Menu Monday

Something new and exciting happening for BEC is a collaboration with The Sewing Sisterhood

The Sewing Sisterhood (TSS) is a gorgeous group of women I'm proud to be a part of.  They are amazing, creative and inspiring women.  They all craft or sew, many have home based businesses based around their craftiness. I'm so lucky to have a few TSS creations in our home.

Each week I'll be sharing my meal plan here, and then featuring two recipes on The Sewing Sisterhood blog.

Sooo, this week begins with;

Thursday ~ Stroganoff made from half of last weeks Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings

Friday ~ Chinese takeaway

Saturday ~ Goulash

Sunday ~ Chilli Mussels with fresh crusty bread

Monday ~ Roast Pumpkin Pasta

Tuesday ~ Pan roasted chicken thigh with Skordalia

Wednesday ~ Date night

I'll be sharing the Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings and the Pan Roasted Chicken Thigh with Skordalia over at The Sewing Sisterhood blog.

If you love handmade you're going to love TSS!

Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings

I featured Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings here in my sample meal plan.  One of my lovely readers Lisa requested the recipe and here it is....

The dumplings are super easy to make and are a great alternative to mash.

The recipe sounds big because a half portion is used for another meal ~ Beef Stroganoff.  You could just freeze the other portion and use it later.

Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings
Prep 20 mins Cook 2hrs 10mins

2 tablespoons olive oil
1.5kg diced beef chuck steak
20g shortcut rindless bacon, halved lengthwise, cut into 1cm strips
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (I use minced garlic from the jar)
3 medium brown onions, quartered
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup bef stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
300g button mushrooms, halved

1. Heat half the oil in a large heavy-based, flameprof casserole dish over medium-high heat.  Cook beef in batches for 5 to 6 minutes or until browned.  Transfer to a bowl.

2. Reduce heat to medium.  Heat remaining oil in dish.  Add bacon and garlic.  Cook stiring for 5 minutes or until bacon is golden.

3. Return beef and juices to dish.  Add onion and wine.  Bring to the boil.  Add stock and paste.  Bring to the boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Simmer, covered for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Reserve half the beef for Beef Stroganoff.

4. Add mushrooms, cook covered for a further 15 minutes or until meat and mushrooms are tender.  Season with salt and pepper.


Chive dumplings

1 cup self raising flour
50g butter, softened
2 teaspoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup buttermilk (I use regular milk)

Place flour in a bowl.  Using fingertips, rub butter into flour until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Make a well in the centre of mixture.  Add chives, parsley and buttermilk.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir until just combined.  Place heaped tablespoons of mixture 2cm apart onto beef mixture.  Cook covered for a further 15 minutes or until dumplings are puffed and cooked through.  Enjoy!

Sample Meal Plan

This weeks meal plan is super simple with yummy tummy warming recipes.

We tend to either slow cook or use the pressure cooker during winter.  The pressure cooker is perfect for when we've been out and about and don't have a huge amount of time for slow cooking.  Both mean we can use cheaper cuts of meat like chuck steak or gravy beef.

The beef bourguignon is brilliant as half the mixture forms the basis for the beef stroganoff in next weeks meal plan..win/win

So on with the plan;

Thursday ~ Scotch Fillet with Chilli Chips

Friday ~ Red Curry Pork

Saturday ~ Irish Stew

Sunday ~ Balti Chicken

Monday ~ Rogan Josh

Tuesday ~ Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings

Wednesday ~ Date/Trivia Night

I couldn't find the recipe online so this was a recipe I've used before.  If you're interested in the Beef Bourguignon with Chive Dumplings recipe it's in the July issue of Super Food Ideas. 

I'd be happy to share any of the recipes, just leave a comment below letting me know which one you'd like.

xx Bec

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup and Pea & Ham soup are Winter staples in our home.  Yesterday was supposed to be shopping day but I wanted to do some work around the house so we had a Happy Home Day instead.  Which meant finding something quick and easy for tea.  This was so easy and super yummy and seriously inexpensive so I thought I'd share, perfect for the arrival of Winter.

Thai Pumpkin Soup

I just googled for a recipe and thanks to allrecipes.com.au I found this...

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 10g butter
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 4 brown shallots, chopped
• 2 small fresh red Thai chilli, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped lemongrass
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
• 4 cups peeled and diced pumpkin
• 1 cup fresh baby basil leaves

Preparation method

Prep: 15 minutes | Cook: 20 minutes

1.

Heat oil and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook garlic, shallots, chilli and lemongrass for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir in chicken stock, coconut milk and pumpkin; bring to the boil. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes or until pumpkin softens.

2.

Blend the soup in a blender or food processor, in batches, until smooth.Reheat in saucepan. Serve sprinkled with basil leaves.

Lemongrass is available fresh or already chopped in a jar.  We are lucky enough that it grows in our herb patch along with the chilli's.  The coconut milk added a yummy flavour.  I'm not a fan of basil although we have copious amounts of both the regular and Thai basil, so I used the coriander we have growing.

I usually serve in bread bowls but I found some dinner rolls in the freezer and used those.

I also didn't use a blender, I just let it cook until it was super soft and used the potato masher instead..less washing up



Why I Menu Plan Part Two

So in part one of Why I Menu Plan I shared why and how I menu plan.  In this part I thought I would 'deconstruct' this weeks menu and show that it really is simple food.  As much as I like love food, I want it fast, fresh and simple.

