steam hole.

Fish Balls

For those of us who can eat vegetables in their natural state, without the use of various sauces and threats, then this recipe is not aimed directly at you. Rather, your children.

You know, those little people that wander around the house. Tottering around with their disproportionately large heads covered in wispy hair and who generally have their fingers either in their mouth or down their pants?

I do think hiding veges in food is a good idea, sometimes. I don’t see it as a long term solution when trying to teach your children healthy eating, they’re going to have to come to terms with eating their veges at some point in their lives. So I go with a little from column A and a little from column B.

Well, my fabulous Fish balls are of the ‘hidden vege’ variety.  It’s one of those recipes where the main ingredient isn’t really discernible. I know, you think it’s fish right? Well, you’d be wrong.  The way I make them they end up as vege balls with a little tinned tuna or salmon mixed up in between.

The story goes….

I was in the market for a fish recipe for the boys, and I had been burnt in the past. Badly.

I remember they were about one and three and so naturally I was not sound of mind or body. My brain was addled and tired and I was foolishly thinking they might eat salmon cakes or patties. I was wrong.

I had spent at least 45 minutes preparing and cooking these delicious little morsels only to have them spat out and rejected.

I felt as if I were the one who was spat out and rejected, so delicate was my emotional state at the time. Mothers, I know we have all been at that point where our efforts can only go unnoticed and unappreciated for so long.  We become irrational and over sensitive.

I swore never to make salmon patties again. Ever.

But the good mother in me won over the bad one and eventually I tried again. I knew fish was one of those foods that made a rare appearance on my children’s menu and so I persisted with tinned salmon (or tuna), but this time I tried something different.

Balls.

Crumbed, fried and dipped in tomato sauce. How could I go wrong?

I used the salmon patties in the recipe books for a guide and have ended up with something that goes like this…

Fish Balls Recipe

Ingredients:

1 potato, boiled and mashed

3-5 tblspn (or more) puree vegetables

small tin of tuna or salmon (not too much or it tastes too fishy)

handful of cheese (grated Parmesan or cheddar)

handful of bread crumbs and some egg.

Stuff for crumbing (you’ve all done that before, I don’t need to explain).

Method:

Mix the puree veg, tuna or salmon and cheese into the mashed potato in the pan.

Season a little. Throw in some bread crumbs and use a little of the whisked up egg you have ready for the crumbing (you only need the tiniest bit).

Roll into balls, the smaller the better. Mine have the diameter of a 20c piece….approximately. If I am feeling lazy, then they’re the size of golf balls.

Crumb.

Shallow fry in some canola oil.

Serve with tomato sauce or whatever else you want, maybe some mayo…

Notes on the Recipe

This is obviously a very plain recipe. My kids are so slow on the ‘try new things’ bandwagon. They have an aversion to onion, so I don’t put it in their food. But I think a little diced, sauted onion and even some garlic would go a long way in these little balls of goodness.

You could definitely make them vegetarian…you might just need a little more egg/breadcrumbs to bind.

You could run all day on this crumb and fry theme. I think kids would eat just about anything as long as it was crumbed and fried. You could make little arancini, which I did once – only to have them spat out. So I never did that again. Granted it was about 2 yrs ago now, but the incident scarred my well meaning heart, and I swore I would never go to such trouble again for toddlers.

I think it’s the size and shape that make them so appealing, so if you’re going to try it out on little ones, keep it in ball form and you should be right.

No Bake Oat Cookies

This is a recipe from my Canadian friend who tells me her grandmother used to make these when she was a kid.

So here, we have an old family recipe. The best kind.

No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups caster sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups quick cook oats

1 cup coconut

6 tbspn cocoa

Method:

In a large pot, heat and mix the sugar, butter and milk.

Bring to boil, and boil for 3 minutes exactly. (Be precise, the cookies holding together depends on this step)

Add vanilla and stir.

Mix in remaining ingredients while on the heat.

Take off heat immediately.

Put spoonfuls of mixture onto lined baking trays.

Refrigerate for half an hour.

Notes on the recipe

I think I got these right. I timed the boil for 3 minutes and they all stuck together ok.

Although I did have lots of crumbs, the majority stuck as they should.

I did however find the mixture quite hot to handle, so I used two spoons and shaped them with my hands. I think I may have been a tablespoon shy of the recommended quantity of cocoa, but they still taste pretty good.

