More Cooking

I'm loving that I've rediscovered the cooking mojo. Although I am rapidly running out of room in the freezer(s)! Today I've made a batch of super yummy pumpkin and carrot soup and I've tried something a little different that I came across on Pinterest when I was looking at some slow-cooker recipes. One of the links I followed led me to this post.

Rather than (or perhaps, as well as) freezing the finished dish there seems to be a bit of a move towards freezing everything at the beginning of the process. Basically you chop up all of your ingredients, chuck them all in a big freezer bag, seal it up and throw the whole lot in the freezer. Uncooked. Then when you want to cook it you simply move it from the freezer to the fridge the night before, and in the morning pop it into the the slow cooker to cook away all day long. How simple does that sound?

Look I know the slow cooker makes life a whole heap easier but, for me, this is even better. We've been making use of the slow cooker now that I finish work and get home so much later and it's been a life saver. But I'm still running around the night before or, even worse, that morning, chopping everything up. This way I can do all the chopping when I have spare time on the weekend or my days off and not have extra stuff to get through when I'm already rushing around. And what's even better than that is that I can make as many meals ahead of time as I want and cut down even more on the work.

I've two lots of Beef Goulash in the freezer - one for this week and one for another time. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Slow Cooker Week: Weekend

Osso Bucco. Yum! So simple, so full of flavour and when there's a slow cooker involved, just so easy.

Osso Bucco

Adapted slightly from Slow Cookers: more than 100 easy recipes. Published by Murdoch Books.

Serves 4 (but I reckon it serves six easily)

1/2 cup plain flour

1 kg beef osso bucco (I used six good sized pieces)

2-3 tblsp vegetable oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

2 bay leaves

400g tinned chopped tomatoes

3/4 cup white wine

1 cup frozen peas (oops, I forgot them!)

1 handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1. Switch your slow cooker onto low and spray the inside of the cooker bowl with canola oil.

2.Put the flour in a large ziplock bag and season with salt and pepper. Add the osso bucco and give it a good shake to coat the meat with flour.

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the occo bucco in batches and cook for about 5 minutes each side or until golden brown all over. Place the osso bucco into the slow cooker.

4. Add more oil to the frypan (if needed) and saute onions and carrots, stirring, for 5 or so minutes until softened. Spoon over the meat in the slow cooker. Add peppercorns and bay leaves to the slow cooker and pour the tomato over.

5. Pour wine into the frypan and using a wooden spoon, scrape the bottom of the pan to remove any meat or vegetables stuck to the pan. Simmer for a couple of minutes until wine has reduced slightly. Pour into the slow cooker.

6. Cook Osso Bucco for 5-6 hours on HIGH, or until the beef is tender. Add the peas and cook for a further 5 or so minutes.  Serve with mashed potato and steamed vegetables.

Slow Cooker Week: Monday

Before we get to the slow cooker part of the post, check out my bargain buy...

I picked this up at the post office (of all places) this morning. It was in the clearance display and I couldn't walk past it. $10, flowery, pink and lime green. What more could a girl ask for? At work my cuppa always ends up going cold, I think this is the perfect way to make it stay hot just a little bit longer and hopefully I might even get to drink it!

Right, more slow cooker hints. Some cookbooks say you must brown the meat before you add it to the slow cooker while others tell you not to bother so it really is up to you but I find that browning the meat first makes a huge amount of difference to the end product. Browning the meat seals in the juices and the flavour and, in my opinion, if your making a casserole-y type dish you need to brown the meat first to give it all the extra flavour that turns a good dinner into a great one. Also, if I'm browning the meat (red meat that is, not chicken) I'll dust it in flour first - that lets the sauce really thicken up and get some nice texture. Otherwise I find the sauce/juice ends up really runny and takes away from the flavour too.

Another good tip I was told was to give the inside of your slow cooker bowl a light spray with canola spray. It helps stop the food from sticking quite so much and makes it heaps easier when you're doing the washing up.

The recipe I'm sharing now is the one we had for dinner tonight. So, quite literally, straight from the table to you! It's in the current issue of Australian Good Taste as an oven slow cooked meal but I've halved the recipe, changed a couple of things and done it in the slow cooker instead.  It was absolutely delish - Hubby and Offspring #1were most extravagant with their praise. #2 had a boiled egg instead. (But I knew she wouldn't like this, plus she hasn't been terribly well so I offered her egg and toast straight up!) . I served it with some steamed carrots and beans. The photo is absolutely disgusting - this is no reflection on the yumminess of the dish. Do you know how hard it is to make anything brown look appetising?? The original recipe had red chilli in it but as none of us are big chilli fans I left it out.

