Beef Stroganoff!

I was sitting here thinking about food (nothing new) and realised that unlike other food bloggers I never really have a clever little back story to go with my recipes, nothing that really details why I decided to cook a certain dish that day, how it tasted, what the weather was doing that day, what colour underpants we all had on (Annie the Poodle included)…

Truth is, there generally isn’t a rosy cheeked sunny day kind of story to accompany a dish like Beef Stroganoff. I saw a jar of strog sauce in the supermarket and decided to try and cook it from scratch. That’s the end of that exciting story! It reminds me of my childhood, but it was never my favourite dish so I don’t get all warm and fuzzy like I would thinking about Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings. 

I think about food from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed, throwing some sporadic thoughts about work in there and occasionally day dreaming about how many cosmetic products I could buy if I was a millionaire (too damn many that’s how many!!) but that's about as interesting as it gets... I know, not that interesting haha!

However my food thinking is now fairly focused on what other classic home style dishes that really don’t take much longer to cook with fresh whole ingredients rather than packet seasoning or a jar of anaemic looking sauce… I need suggestions!! I am going to cook a Steak and Mushroom Shepherds pie hybrid tonight which I cannot WAIT to put into my mouth! (note: I ended up making two, plus had SOOO much meat left over so now have at least 6 meals out of one batch of meat! I bought a 1.2 kilo blade roast which was $9 a kilo and cooked for around 1.5 hours with seasonings etc on the stovetop, but it would be great in the slow cooker! The meat was SOOOO tender!)

OK so here it is, what you have read through all that nonsense to get to... *drum roll please* Introducing Beef Stroganoff recipe which I based on the same by Julie Goodwin who wont the first Australian Masterchef! I just made changes to the type of steak and made it gluten free by using cornflour instead of plain flour! This ended up being one of our absolute favourite "from scratch" meals I have made... I was positively delicious!!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

1 kg steak, trimmed and sliced very thinly 

(I used the heart smart steak from Woolworths as it was on special)

1/3 cup corn flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika

¼ cup coconut oil

300g button mushrooms, sliced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup tomato paste

½ cup beef stock 

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

300ml sour cream

Method

ombine the flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a bowl.  Toss the beef strips through the mixture so they are well coated.

In a large, non-stick fyring pan, heat ¼ of the oil over high heat.  Place 1/3 of the beef mixture into the pan and cook, tossing and stiring for 2 minutes until it is golden brown. Repeat this process with remaining oil and beef mixture. Removing the cooked beef before putting a new lot in.

Remove the last of the beef from the frying pan and sit aside.

Reduce the heat to medium high.  

Place the last of the oil in the pan and cook the mushrooms and garlic until softened. 

 Add tomato paste and stir for a further minute.  

Add stock, Worcestershire sauce and sour cream to the pan.  

Return the beef and stir for a minute or two until well combined and warmed through.

We served with mashed potato as I had some potatoes that needed to be used, but would also be fantastic served with pasta!

Steam some greens and serve on top. This is sure to be a family favourite, especially in the darkest depths of winter!

Share your photos with me if you make this, I would love to see them!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Paleo and Clean Eating Challenge... Mexican Mince in Cabbage Leaves

I love a challenge in the kitchen, but sometimes find it hard to think of new things that I would like to have a go at cooking. I’ve just gone live with my Facebook page and a friend suggested to me that I allow people to send through a request on something, either a certain food or meal, or cuisine, they would like to me see me come up with a recipe for. GREAT IDEA I said, you can be first!!!

 

A healthy lifestyle is very important to her so she asked if I would be able to make a meal that was both Paleo, and considered clean eating. What a task!! Have you ever seen the do not eat list for Paleo? You can check it out here. We eat a considerable amount of it, in particular beans and legumes, a staple food in a lot of my vegan meals!! We don’t eat a huge amount of sugar so that was easy, but I do love nothing more than freshly baked bread out of the over, so that was definitely out too! I wanted to make something that was filling, but that adhered to the allowable food on Paleo (which actually is A LOT, avoid beans and legumes, wheat and grains, sugar and starchy vegetables like potato and I think your headed in the right direction) and also make a dish that was clean, which as far as I understand, means whole foods like meat and vegetables and keeping the food as close to its original form as possible. I hope I achieved both please let me know if you have any tips for me or you think I haven’t got it quite right! Surprisingly a lot of the food we cook at home is actually Paleao and a lot of it is also Clean (I probably tend to use my homemade shortcrust pastry just a wee bit too often haha)

I made a main and a dessert, just to show that delicious tasty treats don’t have to be packed full of sugar and can fit under the “Clean” and “Paleo” headings! The main was stuffed full of vegies and also tasted delish!!