You could also get creative with the ingredients if you wanted to. You could add marshmallows and make it rocky roadish, or sprinkles or dip them in chocolate…just make sure you take out the same amount of oats for what ever you put in.

These are actually a really healthy snack for kids, considering they contain raw oats and not too much butter and they love them.  Suckers.

Thanks Laura and her nanna. xo

The Sunny-boy fiasco of 2001

It was the summer of 2001. I had just moved out of home and was living with my now husband and my brother in an antiquated little cottage in Glebe.

Ah… those heady days when buying my own groceries was still a novelty and I could buy what I wanted, anytime I wanted.

And so it was on a balmy summer afternoon that I thought I would grab a sunny boy from the freezer. Oh, how I enjoyed slurping on that ice cold block of flavoured ice, so much so that I thought I would have another.

No one was there to stop me, or tell me that perhaps it wasn’t such a grand idea.

How was I to know?

It was about half an hour after my last sunny boy of the day that I started feeling strange. I felt jittery, wired and suffered from heart palpitations and sweaty palms. What was happening to me?

I was freaking out big time and then I realised why I could possibly be feeling so uncomfortable.

It was the sunny boys.

How was I to know that consuming close to half a litre of heavily loaded sugar water packed with unforeseen amounts of preservatives, colours and additives could make me feel so terrible.

It wasn’t funny for me at the time. My huaband on the other hand, thought it was hilarious.

And so that, my friends, was the summer that I learnt a very valuable lesson.

What ever you do, no matter how hot you are or how much you enjoy it – stop at one sunny boy.

Encouraging such excessive consumption of these things should be illegal!

Sausage Rolls

I was at a baby shower and a friend was making some lovely little mini sausage rolls. I watched her make them and she told me how she puts pureed veges in hers when she makes them for her kids. My eyes were alight with fascination as she explained and I thought my life would never be the same. Hiding veges, sausage mince, puff pastry…it didn’t get any better than this.

So I did as she said and bought sausage mince – which prior to my conversation with my friend T, I didn’t even know existed – how was I to know that people are making their own sausage meat concoctions?

How was I to know that all over the world people were making their own sausage rolls?

I have tried my hand at complex indian cuisine and even perfected a zabaglione tiramasu, but apparently the simple things in life elude me. In my defense however, I will say that my talent for weight gain has meant that baked goods such as pies and sausage rolls have never really been on the menu for me. But my boys are skin and bone, so a little butter puff won’t do their bodies any harm. They could use a little meat on their bones. Apparently it will be sausage meat.

Along with T’s recipe (fairer to say ‘T-inspired recipe’, it seems I forgot 50% of the ingredients) I would also like to post a recipe from an old school friend. She says it’s a winner in her house and damn it I believe her!

T-inspired Sausage Roll Recipe

Ingredients:

Half beef or pork mince, half sausage mince.

Vege puree (any you like)

One sheet of butter puff pastry

Oven at 180C

Method:

Mix up the minces and veges in a bowl.

Cut the pastry in half.

Lay half mixture in middle of one piece, and other half in other piece.

Roll pastry to make a tube.

Place long roll on baking dish, lined with paper.

Cut into little pieces, and seperate.

Cook on about 180C for about 10-15 minutes…or until cooked. Serve with tomato sauce. What else.

Serves two young-uns (with a couple of left overs for mama and papa)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes on the recipe

Yes, this recipe is VERY sparse. It is meant to quick and easy. But this is how I make it and we all love them. There’s no added salt or flavours but the sausage meat keeps it tasty. Do NOT attempt this recipe with beef mince alone. It will be tasteless.

You’ll notice I don’t include amounts. That is because I am unreliable. Personally, I still can’t get it right. I always seem to have about a handful of left over mince. As a guide lets say about 200g of meat mince and 200g sausage mince and say…a good spoonful of puree veg. You can play around with the amounts you prefer. You might like to load it up with heaps of veges…

After speaking to T recently to verify this recipe, I was shocked to learn that she used pork mince. I had been using beef mince. She also said that she puts in all sorts of things, depending what’s on hand (garlic, herbs, egg, tomato sauce, salt). So actually it turns out I hadn’t been paying attention at all. She had me at ‘sausage meat’. The rest kind of went blurry and passed into that special place in my brain where a lot of information seemingly enters but rarely, if ever resurfaces.

