Monday, July 07, 2008
Ready, Steady, Wait
With colleagues dropping left and right to dreaded winter bugs, long days and eating badly on the run, yesterday I decided I needed some good food to see me through to the Sydney trip next week. In true bachelor cooking style, both of these dishes are easy prep and easy cooking.
24 Hour Casserole
I used:
500g diced beef
6 small potatoes
2 celery sticks
1 large carrot
1 small punnet of button mushrooms (about 250g I'd say)
2 cloves of garlic
2 small onions
250g / handful green beans
2 litres (8 cups) vegetable stock
1 cup (ish) cleanskin pinot noir
1 sprig of rosemary
1 slow cooker
Preparation:
Slice potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, garlic & onions.
Chunk celery, beans.
Cooking:
Pour vege stock and whatever red wine you haven't managed to finish off into the slow cooker.
Put everything else into the slow cooker.
Turn slow cooker on to Low.
Wait.
I let mine bubble away for 24 hours, but it's probably ready to go in 12. When I came home tonight there was still some liquid, but most had been soaked up by the vegies and meat and the flavour was so intense. It was awesome. I guess you could serve with rice or similar, but I just had a bowl of it by itself, and then another half bowl. More imaginative serving suggestions welcomed.
Smokey Soup
I used:
2 cans Big Red tomato soup.
Milk
1 200g pack Latina ricotta & spinach filled agnolotti (any non-meat-filled pasta would do)
100g prosciutto
Chopped basil and parsley
Preparation:
Boil water for pasta
Chop herbs
Slice prosciutto into strips
Open cans with ring-pull
Turn on stove top
Cooking:
Cook the pasta in one saucepan while heating the tomato soup in another. I whisked milk into the soup instead of the suggested half-milk, half-water combo.
Stir the prosciutto and chopped basil and parsley into the tomato soup.
When the pasta is done, ladel the pieces into the soup.
Turn the heat down and just keep stirring the soup for another 5 minutes or so to let the flavour of the prosciutto soak through everything.
Serve into bowls with a crusty bread roll on the side. I topped my bowl with shaved parmesan cheese.
Today the soup had an extra-smokey flavour from the prosciutto and was a great to have for lunch while watching the cold rain drizzle down outside.
Labels: Eat
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Well, don't forget to take your Olive Leaf Extract as a preventative measure ;)