Ginger and Lime Corned Beef with Colcannon

Mr B and I returned home from our weekend away yesterday afternoon and my bags hadn't even hit the ground before I was elbow deep in flour, sugar and cream cheese - just the way I like it. Before I knew it we had a kitchen full of goodies including Easter Basket Cupcakes and Baileys Cheesecake (which I will tell you all about later in the week!).

Given that it was  St Patrick's Day, we indulged in some Ginger and Lime Corned Beef with Colcannon (and copious amounts of Baileys.....) and whilst it may not have been pretty, it was delicious.

To make this Ginger and Lime Corned Beef (Serves 4) you will need:

1.5kg of  Corned Beef
10-12 peppercorns
4 litres of ginger ale
2 tbspns crushed ginger
1 lime, quartered
1 tbspn crushed garlic
1-2 tspns crushed chilli

Place the corned beef in a large saucepan and cover with ginger ale. Add the remaining ingredients.

Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for 1.5 hours.

When the Corned Beef has around 1/2 hour to go, get started on your Colcannon.

5 pieces of shortcut bacon
1/2 cup finely diced spring onions
1/2 savoy cabbage, diced
4 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
50g butter plus 40g extra
2 tbspns milk

Place the potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil. Drain and set aside.

In a fry pan over medium heat, cook the bacon, cabbage and 1/2 of the spring onions for 7-10 mins or until cabbage is softened and bacon is cooked. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the milk and butter to the potatoes and mash well.

Stir through the cabbage and bacon mixture.

To serve the Colcannon, make a well in the centre and add the extra butter. Top with the remaining spring onion.

Remove the Corned Beef from the pot, slice and serve with English Mustard.

Enjoy with a tall glass of icy cold Baileys!

Mrs B xx

Beef and Beer Casserole

Whilst Mr B and I were on our mini-moon we came across a sign that said Happy Wife Happy Life.....but what about Happy Husband?

You see all this week....and all last week for that matter, Mr B and I have been hauled up in our garage every night staining our new furniture. Getting new furniture is very exciting, spending 2 hours painting and sanding each night is not. And to top it all off painting is the one thing that Mr B really detests. So needless to say even though we only have one more night of painting to go, it may as well be 3 more months and Mr B is tired, miserable, seemingly allergic to paint fumes and generally over it. In an effort to 'turn that frown upside down' (you do not want to see the look Mr B gave me when I said that....I decided to put my rendition of Happy Little Vegemites on hold until further notice....) I decided to make this Beef and Beer Casserole with fresh bread for dinner tonight because let's be honest, anything involving beef, beer and in Mr B's case, fresh bread is bound to be a winner with the boys!

Beef and Beer Casserole

You will need:

2 tbspns oil
750g topside beef cut into 3cm cubes (you can use gravy beef or any other casserole beef if you wish)
1 leek, trimmed, halved, washed and sliced
1 tbspn crushed garlic
4 short cut bacon rasher trimmed and diced
250g sliced mushrooms
2 tbspns plain flour
2 large potatoes, chopped into 2cm cubes
2 dried bay leaves
1 tbspn crushed thyme (I use Gourmet Garden thyme - comes in a tube, like a crushed herb paste) or you could use 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
375ml beer
1.5 cups beef stock
Fresh crusty bread to serve

Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced and heat half the oil in a heavy-based, flameproof casserole dish over medium-high heat. Cook the beef, in batches, for 5 minutes or until browned and transfer to a bowl / plate.

Heat remaining oil in the same dish and add leek, garlic, bacon and mushrooms. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until onion has softened. Return beef to dish and add the flour, potato, bay leaves and thyme. Stir well.

Stir in the beer and stock. Cover dish and bring to the boil. Transfer to oven and bake for 2 hours or until beef is tender. Check regularly and stir. Remove the bay leaves (does anyone else have trouble finding them!?) and serve with warm, crusty, buttery bread!

 

Enjoy your  dinner and enjoy the benefits of a happy husband! Mine is so deliriously happy and full right now, he has agreed to dye my hair for me!!

