Geoffreys Next Day Beef Curry

I phoned my brother Geoffrey to get his curry recipe, he traded for our fish pie recipe. He kept telling me that it would taste best after it had been in the fridge for 24 hours and he was right!
When it was cooked it was a bit bland with a spicy kick, nice flavour but not a strong curry. I thought I hadn't added enough spices at the beginning and Geoffreys advice was that once you had added everything else THAT'S IT you can't add any more spice. Then when I had it for my lunch it had transformed into this big tasty curry! So next time I will perhaps manage to avoid the temptation and put it all into the fridge for the next day!!!


I just have to say how much better the meat from the butcher was, it might have been that the supermarket stuff was frozen and defrosted but WOW! I don't think I've cooked with both types at the same time before, the butcher meat was nice big chunks with no fat at all, nicer colour and generally nicer in every way. The supermarket heart smart was scrawny, stringy, little bits. but it was all cooked together and in the end it all tasted the same.

Ingredients
500g Heart Smart Beef cubes (from the Supermarket then frozen and defrosted)
500g diced Beef (from the butcher across the street)
1 can coconut milk
2 large potatoes
1 large carrot
1 red onion, chopped
quarter of a pumpkin
quarter head of cauliflower
2 hand fulls of green beans
1 green capsicum
1 handful of sultanas
2 heaped teaspoons Chili powder
2 heaped teaspoons Cumin
lots of shakes turmeric probably about 1 heaped teaspoon.
tip of teaspoon fenugreek powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 teaspoon Keen's mild Indian curry powder (Because I found it in the cupboard when I was hunting for spices)
2 teaspoons Garam Marsala

Chop vegetables into good size chunks
Brown meat off in frying pan in small batches and set aside.
Fry off onion and try to scrape up meat brownings.
Put all spices, except Garam masala, into fry pan, if it looks too dry, add more cooking oil (I added oil twice) until it forms a paste.
Cook up spices for about 5 minutes.
Stir meat through paste, add hard vegetables like potato and carrot stir through paste.
Put into slowcooker with onion
Pour coconut milk into fry pan, bring to boil while scraping brown bits off bottom of pan. Pour over meat and hard veg.
Cover and cook on high for about and hour, then add soft Veg.

I wasn't sure the pumpkin would cook fast enough so I steamed the pumpkin and Cauliflower till starting to soften and then added them.
When I added the soft Veg I sprinkled the Garam Masala powder over the top and stirred it all through.

While that was cooking I made Turmeric Rice in the Rice cooker and Dhall in the blender and wondered at how I ever got along without all these appliances!

After another hour the rice was done and the potato was still a bit hard so I left the ricecooker on warm and let the curry cook for another hour (or till I had done all the dishes)


Potato now soft so we served up with Dhall, naan and mango chutney!

Dhall
this sort of follows the recipe in Curries from the sultan's kitchen a wonderful old book we picked up at a booksale

Tin of lentils
2 cloves of garlic
salt
pepper
lemon juice
milk
pinch of chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Blend lentils in blender,
Fry off garlic.
Add spices and fry for a few minutes
add lentil paste and fry for 15 minutes adding milk to thin
squeeze lemon and season to taste.

This came put really well will defiantly make again

Roast beef in Slow cooker

Happy Australia Day!!

Today is a public holiday here in Australia, so yesterday I went to the supermarket to pick up some salad stuff and all the meat was half price as the supermarket is closed today!

I got a roast silverside of beef and had no idea what to do with it so I did what all good cooks do and phoned my Mum!
She said cook it SLOWLY and it will come out lovely and tender she usually just salt and peppers it and puts in in the oven for 1 hour on high then 2 hours on low. I asked if I could add slivers of garlic like you do with a roast lamb and she said "It can only make it tastier"

Ingredients

1.5kg Roast Silverside of beef
3 large potatos
4 small carrots
3 small parsnip
5 small garlic cloves of garlic
half a leek, chopped
half a red onion, chopped
half a stock cube worth of stock (about 300ml)
good slug of red wine (about a glass and a half)


So I linned my slowcooker pot with thick slices of potato about 1cm thick.

I cut little holes in my roast and poked 2 cloves of garlic slivers into the holes.
Covered roast with ground black pepper. (I decided to leave the salting till later as I read somewhere that salting meat in slowcooking can make it dry out.)