Slow-Cooked Beef Ribs with Cinnamon and Sweet PotatoAdapted from a recipe in Australian Good Taste, July 2011

Serves 4

1/2 cup plain flour

1kg beef spare ribs

3 tbsp olive oil

1 brown onion, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tsp finely grated fresh ginger

1/2 tsp paprika

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup beef stock

400g can diced tomatoes

400g sweet potato , peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

1 tbsp honey

Chopped fresh parsley, to serve

1. Switch slow cooker onto low and spray the inside of the bowl lightly with canola spray.  Put flour, ribs, salt and pepper in a ziplock bag. Seal bag and shake until ribs are thoroughly coated with flour. Heat 1 tblsp oil in a frying pan and cook half the ribs for 2 minutes each side, or until browned. Transfer to slow cooker and repeat with remaining ribs.

2. Heat remaining oil in the pan  and cook the onion, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, ginger, paprika and cinnamon. Cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until aromatic. Add the stock and tomato and stir through. Bring to the boil then allow to simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Pour spiced tomato mixture over the ribs in the slow cooker. Add sweet potato and honey and stir to combine.

4. Cover with lid and cook on low for 7 hours or until the meat is falling of the bone. Scatter chopped parsley over to serve.

Beef Ribs, American Style

I have to start by saying I have never eaten ribs before. Well, that's not quite true, I made that lamb rib roast the other week, but eating ribs as ribs? Never done it. Generally I've seen pork ribs and since I'm not a fan of pork I've always avoided them but the other day I found a recipe for beef ribs in the slow cooker. Then I happened upon some beef ribs and bought them with much haste and even more joy. Fast forward to last night when, upon glancing at my menu plan, I realised I didn't actually have the other ingredients I needed. My cupboards, like Mother Hubbard's, were bare and an onion could not be found. So scratch that idea and come up with something new. A wee bit of googling, a quick perusal of ideas over at taste.com.au and I had something new to try for dinner tonight. What can I say? These were sweet, but not too sweet. Sticky, but not crazy sticky. They sure weren't pretty but they tasted great. If you're looking for a different kind of meat dish to keep the man in your life happy this is for you. If you're on a diet  you'd best click away to somewhere else real quick!

Anyway, the original recipe is over here but this is my version with a couple of minor changes. I served mine with baked potatoes and steamed vegies in an effort to 'healthy it up' just a bit!

American-Style Sticky Beef Ribs
Adapted from a recipe on taste.com.au

Ingredients
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard

1kg beef ribs, trimmed 

 

1. Combine tomato sauce, honey, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, mustard and salt and pepper in a ceramic dish. Add ribs and turn several times to coat thoroughly.

2.Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place ribs on tray and spoon excess marinade over the ribs.

3. Turn oven down to 130C. Bake ribs for 2 1/2 hours, turning ribs over once or twice, or until cooked through.

Leftovers, Or Two For One

I mentioned the other day that I'd bought a new slow cooker recipe book called Slow Cooker, Easy and delicious recipes for all seasons and it's by Sally Wise. I love it, for a whole bunch of reasons that I'm planning to go into another time, and tried another version of corned beef from it earlier in the week. I didn't take photos - seriously, how many photos of corned beef can one blog need? - but thought I'd share the recipe with you. This was totally delicious and had lots of flavour to it. Even the fussiest family member gobbled up her serve. Though not until she'd drowned it, and everything else on her plate, in tomato sauce.

The next night we had lots of leftovers. Lots. We'd all had corned beef sandwiches for lunch and serving up sliced corned beef for dinner seemed a little repetitive so I was searching for a different way to use the leftovers and decided on a recipe I found over at taste.com for Corned Beef Hash Cakes . Delicious! In fact they were so delicious that I forgot to take photos (ok, I was sick as a dog too so I did pretty well getting dinner on at all!). But there are photos over there and yes, that's what mine looked like too. I cooked them in a pan on the stove and served them up with steamed vegies - comfort food at it's best.

Corned Beef

from Slow Cooker by Sally Wise

1 onion

1 carrot

1 stalk celery

1.5 kg piece of corned silverside (I used a 2kg piece)

1 teaspoon mixed spice

8 cloves (I only had ground cloves so used 1 teaspoon)

10 peppercorns

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons vinegar

Peel and chop the onion. Peel the carrot and cut into chunks. Slice the celery. Place the silverside, vegetables, mixed spices, cloves, peppercorns, brown sugar and vinegar in the slow cooker.

Add enough water to come two thirds up the silverside.

Place lid on cooker and cook for 4-5 hours on High or 8-9 hours on Low (I cooked mine for 5 hours on High).