And on a side note, look at our little babies! They are no longer needing us to go out and feed them bottles of milk at all hours of the day and night, they simply have a bottle of water when we get home from work and spend the evening munching their way around the front yard before they go to bed....but the best thing? No matter where they are, as soon as they see us they come flying toward us at full speed as if to say 'Oh wow we have missed you!' and it just makes me melt every time....especially when they forget to brake and skid across the gravel or the grass trying to stop!! From the below picture, can you guess which one has been playing underneath the car and sticking his head in the grease!?

Mrs B xx

Mexican Beef Salad

It's like mega hot here at the moment, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't like coming home from work on a stinking hot day and spending hours in the kitchen whipping up a hot meal for tea. So to that end I've been trying to come up with cooler ideas for dinner, I mean we have been having salad with everything lately so I was thinking kind of like a salad in disguise so as not to distress Mr B. This one had the potential to go horribly wrong, on one hand it incorporated two of his favourite things, beef and mexican, but on the other hand there were beans involved, I knew I was walking a fine line but sometimes you just have to take a risk and this time, it paid off....Plus I mean we all like a fuss free mid week meal do we not!?


This recipe easily makes enough for 4 as a main and can be served hot, warm or cold, how's that for versatile!!

All you need is:

400g butternut pumpkin, peeled, cut into 1cm cubes
500g extra lean beef mince
35g packet taco seasoning
400g can red kidney beans, drained
310g can corn kernels, drained
1 green capsicum, diced
4 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 tspn crushed garlic
mini tortillas to serve

Cook the pumpkin in the microwave with 1/4 - 1/2 cup water for 5-7 mins or until softened.

Meanwhile, in a fry pan over medium heat, cook the mince until just starting to brown. Add the taco seasoning, garlic, capsicum and onions and cook for a further 3-4 mins.

Remove the pan from heat and stir through the pumpkin, kidney beans and corn.

Serve with tortillas and most importantly, enjoy!!

Mrs B xx

WW Card File Challenge #7 Beef Curry

....with apples and bananas?? OH was going through the card file looking for something to make this week and this one was just too weird to pass up! We have made a mango chicken curry with apples before, but a beef curry with apples and bananas sounded very interesting and we just had to try it!


It was actually dead easy and one of the tastiest curry sauces we have had for a long time, not to mention the beef was melt in your mouth tender!!

And this is how it's done....

500g beef steak cut into cubes (2cm x 2cm ish)
1 tbspn butter
1 x onion diced
1 x apple diced
1 x banana diced
1 tbspn curry powder
2 tbspns plain flour
1.5 cups water
1 beef stock cube
2 tspns brown sugar
Salt and Pepper
Pappadums and Steamed Rice to Serve

Spray a fry pan with oil and add the beef. Cook over medium high heat until browned. Remove the beef from the pan and add the onion and butter, cooking for 1-2 mins.
Add the onion, banana and curry powder. Cook for a further 2 minutes before adding the flour. Stir well and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add the water, crumbled stock cube, brown sugar and season with salt and pepper. Bring rhe sauce to the boil, stirring well, until it thickens. Add the meat and simmer for 30-40 mins until the meat is tender.

Serve with steamed rice in pappadums!

Yum yum yum, did I mention this is one of the nicest curry sauces I have tried?? This would be a perfect sauce for curried sausages too as it is nice and thick, not to mention packed full of flavour....it does have a bit of kick to it though so be warned, but the sweetness of the apple kind of off sets that. I will say though that it was a bit hard to tell the banana was in there as it breaks down and disappears during cooking, but I think it adds to the creaminess of the sauce maybe? Either way, this dish is a great way to hide fruit and vegies from fussy kids (and adults!).

Hope you all had a fantastic Monday and are all set for the week ahead of you!