 

Please enjoy

Mexican Mince in Cabbage Leaves

(perhaps it needs a new name… doesn’t sound exceptionally appetising hahaha)

Ingredients

1kg Mince (I used beef, but any mince will be nice!)
2 grated carrots
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic squished, or very finely chopped
Big bag full of baby spinach
50g of pinenuts
1-2 chillis chopped and de-seeded (de-seeding is optional depending on your desire for heat)
½ cup chopped coriander
1 large red capsicum chopped
1 tin tomatoes
2 tablespoons each of cumin and smoked paprika
1-2 teaspoon of sea salt
1 whole baby cabbage

 

Method

Pop a bit of oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Once heated put in your garlic and onion until soft then put in mince and brown.

While mince is browning chop up the capsicum and grate the carrot. Add to the mince along with the chilli, baby spinach, pinenuts, coriander and tin tomatoes.

Add your spices, and salt.

Reduce heat to low, give everything a good stir and let simmer, stiring, and tasting occasionaly for around 30 minutes or most of the liquid has evaporated. Add more spices and salt as needed.

While the mince is cooking pop your whole baby cabbage in a steamer over a pot of water on medium-high heat. Remove from heat once the cabbage starts to feel “soft”.

Remove cabbage from steamer and very very gently peel back the leaves. You will need to cut them at the base to remove from the cabbage.

Put some cooked mince mixture into a leaf then roll like you would a burrito! Fold the top and the bottom over then one side over, then the other side, pulling gently but tightly. Once you have done all your cabbage rolls, sit them back in the steamer over medium heat for 5 minutes. This will help the cabbage to seal.

I tried both red and green cabbage… while the green cabbage went a bit transparent it stuck together much better than the red. Both tasted nice!

If you would like to challenge me to cook something, whether it be a type of food or a particular item of food, leave a comment below or email me at yearofcooking@outlook.com.au 

 

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)
Erica xx

Beef Fajitas

I am not claiming to be an expert on Mexican food. Just a lover of it. The spices the absolute deliciousness of it, the spices the freshness, did I mention the spices? I just LOVE it! It's a massive toss up between Thai and Mexican to my favourite cuisine at the moment!

This is my recipe for Beef Fajitas! It's a bit of a favourite in our household, and its a quick and easy dish to throw together, especially if you premake your tortillas! The smokey flavour from the paprika, matched with the sweetness from the capsicum and onion is delicious!

Beef Fajitas

Ingredients

Serves 2-3 (we only eat a maximum of 150g of red meat per serve so this leaves leftovers for us. Obviously some of you will eat more than that)

500 grams of Rump Steak (Feel free to use any other beef that is steak quality, porterhouse, eye fillet, scotch fillet, or rump. These cuts work best when cooked quickly)

1 red capsicum

1 Brown Onion

1 Tablespoon of Corn Flour

1 tablespoon of oil

1-2 Tablespoons of Cumin

1-2 Tablespoons of Paprika

1-2 Tablespoons of Dried Coriander

Big pinch of sea salt

1/2 Lime

optional: fresh or dried chilli to taste

Method

Slice your Capsicum and Onion

Slice your meat. Place in a freezer bag with a tablespoon of corn flour. I find this helps the pieces of meat separate, and also helps to keep the moisture in the meat. I believe it is a technique used in a lot of Chinese cooking, as the corn flour sucks up the sauce as well when cooking.

Heat up a frying pan with a tablespoon of your chosen oil (I prefer coconut oil as it doesn't burn when heated to a high temperature). Once hot throw in your onion and capsicum. Once they start to soften put in your meat. Add your spices

Once the meat starts to brown, you can start to taste. Remember you can eat beef very rare, so don't be afraid!

