Tag Archives: recipe

The Best Beef Stew – served in bread bowls

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Beef, Meals in one

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The Best Beef Stew

This is Dave Lieberman from Food Network’s recipe.
I got this recipe about 7 years ago and no other stew comes close to being this delicious. It is the BEST!
I made this for a dinner party and served it in bread bowls….just for fun! My guests LOVED it.

What you will need:

2 pounds beef chuck for stew, cut into 1-inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons butter
4 medium carrots, peeled, halved and cut into 1-inch chunks
3 small onions, diced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans reduced-sodium beef or chicken broth
2 cups dry red wine
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 medium russet or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 handfuls green beans, ends trimmed (optional)

 Season the beef cubes lightly with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy 6-quart pot over medium heat. As soon as the butter starts to turn brown, add half the beef and raise the heat to high. At first, the beef will give off some liquid, but once that evaporates, the beef will start to brown. Cook, turning the beef cubes on all sides until the pieces are as evenly browned as possible, about 5 or 6 minutes after the water has boiled off.

If the pan starts to get too brown at any point, just turn down the heat a little. Scoop the beef into a bowl and brown the rest of the beef the same way using the remaining butter. Scoop out the second batch of beef, then add the carrots and onions and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook until the onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour until it has been worked into the veggies and you can’t see it any more. Pour in the chicken broth, wine, and crushed tomatoes, and toss in the rosemary.

Slide the beef back into the pot and bring the liquid to a boil. Turn down the heat so the liquid is just breaking a gentle simmer. Partially cover the pot and cook about 60 minutes. Stir the stew several times while simmering so it cooks evenly and nothing sticks to the bottom. Stir the potatoes into the stew, cover the pot completely, and cook until the potatoes and beef are tender, stirring occasionally, about another 60 minutes….maybe longer.
Add the beans and cook for another 5 minutes until the green beans turn bright green and are cooked through but still have a nice snap to them.

Enjoy!
Joy

Cherry Balsamic Vinaigrette

17 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by in Salads

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My husband brought home some cherries yesterday and they were SO sweet! I decided to add them to my favorite salad dressing and the result was delicious.

Here’s what I used:

30 pitted cherries (If you don’t have cherries, use strawberries instead)
2 Tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tablespoon of Honey
Salt & Pepper
1/4-1/2 Cup of Olive Oil (The amount varies depending on how aged your vinegar is)

In a blender, mix the cherries, vinegar, honey, salt and pepper. Mix until the cherries are invisible.
Then slowly add your oil. I would start out with a 1/4 cup and then taste it. This is when you decide if you need more oil or honey.
If you have added a 1/2 cup of oil and the vinegar taste is too strong, add more honey.
At that point, if you continue to add more oil, you risk losing the cherry flavor.

I put this over mixed greens, goat cheese and toasted walnuts. YUM!

Enjoy!
Joy

Cherry jam

05 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in Jams and chutneys

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Cherry jam

I went to my parent’s home in France for a long weekend with a few friends. We had a fantastic time enjoying the sun, swimming in the pool and best of all picking cherries in the garden. This year they came early and if we’d arrived any later they would have been too ripe. The tree was covered in cherries and in just 15 minutes we had a big basket full of them, yum! The only problem was that they were so ripe we couldn’t have eaten all of them before they started to rot, so we made jam.

It feels so satisfying to pick fruit and then make something from them.

What you will need:

1kg of cherries
1kg of sugar
Empty jars

Cooking time – 1 hour

You can either de-stone the cherries before making the jam or after (it will not change the flavour). I didn’t remove them before as they were so ripe and used that weight to measure the sugar.

Put the cherries in a big pan with the sugar and mix so that the sugar covers the cherries. Put on a medium heat and stir occasionally until the sugar has completely melted and then turn the heat to low, cover the pan and leave to simmer. Stir the jam from time to time for about an hour. A white foam will create on the top of the jam, remove as much as possible.

Just before the jam is ready, get some empty jars, boil water and pour into the jars, this will disinfect them. Once the jam is ready, empty the water and pour in the jam – using a ladle or a jug can make this easier. Immediately seal the jar with the lid. Leave to cool and then refrigerate.