This weeks menu, I plan Thursday to Wednesday;

Thursday ~ Steak with chilli chips and cafe de Paris butter
aka Steak and chips :-) The butter was a one off roll of flavoured butter hubby made a little while ago and froze.  We just take slices as we want.

Friday ~ Moroccan lamb, roast vegies and pearl couscous
aka a freezer raid! Just leftovers from two different meals and it was the best!

I LOVE pearl couscous, it has a really gentle texture and Matilda loves it too which is great.  We have it as a side dish with no flavouring, we have it full of flavour - think Moroccan spices, sultanas, apricots, or just soaking up the sauces of the dish.

Saturday ~ fresh pasta with prawns and tomatoes
Recipe & image



Sunday ~ Keith Floyd's Rogan Josh
Keith had a special place in our hearts, having watched his shows and remembering his ads in the 70's (I'm sure it was Continental Cup a Soup) He was always known for cooking and presenting with a glass of wine firmly in his hand. We met him on our honeymoon in Phuket where he had a restaurant at our hotel.  His reputation proceeded him and he was known to be a chain smoking, cranky, wine loving man.  We mentioned we had just been watching his channel in the hotel to which he replied that he'd asked them to turn it off in his room because he didn't want to 'friggin' (obviously not his word) watch himself!  
Anyways I digress, this recipe isn't expensive as we use mutton and throw the whole thing in the pressure cooker.

Monday ~ Chicken, chorizo and potato pie
This is so simple it's not funny! The filling is used to make two pies to feed 6. I made the filling and froze half last week. Add some roast pumpkin and tada, simple.  It is really just four ingredients.  Chicken x 2 fillets, Chorizo sausage x 1, Creamy delight potatoes and a leek.  Oh and 1 sheet of puff pastry.  It is meant to look rustic...

  Their version....

My version...

Oh and the chorizo is supposed to be 'crispy' hahaha

Tuesday ~ Sweet leek risonni with roast tomatoes and oregano

Again, sounds gourmet but really simple.  Risonni is another pasta that I love, it's like a cross between rice and pasta and again not a lot of ingredients and all cooked in two pots.  Even with a dishwasher you gotta love that!

Wednesday ~ Date night

So there you go, while it all looks and sounds labour and $$ intensive, they really aren't.

My final part in this 'series' will be how to make shopping easy, fast and less stressful.

xx Bec







Why I menu plan

Do you dread the "what's for dinner" or "what do you feel like for tea" questions?  I did! I'd ask hubby what he felt like, he'd reply with "he didn't know, what did you feel like?"  Grrrr and then you realise you didn't get anything out of the freezer for that night. 

Enter menu planning.  I've being doing it now for four years and wouldn't change a thing!  I love knowing what we're having & I know what meat I have to get out of the freezer that morning.

It did take a bit of getting used to at first.  And there are some days when I don't feel like what's on the menu for that night and on occasion I'll swap meals around.  That's the beauty of it, it doesn't have to be set in stone.  If we go out on a night we've planned for, I'll simply move that meal to the next day.

I find menu planning does a few things for us ~ there is no waste, just leftovers.  I buy exactly what we need for that recipe.  There's no real impulse purchases, don't get me wrong, treats definitely make it into our trolley and help me if I go shopping hungry!! And the best part ~ it saves my sanity and saves us money.

So what do I do?

I sit down (most times at the local coffee shop ~ two birds with one stone) with the latest food magazines, flick through them checking out the pictures and deciding what looks yummy.  I then look at the recipe, see what we have in the cupboard already and add the items we don't have to the shopping list.  Easy! 

Our menu might look fancy but really I am lazy and if it has too many ingredients I'm not interested haha.  Hubby on the other hand enjoys cooking and puts on music or the food channel, has a glass of wine and will make sauces, pastes etc from scratch (yes I'm lucky he enjoys cooking)  He cooks Friday to Sunday nights.  We have date night every Wednesday.

Now Miss Matilda does eat most things we make, and what is too spicy etc we'll just make her a separate meal from staples we already have in the cupboard.  But really she eats cous cous & loves the Moroccan food Daddy cooks.

Here's one of our recent recipes

This one was crazy easy.  I had found pumpkin and sage ravioli at Coles for $2 a bag so I bought a heap to freeze.  I googled looking for a sauce, and found a really simple creamy truffle sauce and et voila!  Yummo

In part 2 of this post I'll share our latest menu plan and the recipes we'll use.

xx Bec

Hubby's Birthday

Today is my crazy. annoying wonderful husbands 43rd birthday and last night I invited our family over for a birthday dinner and also a pre-Easter catch up.  We generally have an early catch up if family members are away at Easter or Christmas.  In this case it's his Mum who is heading to Bali for Easter.

So I cooked spaghetti bolognaise for 8 adults and 5 kids.  Now I'm not a fan of 'spag bol' because I just don't love the tomato-y flavour.  But I have found a really yummy recipe, we do omit the livers, actuallly I omit the chicken livers but if hubby is cooking he'll add them according to the recipe. 

We are lucky enough that our herb garden is going crazy so the bay leaves, thyme, oregano and parsley in the recipe garden were super fresh.

Here is the recipe; it's from the delightful Maggie Beer, we love watching old episodes of The Cook and the Chef.

Maggie Beer's Spaghetti Bolognaise (image from Maggie's recipe)



I also picked up a really yummy cake and we shared Easter eggs for desert.

Happy Birthday Habibi, we love you xx