Em x

WW Card File Challenge #6 Pot Roast Meatloaf

I actually made this a few months ago, it was the second thing I made out of my the card file...but then blogger had that epic tantrum and lost my post and my photos so last night we made it again, not that we were complaining because we loved it and were happy for the excuse to make it again! So we took more photos, it was more delicious then we remembered it being the first time and the best part is I can finally tell you all about it :)


Pot Roast Meatloaf
400g mince
1 small onion diced
1 tbspn wet italian herbs
1 tspn crushed wet garlic
2 tbspns spicy red tomato sauce or tomato chutney
2 eggs
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs

455g can tomato soup
2 tbspns tomato paste
2 cups water
4 small potatoes (peeled and whole)
800g pumpkin (cut into chunks)
1 large parsnip (cut into chunks)

Combine the mince, onion, herbs, garlic, tomato sauce, eggs and breadcrumbs in a bowl. You could also add some grated carrot and / or zucchini if you were trying to hide some vegies from the kidlets :) Get your hands in there and mix it all together. It is best if the mince is room temp or at the very least fully defrosted as when I did it, it was still half frozen and my hands are still recovering from the frost bite....

Shape the mince mixture into a round ball. Spray a large pot or castiron casserole dish with oil and add the meatloaf. After a few minutes turn over so that it browns on both sides. Remove from pan.

Add tomato soup, tomato paste and water to the pan. Stir until the mixture comes to the boil. Place the meatloaf carefully back into the pan and surround it with the potato, pumpkin and parsnip. You could also add some wedges or rings of onion in there as well if you wanted to. Cover with the lid and let the mixture simmer for around 40 mins on medium heat.


This makes 4 lovely serves, the vegetables are perfectly cooked, the meatloaf is full of flavour and melt in your mouth tender and it's perfect for a winter's night rugged up on the couch :)

Enjoy

Em x

WW Card File Challenge #4 Corned Beef

Love can make you do things you normally wouldn't do.

When your loved one turns to you and asks you to cook them Corned Beef...what do you do? Do you deny them their favourite dish? Do you buck up and give it a shot? Do you look for the silver lining? Do you start plotting the long long long list of things they are going to have to do to make it up to you??

Well I think I began by saying something to the effect of Hell No and made my refusal very very clear. I used to be totally vegetarian, but due to iron issues, I try and eat a bit of meat, but I still have issues with big chunks of the stuff, it has to be in something or covered in something and it has to be in small pieces...roasts are not yet on my list of conquered meals.

But when I thought about it, I thought well he eats lentils and fake meat for me, the least I could do is cook him some Corned Beef and it was a good opportunity to knock off another one of my WW Card File Challenges (silver lining!).


It was actually pretty easy!

All I did was put a 1kg piece of corned beef into a pot with 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 bay leaves, a tbspn of peppercorns and an onion cut in half. Bring it to the boil, turn the heat down to simmer and let it bubble away for around an hour (30-35 mins for every 500g of meat). And there you have it! No nasty fat and drippings and horrible roasty things to deal with, just one very happy OH!


He had it with some mustard (sounds odd to me, but he says it's the done thing....) and a whole heap of steamed vegies and I have got brownie points coming out of my ears!! Hmmm foot rub anyone???

Em x

Coconut and Sweet Chilli Beef

Wow....just wow.

Our house smells tropical, like if I closed my eyes I could pretty much believe we are lazing on a beach in an open air hut sipping on fruity cocktails and eating this beef, it is that good! And do you know what made it even better? OH cooked it while I sat on the couch reading a magazine :)

You need:

600g beef (diced)
200ml light coconut milk
1 tbspn brown sugar
1.5 tbspns sweet chilli sauce
1/4 tspn ground cinnamon
1 tspn crushed garlic
1 tbspn plain flour
Rice / Steam Vegies to serve

Combine the coconut milk, brown sugar, sweet chilli sauce, cinnamon and garlic in a bowl. Add the beef and mix well. If possible leave it in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

Once the meat is marinated, cook in a fry pan over medium heat for around 10-12 mins or until cooked through. Add in the plain flour during cooking to thicken the sauce.

Once the meat is cooked you can serve it over some steamed rice, with some vegies, or like me, with your steamed rice and vegies mixed through!

It is so delicious!!

