Comforting beef casserole with mashed potatoes
Posted: 22 January '10 by Ciara
I am really excited about this new recipe. I tried it for the first time this evening and we all loved it. It is packed with flavour and was the perfect thing to eat on a cold snowy evening. Sophie has been quite run down recently, so i am a bit paranoid that she should be getting as much goodness into her as possible, and i was delighted that she loved this.
Please note that I cut my vegetables quite small and also the carrots were grated quite finely too as Sophie doesn’t really like a lot of lumps in her food, so feel free to cut up your veggies to your own liking.
The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s “Nigella Feasts” programme.
Serves 5
You can see more photos here.
Ingredients
Ingredients: Beef Casserole
- 3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 onion
- 2 carrots sliced or grated
- 2 celery stalks sliced thinly or 1 inch thick
- 3 cloves of garlic grated
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 2lbs of beef fillet stewing meat
- 1/4 cup flour
- salt & pepper
- 1/2 cup red wine or beef stock (i obviously used beef stock for Sophie)
- 1 large can whole plum tomatoes (i also blend these for Cor, who hates lumps of tomatoes in his food)
- peel of half an orange
Ingredients: Mashed Potatoes
- 6 maris piper potatoes
- 4 knobs of butter
- 30ml full fat milk
Method
Method: Beef Casserole
- Heat oil and over a medium heat fry onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaves and thyme for 5-10 minutes until onion turns translucent. Remove veggies to a bowl leaving as much oil in the pot as you can.
- Meanwhile, place flour and salt and pepper in a plastic bag along with meat. Shake until meat is coated. Place into the pot which you have just removed veggies from and cook until pieces are well browned.
- When this is done add the wine or beef stock then add veggies, tomatoes and orange peel.
- Bring to a simmer and then reduce to a low and cook for 3 hours. Remove bay leaves, thyme sprigs and orange peel and serve with mashed potatoes.
Method: Mashed potatoes
- Boil potatoes for 20-25 minutes
- Drain and mash
- Meanwhile heat butter and milk together
- Add slowly to potatoes continuously mashing
Enjoy!
Categories: Beef > English Food > Featured Post > Main Course > Recipes
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Brownies with white chocolate buttons
Posted: 28 October '09 by Ciara
Brownies with white chocolate buttons
I was “surfing the net” a few weeks ago looking for a brownie recipe and came across a Nigella Lawson one. I have to confess, it was the first time that I have ever tried one of her recipes and I can tell you I was delighted with the results. These have to be the nicest brownies I have tasted. The gooey centre is to die for! I tried them firstly, for myself, Cor and Sophie and must admit I ate the majority of them.
The second time I made them was at the weekend just past, for my family in Belfast and they absolutely loved them. This time round, I added more chocolate buttons. You’d swear they’d never seen chocolate the way they went on about them.
You can see more photos hereImage 1
Ingredients:
- 375g dark chocolate - I use Green & Blacks as they are made with 70% cocoa solids
- 375g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 6 eggs
- 350g caster sugar
- 225g plain flour
- 250g white chocolate buttons
- brownie tin
Method:
- Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4/350F
- Line brownie tin base and sides
- Melt butter and chocolate together in a bowl over a pot of boiling water
- In another bowl, beat eggs with sugar and vanilla extract
- Sift the flour into another bowl with salt
- When chocolate mixture has melted let it cool before beating in the eggs and sugar, then the flour
- Fold in white chocolate buttons, then beat slightly and scrape unto brownie tin
- Bake for 25 minutes until the top is dried to a paler brown and the centre is dark and gooey
Enjoy
Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Dessert Course > Featured Post > Recipes
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Food for Thought – Elevenses with Nigella Lawson
Posted: 29 September '09 by Niall
Nigella Lawson on Food for Thought - BBC iPlayer
There’s a short but interesting interview with Nigella Lawson on BBC’s iPlayer at the minute, in which Nigella talks about her early experiences of food – as a chamber maid in Italy, whisking white sauces for her mother and making veal stew and rabbit with prunes on a teenage visit to France.
She also touches upon her childhood, and the transition from being a reluctant eater to a passionate cook with a healthy appetite.
In the “Food For Thought” series Nina Myskow talks to various celebrities and discovers how attitudes to food affects their lives.
Details:
- Broadcast on: BBC Radio 4, 2:45pm Sunday 27th September 2009
- Duration: 15 minutes
- Available until: 3:02pm Sunday 4th October 2009
- Find it at: Nigella Lawson on Food For Thought
Categories: On TV and Radio
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Hazelnut Biscuits – The X-Factor Substitute
Posted: 29 September '09 by Niall
Hazelnut biscuits
With Kelly glued to another episode of X-Factor on Sunday evening (with so much crying going on, the contestants must be in serious danger of de-hydration), I was at a bit of a loose end. Looking through the cupboard I saw that we had plenty of stuff for doing some baking – and with a little help from Nigella Lawson I came up with Hazelnut Biscuits.
The only down-side is that they really don’t take too long to make – you’re looking at three batches to last an x-factor show..
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4
Ingredients
- 150g of hazelnuts
- 30g of icing sugar, and some more to dust the biscuits at the end
- 125g of soft butter
- 90g of plain flour
- pinch of salt
Method
- Heat the oven to 175C
- Empty the hazelnuts into a frying pan, and heat over a low heat until the toasted hazelnuts give off a nice, nutty aroma – and before they start to burn!
- Blitz the nuts in a food processor until they are quite finely ground and looking like breadcrumbs
- Empty the food processor into a bowl
- Add the icing sugar to the food processor and blitz to remove any lumps – then add the flour, salt, and butter, pulsing until the ingredients are well mixed
- Add the hazelnuts and pulse – you’ll probably need to use a plastic spatula to ease the mixture from the edges and pulse again
- Line an oven dish with grease-proof paper
- Take a small amount of the mixture and roll in your hands until you have a smooth ball of dough about the size of a gobstopper
- Place the ball of dough onto the grease-proof paper and press down lightly so that the dough spreads into a flat disc
- Repeat this for the remaining dough
- Place in the oven for 15 minutes
- Remove the oven tray and leave to rest for a few minutes – the biscuits will be a little fragile – then take a spatula and ease the biscuits off the tray and onto a cooling rack
- When the biscuits have cooled, sieve some icing sugar oven the biscuits until they are well dusted
Other Information
We ate our biscuits with a drizzle of honey and dipped into Greek yoghurt – all I’ll say is that you should DEFINITELY give it a go!
Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Featured Post > Recipes