To make jam the rule I always use is the same weight in sugar as fruit, or a little less sugar if the fruit is nice and ripe.

Jams and chutneys can make great presents, all you need is some nice material, some beads and a label for it to look that bit special.

Mel

Balsamic tuna with cherry tomatoes and rocket

18 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by in Seafood

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Only have 20mins to prepare a meal? Then this one is perfect and super yummy! I treated myself to a tuna steak this evening and it was definitely worth every penny. I had it as a light meal but if you want something more substantial I’d eat it with new potatoes. This feeds one so just multiply everything by the number of people you are cooking for.

What you will need:

 1 tuna steak
10 cherry tomatoes
2 handful of rocket
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Chilli flakes
Salt and pepper

Cherry tomatoes

Heat your oven to 180C. In a bowl mix a spoon of vinegar for two spoons of oil. Place the cherry tomatoes in an oven proof dish and cover with the ‘vinaigrette’ add salt and pepper to taste. Once the oven is hot put the tomatoes in; they should take no more than 15mins.

 Tuna steak

You should start this about 5mins before the tomatoes are done. Heat a pan, add oil (not much about 2 tablespoons worth), chilli flakes to taste, salt and pepper and add the tuna. Cook for 2mins on each side.

Rocket and ta-da

Place the tuna, the cherry tomatoes and rocket on a plate. Add about a tablespoon of vinegar to the hot pan, mix, and pour over the tuna, rocket and tomatoes. If you want more ‘vinaigrette’ you can also use some from the tomatoes.  

Mel

Lamb with cinnamon and prunes

11 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by in Lamb

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There’s a fantastic butcher by my work and so after Live Below the Line I decided to treat myself. I ended up getting some lamb scrag (on the bone) and only spent £4 for three big pieces of meat. So I left there quite happy.

I decided I’d try a lamb tagine (though without the tagine).

 So what you will need:

For the lamb (feeds three)
Lamb scrag on the bone (one per person)
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 carrot
Half an aubergine
10 prunes
1 cinnamon stick
1 vegetable stock cube
1 tablespoon of butter
Salt and pepper

For the couscous
Couscous
Olive oil
Chilli flakes

Mix the stock cube with about 300ml of boiling water in a bowl. In a big pan add the butter and brown the lamb and onions. Add the water and all chopped vegetables, cinnamon and bring to a boil, add water so that it nearly covers all the meat, cover and simmer for about 30mins. Add prunes and cook for another 15mins. Depending on how you want the liquid to be, remove the lid to reduce 10mins before it’s cooked. Total cooking time should be about 45mins.

About 10mins before your lamb is ready put some couscous in a bowl. Add a tablespoon of oil, chilli flakes (add to taste) and salt and pepper and mix. Add the appropriate amount of water and cover until it’s ready.

 This is an incredibly easy and scrumptious dish!

Mel

Live Below the Line day 1

03 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by in Live Below the Line

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LBL - porridge

Well with my first day over I’ve already tried tea with custard powder and porridge with cream cheese and water. I must say that I will be having my porridge without the cream cheese tomorrow morning.

I still had £1.12 left so I bought 26 tea bags for 9p, an extra banana for 10p, a carrot for 7p, celeriac for 56p and a garlic bulb for 30p. So I’m now left with exactly 0p.

For lunch today I had a baked potato with two tablespoons of cream cheese and a third of a can of tuna, not bad but the potato was quite small so I had some left-over porridge from breakfast for a mid-afternoon snack.

Dinner was an interesting one of pasta with a celeriac, garlic and tomato purée sauce. I minced some celeriac and added a clove of garlic with a teaspoon of purée and added half a cup of boiling water. Once the pasta was cooked I added the sauce and simmered for about 5 minutes. Not bad for a first meal… though it was missing a bit of salt and pepper.

What’s been the hardest thing today has been the lack of caffeine as I’ve had a headache all day long. Ah bring on tomorrow!

To find out more visit https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk-christianaid

Mel