I guess this recipe is as healthy as one can make a sausage roll. The leaner the mince the less fat. But it’s sausage rolls we’re making here, not health food.

I don’t do egg wash and I don’t use anything to stick the sides together and it all seems to work ok, except for lately when I have let the pastry thaw out too much and things get a bit messy.

I cut my pieces about 2cm thick. It makes them cook quicker, and makes it easier for little fingers to pick at.

I also lay mine to cool on some paper towel ever since 4yr old has started poo-pooing the soggy pastry ones. Letting them cool on the paper towel, on a wire rack keeps them as crisp as I can manage.

 

Jane’s Sausage Roll Recipe

Ingredients:

500g sausage mince

1 egg

1 cup fresh bread crumbs

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

3 tbspn tomato paste

salt & pepper

3 sheets puff pastry

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten for brushing

sesame seeds for sprinkling

Oven at 180C

Method:

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Cut pastry in half

Divid mixture into 6 equal portions, spread along length, roll to enclose (use egg yolk to join seam)

Brush outside with egg yolk, sprinkle with sesame seeds and cut into inch size pieces

Place on baking paper and cook for 25 minutes or until golden

Hope you like!
Jane xxx

Fried Rice

This is a big one isn’t it? We’ve all got some great recipe that we use or someone we know has. Just like spag bol, fried rice is one of those Aussie classics that everyone is the expert on.  Yes, I do realise that neither spaghetti bolognaise or fried rice is Australian…I have a tendency toward irony, you’ll catch on.

But I’m the one with the blog, so you’ll be forced to look at my recipe. Well not just my recipe, but one that I kind of nicked from someone else as well.

I spent a lot of time perfecting my version.  For many nights over the years we have dined on dry and tasteless fried rice before I realised what I was doing wrong.

I used to fry the egg and make a little omelette first. Then I would take it out, cut it up and then put it back into the rice, but that was where I went wrong. You leave the egg in, and mix the rice in with it, just before it sets. It gives the rice a lovely texture and moistness.

So we’ll start with the recipe inspired by another. It contains an ingredient I had never heard of before and I was rather anxious about actually using it at all. It’s called Black Olive and Mustard Green paste.

Calm down. Take a deep breath. I’ll talk you through it.

First of all, here’s a pic of said paste. You can find it at your local Asian grocer.

It looks weird, smells weird and doesn’t taste very nice. However, once you fry it up and mix it in your rice, it adds a lovely flavour and dimension to the ‘I don’t feel like cooking – we’re having fried rice’ dinner.

Chinese Olive Fried Rice recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 tblspn Peanut oil

• 3 tblspn Chinese Olive paste, with mixed mustard greens. Chopped.

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten

• 500g cooked rice

• 4 green onions finely chopped

• 1 tsp sesame oil

• frozen peas and corn

• salt and pepper for seasoning

Method:

Heat 2 tblspn oil in wok.

Add paste and stir fry for about 30 seconds.

Remove from wok, or you can keep it in and cook it into the egg.

Heat rest of oil in wok.

Pour in eggs and fry till almost set.

Add rice and paste and stir fry.

When mixed through, toss in green onion, peas and corn, sesame oil and season to taste.

Some notes on this recipe: I use peanut oil for all of my Asian meals. It gives it an authentic taste. However, canola or  vegetable can also be used. Olive oil not so good, it has a very low smoking point which isn’t very desirable in wok cooking.

I usually make mine vegetarian and serve it up with some BBQ pork from BBQ One down the road. I know we aren’t all so lucky to have Chinese BBQ Pork products so readily available, so just use your imagination. Places that sell it usually have it hanging up in the window along with ducks and chickens.

They chop it up and put it in a take away box for you. Usually costs around $10 for a decent sized piece. And worth every cent!

I have read, and I don’t doubt that Chinese people use cold cooked rice, or left overs from the night before, but I don’t have that sort of thing lying around so I prefer to use freshly cooked, or at least warm. I find it less sticky to mix up in the wok. Cold rice clumps together and makes the whole process overly taxing on my cooking arm.

Fried Rice Recipe

No need for lists and methods here. It works on the same premise as above. But, instead of frying off the olive paste, fry off some minced/chopped ginger and garlic in some peanut oil. Let’s say a heaped teaspoon of both – because let’s face it – we are all using the jarred variety (despite our better intentions).