You might be suprised to know (if you read my first post that I have considered a meat free lifestyle) that we like our meat on the rare side of medium rare. It's just so much more tender!

Add more spices if you feel there isn't enough. Don't be afraid to add more salt.

I have only recently started cooking with salt, for two reasons. 

1.My Mum is terrified of the stuff, as I imagine a lot of people her age are, due to the noise The Heart Foundation have made over the years about the dangers of salt. Watch any chef though and they will use sometimes insanely large amounts of salt to season their food. It just really helps to bring out flavours and add a fullness and richness to your dishes. 

2. Pre packaged food contains a lot of salt, so there was never any need to add any extra. Now that I cook from scratch the dishes really do need that pinch or two added.

Once the beef is cooked to your liking, squeeze over half a lime and serve! I like to serve our meat with freshly cooked tortilas, corn (gluten free) or flour, lettuce or baby spinach, homemade salsa and squashed avocado with a squeeze of lime in it!

An easy weeknight meal that is sure to please!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Deconstructed Meat Pie

Do you ever spend all day dreaming about what you are going to eat for tea? No? Just me? Surely not!!! I spend a good deal of my day, doing two things at once, working... and day dreaming about food.

I like to challenge myself to take popular meals and turn them into something a little more interesting. I really hope I achieved my goal tonight with my deconstructed pie!

Deconstructing food is a really popular way of plating meals at the moment! I like trends, so decided to give it a go...

ALSO please forgive me... I am VERY new to this and keep forgetting to action shots along the way while I am cooking. I PROMISE I will get better :)

"PIE FILLING" AKA THE MEAT

Ingredients

Just double the ingredients if you need to feed more! This amount would feed roughly three!

500g of Gravy Beef (yep the cheapest cut of beef you can find is perfect)

1 Onion

2-3 Cloves of Garlic (or teaspoons if using jar garlic)

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 cubes of beef stock

1 cup of water

Few sprigs of rosemary

Sprig of Thyme (sprig... such a funny word)

Goooood pinch of salt

oil for sauteing (I used coconut oil but olive would be fine), about a tablespoon

Feel free to chuck in any other herbs or spices that take your fancy, perhaps a chilli, although what is described gives a really hearty delicious flavour.

Method

1. Dice your onion, and finally chop or grate your garlic.

2. Cut your meat into cubes or slices, whatever shape and size you prefer, really whatever takes your fancy.

3. Heat your oil in a saucepan at medium heat, once hot put in your onion and garlic and cook until soft then put in your meat to brown.

4. Boil the kettle and pour 250ml into a jug or glass and put in your two beef stock cubes.

5.Once the meat is brown, tip beef stock, tomato paste and your herbs in with the beef, and give it a really good stir.

6. Turn heat to low and let simmer with a lid on for up to an hour, stirring occasionally.

THE PASTRY

See Here...

Get your meat cooking before you start the pastry if you are short of time, or if you start cooking earlier in the day, you can make the pastry early and leave in the fridge to rest.

Once rolled out to about half a centimetre cut into rectangles, I cut 4 but I had halved the recipe. Use all the dough, as you can cook and store in an airtight container. Keep your edges nice and straight (simply for appearances). Place on a tray and put in the oven at 180 degrees and cook until slightly puffed and golden (will take around 30 minutes but keep a good eye on them)

THE CARROTS

I used whole carrots peeled and chopped in half. Put in a roasting dish with oil (coconut or olive) pop on some mixed herbs and here is a SECRET ingredient... maple syrup :O yep it's DELICIOUS! You could of course sprinkle some brown sugar over the top to get the same tasty effect.

Pop in the oven at around 180 degrees for 30 mins or until roasted.

PEA PUREE

1 cup of Peas, steamed

1 Tablespoon of coconut cream

Dollop of Mint (if using tubed herbs, or about a tablespoon if using fresh)

Pop all ingredients in a blender and whiz up until smooth

Plate up however your heart desires. I am really focusing on my plating to take super nice photos for my Instagram page (subtle hint, follow me @Reekarabbit) It did look better in person than it does here... I can only improve... right!?!

Stuff it in your face hole like Simon did! He literally licked the bowl clean haha!!

Happy Cooking! (From scratch)

Erica xxx