Em x

Beefy Spanish Rice

This is my favourite favourite favourite (did I mention it's my favourite?) rice recipe, it is packed with flavour and absolutely delicious and best of all, it's so quick and easy to prepare! The portugese seasoning gives it some spice with a hint of lemon and the combination of juicy tomatoes, crisp capsicums and red onion is just spot on! We get 3 serves out of this recipe, although the third serve usually disappears before the end of the night!


All you need is

500g beef mince
1 red and 1 green capsicum diced
1 red onion diced
3 tomatoes diced
2.5 cups of cooked rice
2-3 tspns portugese seasoning

In a fry pan over medium heat combine the mince, capsicum and onion and cook until mince is browned.

Add portugese seasoning to taste and cook for 2-3 mins or until fragrant.

Add tomatoes and rice and stir to combine. Let it cook for around 3-4 mins to heat the rice and tomatoes through and voila! How easy is that! Perfect for a mid week meal when you don't have time to cook!

Happy Wednesday!!

Em x

Smokin' Hot!

Ok so thats what I would like to be when I grow up....but in the absence of me being smokin hot, how about we try this Smokey Beef Casserole instead? OH is going through a casserole phase incase you hadn't noticed.

The original recipe included chillies, but I fiddled and came up with this....

You will need

500g diced beef
2 tbspns oil
2 diced capsicums (red and green)
1 tspn crushed garlic
2 sliced carrots
1 diced onion
1 tin diced tomatoes
2 tspns smoked paprika
2 sticks of diced celery
2 x 125g tins of four bean mix

Preheat oven to 180C (fan forced)
Add 1tbspn oil and the beef in a heavy based casserole dish. Cook until beef is just browned. Remove to a bowl and set aside.
Heat remaining oil in dish and add capsicums, onion, carrot, garlic and celery. Cook for 3-5 mins or until tender.
Add diced tomatoes and paprika and simmer for 1 minute until fragrant.
Place lid on dish and put in the oven for just over an hour, stirring ever half hour. When meat is tender, stir through drained four bean mix.
Serve with warmed tortillas.


I thought this was fantastic, kind of like a chunky mexican soupy casserole thing! It smells fantastic when it is cooking and the smoked paprika gives it a delicious flavour and its light on in the cals, which helps in our goal to look smokin hot! Would also be delicious served with rice if you wanted to soak up all the tomatoey goodness!

Enjoy!

Em x

Individual Pepper Steak Pies

The other night OH and I went out for dinner and were spoilt for choice. It was one of those nights when everything on the menu sounded great. But one thing that caught our eye was the Pepper Steak Pot Pie and whilst we didn't order it, I was determined to give it a go this week!

Ok so I used mince instead of steak but I honestly think it soaked up the gravy better. The good thing about this recipe is that you could add any gravy mix and pretty much any combination of vegetables, I think some diced succhini would be delicious in there somewhere!

Pepper Steak Pie Makes 2
300g beef mince
1 x small onion diced
1 x tspn crushed garlic
1 x red capsicum diced
2 x celery stalks diced
1 x 125g tin corn kernels
1/2 cup diced button mushroos
1 x pkt of pepper gravy powder
2 tbspns bbq sauce
1 tbspn worsterschire sauce
Salt and pepper to season
1/2 sheet of reduced fat puff pastry cut into 2 squares
1 egg whisked

Brown mince in a lightly greased fry pan over medium heat.
Add onion and garlic and cook for 2-3 mins.
Add gravy powder and 1 cup of water. Stir to combine and bring to the boil. Let simmer for 5 mins.
Add capsicum, celery, corn, mushrooms and sauces.
Simmer for 8 mins or until vegetables are tender. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon into individual ramekins and top with a pastry square. Brush with egg.
Bake at 150C for 15-20 mins or until pastry is puffed and golden.


I attempted to put a T on OH's with some left over pastry...


And then mucked around with the cookie cutters and more left over pastry...


And this is whats under the lid!

Personally I love to peel the pastry lid off and kinda dip it into the pie...OH stockpiles his and saves it to the end so he can savour it...so I would like to know how do you eat your pies?

Em x