Add the lightly beaten eggs, and stir it all around to blend in the garlic and ginger. Let it set a little.

Add rice and mix well.

Now here’s where you can add what ever you like. Frozen peas and corn, or fried off bacon bits, or spanish onion or diced BBQ pork, prawns, chicken. What ever takes your fancy.

Sprinkle some light soy and sesame on for taste…and away you go!

Nasi Goreng

This is still fried rice really, just an Indonesian version. I have tried to make my own, and experimented with many nasi goreng mixes, but I have found the one pictured below, Conimex Nasi Goreng mix to be THE BEST one.

It’s really easy to use. You can make it as varied or as simple as you like.

All you really need is water to mix the sachet contents, some onion and green onion and some eggs. You can however mix it with peas and corn, or pork or bacon, etc just like with Chinese fried rice.

It’s supposed to be a meal to use up left overs, so anything goes.

The main difference Nasi Goreng and fried rice (for me) is that I serve it with two fried eggs on top.

The fried egg on top provides a nice taste and texture. My favourite part is when I discover little gold mines of creamy yolk in my mouthful.

Recipe Alert! – Roast Pig

I made the Roast Pork Nipples, I mean, Belly with Sage and breadcrumb stuffing last night and may I say I was pleasantly surprised with the result.

With so little ingredients, this cheap cut of meat was transformed into an impressive roast meal. Because the belly cut is so fatty, the meat did not become dry and it was full of flavour and crispy in all the right places.

The sage stuffing was too easy. I was skeptical about how good it would be. It didn’t have any butter or onions (all it contains is sage, bread and Worcestershire sauce) but it roasted up so nicely and was very tasty. I think the fat must have been soaked up by the stuffing because it ended up so crispy and tasty and the pork itself ended up free from any fatty deposits.

Quite remarkable. I ‘ve eaten pork belly before and nearly passed out from fat over load, but this left no trace of unwanted lipid layers.

So, thanks to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for sharing your River Cottage recipe with us.

Here is the link to the recipe: River Cottage

All you need is a pork belly, sage, breadcrumbs, worster sauce and twine.

DON’T FORGET THE TWINE!!!! (like I did).

I was all ready to roast when I realised I’d forgotten to by twine at my last shopping outing. All I had was some plastic string in the drawer…which I was certain would melt and possibly poison us…so I considered using shoe laces to tie up my pig belly. I had some…white too…But I thought it might add some strange flavours to the dish.

So my darling sister – who happened to be at my place when I realised I had no twice – was kind enough to mind the boys and I popped up to the local butcher and bought some twine from him for $1.

I had never done anything like tying up a piece of meat before, and I was a little nervous about the outcome but it worked brilliantly.

Only thing is you need about 2 hrs to get it ready and cook it. It cooks for like 1 1/2 hours.  And you only need half of the amount of stuffing he suggests. I through out most of mine.

Oh, and try not pick a day where temps reach 30C. I had to put the air conditioner on to keep our house from becoming one giant roasting oven.

I served mine with some steamed cabbage and roast potats.

I forgot to photograph the meal, so I’ll leave you with this:

Fried vs. Fresh

Here’s something to consider.

For the same price as fish and chips to feed the family – about $25 – you can buy 1kg of fresh prawns, avocado and some bread.

Squeeze some lemon juice and season the avocado.

Spread it on slice of crusty bread from a good bakery.

A good dollop of seafood sauce, then complete the meal with some peeled prawns.

OK, so maybe 2yr old doesn’t get into the prawns. He prefers to play around with them. We sacrifice one prawn for him.

But 4yr old really enjoys our little floor picnics on prawn night an it has become a regular treat.

When you think of the nutritional value of the prawn meal versus the fried meal I think it becomes clear that it’s not only for taste reasons that fresher choice wins out.

Unless of course you don’t like prawns. Sadly I know too many who do…in which case, go ahead and have fish and chips.

I’ve always thought the cost of take away food is far outweighing it’s usefulness, outside of giving mum the night off. It has become so expensive to eat take away that I think it’s usually cheaper to buy the food fresh and make it yourself.

PS: I’m not pretending I don’t LOVE indulging in the greasy, crispy, salty pleasures of fried food, but when we’re talking about making better choices for our health and our family’s health,  I thought this little comparison illustrates the point nicely.

PPS: This post becomes irrelevant in the weeks surrounding Christmas. As we all know, prices escalate beyond all reason.