Then browned off my roast on the stove top until all sides were sealed and set the garlic slivered peppered roast on the potato.

In the pot on the stove I fried the leek, onion and remaining garlic and added to the slow cooker, along with the carrot, big chunks, and parsnip, quartered.

I now put the stock and wine in the pot on the stove and brought it to the boil scraping all the meat brownings back into the liquid and poured this over the meat and veg in the pot.

cooked on high for 3hours turned and cooked for another hour.


Then it looked something like this!

I removed the meat and let it rest for 10 minutes while we made the gravy (I say we!! the boy made the gravy)


To make the gravy we scooped some juices from the pot and boiled up in a frypan we added BISTO!!! (british gravy powder that after hunting everywhere for we discoved it in the convienience store across the road from our house)

so anyway added 2 teaspoons of bisto straight into the pan juice mix and brought to the boil whist stirring to thicken.

This is the best gravy I've had in Australia.


The finished meal was compleated with frozen peas and cauliflour cheese. no roast puddings this time, the oven wasn't on just the grill to brown the top of the cauliflour cheese so the house stayed nice and cool.

The meat was so tender it was hard to carve without it crumbling. we left it cooking for so long as after 3 hours cooking we remembered the cauliflour cheese stilll had to be made so gave it an extra hour cooking time.

It was very very tasty. The parsnips were slightly soggy and lost there flavour but everything else was delish.

Will definatly do this again!!

Slow Cooker Chocolate Cake

Today one of the guys I work with was moving to another shift. He wasn't very happy about it so I decided to make him a cake.
I've been thinking about making a cake in the slow cooker since I discovered this is possible. I simply used a chocolate cake mix and cooked it on the slow cooker but it was really interesting and the house smelt fantastic!

Chocolate Cake

2 boxes cake mix (I have a 6L slow cooker so went double quantities)
3 eggs
Oil and water as back of packet.

Sprayed slow cooker pot with oil and placed two strips of greaseproof paper to make a cross to lift the cake out with also lined the bottom of pot with greaseproof paper and sprayed everything with oil again, (panicking about things sticking, moi? surely not!)

Mixed all ingredients up in a bowl with electric mixer as cake box instructions.
Pour into pot.

Cooked on High for 3 hours with lid venting with a chopstick to stop condensation.

Cake came out a bit burnt at the back, I think next time I would cook on high or 2 hours then turn down to low. I trimed burnt crust and it was fine.

Turn out on wire rack and cool

Ice with Cake mix Icing!!!!! Lick bowl.


Cake went down a storm at work!
Was lovely and moist in the middle with slightly hardened crust.
I liked baking in the slow cooker but next time will keep watch and adjust temperature (I'm on Nightshift so I went for a nap while it cooked and set my alarm).
I think this is the first time I've ever baked alone! I always did it with friends or family to help before! Does that mean I'm a grown up?

Slow cooker

On Sunday we bought a slow cooker in the January sales.
I was very excited as I've wanted one for ages.
Its a Ronson 6 Litre which is huge! but it means when we cook something there is plenty left for the freezer.
I decided to start with Chilli con Carne from the Hot food cookbook I borrowed from the local library and modified for the slow cooker.
It came out well but a little sloppy I halved the liquid but I guess because it was mince it needed hardly any stock.
Looking forward to roasting a chicken and making stews once the wether is cooler, at 33 degrees it's not really soup and stew weather.
still very happy with my first attempt.

Chilli con carne

4 tsp grd cumin
1 tsp grd allspice
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp paprika
1 tbs veg oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 small red chillis, deseeded and finely chopped
1kg beef mince
2 tins of whole tomatoes
2 tbs tomato paste
tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed
500ml beef stock
1 tbs oregano chopped
1 tsp sugar

I dry fried the spices until fragrant and then threw everything in the slowcooker, gave it a good stir and went to bed (as I'm working night shift).

I woke up 8hrs later stired again. Tasted and decided it neaded salt, pepper, paprika and more garlic and less liquid. scooped 2 cups of liquid off and left for another hour.

served with tortillas, salad, guacamole and sour cream

very tasty! beans stayed whole, tomatoes still in big chunks, mince had turned to mush! next time less liquid and maybe slightly less cooking time.
All in all not bad for a first attempt.