A Scot Living in Switzerland Writing About Food and Life in General
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This Nigel Slater recipe came from his show called a Taste of My Life.
I’ve been looking for a more authentic recipe to try and since my son adores pasta I thought this would be ideal for a nice relaxing family meal.
I was right, clean plates all round! It was delicious, rich and filling, perfect!
It’s wonderful to be back in the world of blogging!! My first recipe is a nice and simple affair.
This recipe was featured on BBC2′s show Something For The Weekend by Simon Rimmer and was first broadcast on Sunday 8th June.
New Years Eve or Hogmanay as it’s known in Scotland is bursting with traditions such as the customary “First Foot”. As the clock strikes midnight there is a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne and then comes the “First Food”. “The “first foot” is the first person to cross the threshold into a house after the chimes of midnight. Usually the “first foot” brings gifts of salt, coal, bread or shortbread and whiskey and if it’s a tall dark stranger then that’s good luck. ”
I always loved New Years Eve when I was growing up in Scotland, it was so exciting as a child going out to visit family in the middle of the night!
On New Years Day every year we’d go to my grandmother’s house and tuck into a big hearty plate of steak pie without it New Years Day just isn’t the same. In accordance with this I decided to make a steak pie for us to enjoy this year on New Years Day, this is my recipe..
This morning I told Stewart that if he picked a recipe from any of my cookbooks which could utilize the pack of beef stewing steak and another which used the minced beef which I had in the fridge then I would happily make one for tonight and the other for tomorrow night’s dinners. After flicking through a couple of books I was presented once again with my copy of Cook With Jamie as Stewart really liked the look and sound of the recipe for The Best Stew With Potato and Rocket Pasta Cushions. I read through the recipe to find that we had almost all the ingredients in the fridge but I since the potato and rocket past cushions are a little too high in carbs to be diabetes friendly, I have decided to just concentrate on making the stew and serve something else as my side dish.
Check back tomorrow to see what I made using the minced beef.
In the meantime here is The Best Stew….
The doctor had referred me for a massage on Monday to help my back but it feels worse today than it did before. I was hoping to feel the benefit by now but instead I’m just having pangs of pain in one of my nerves. Good news is that I went to the Diabetes clinic on Tuesday and my blood sugar is well under control so the food plan is working!! I can’t tell you what a relief that is!
Anyway, back to food related matters….
After digging out my copy of “Cook with Jamie” the other night I’m on a roll and have decided to test drive another recipe. We both liked the chicken wrapped in pancetta the other night and as I’ve already said it’s about time I started to ensure that our freezer was was well stocked with homemade dishes. The bottom drawer of the deep freeze was still quite full of meat prime for making some casseroles etc and today when I looked I found a couple of packs of minced beef. Perfect!!
Whenever I buy minced beef I always make sure it contains no more than 5% fat otherwise I buy rump steak and ask the butcher to mince it for me. There is nothing worse than coming across a UFO (unidentified foreign object) in your mince after you have slaved away all day making a culinary masterpiece, it’s been my experience that the very lean minced beef has a much lower chance of containing anything nasty since you a pay a premium price.
I’m a bit predictable when it comes to recipes using minced beef, generally I make one of three things:
b) Meatballs (a recipe based upon one from Natalie which I think in turn was based on an Antonio Carluccio recipe)
c) Traditional Scottish mince and tatties
Instead of following my usual meatball recipe I thought it would be nice to give Jamie’s recipe a try.
Jamie’s original recipe was called Pappardelle With A Ragu Of Tiny Meatballs and he gave the recipe for making the pasta but I’m not bothering making fresh pasta.
The last time we visited one of the local food markets I picked up some hot Hungarian paprika and I’ve been really looking forward to sampling it.
My back has been acting up this week and the doctor has advised me to get lots of rest so I wanted a recipe which would require me to be on my feet for as little as possible. Mindful of this I turned to Google, read through a ton of recipes and after getting a good idea about which ingredients go into a goulasch and thought I’d give my own version a try and throw it into the slow cooker/crock pot.
If there is anything left over after we’ve dished up this evening then I’m planning on popping it into the freezer as I really need to start stocking up for when the baby comes.
Every so often I have a real craving for steak, this weekend I decided to indulge myself.
A few years ago I came across a recipe for a creamy peppercorn sauce, from Anthony Worrall Thomson. I wrote it down and stuck it inside one of my cookbooks. This sauce is great with steak, grilled chicken or even sausages.
The recipe I have included below is based on AWT’s original but I have made a few changes.
The dark nights have signalled the beginning of Autumn in earnest and as if by magic this also seems to have heralded a complete change in the weather. The temperatures have dropped and for me this means one thing… Stews and casseroles.
This dish is a perfect wintery warmer!
I don’t often make this sauce, normally if I have a hankering for meat, pasta & tomatoes then I usually make meatballs. Today however I decided that instead of making meatballs that I would make some meat ragu for a change.
UPDATE 22 AUGUST : As Meeta quite rightly pointed out Italy is the most wonderful destination for a holiday and the two dishes which have a special place in my heart from Italy are pizza and Lasagna.
With that in mind I have decided therefore that it is fitting to make this my submission for Meeta’s Monthly Mingle#4 since the theme is “Holiday Cuisine“.
Firstly I would like to thank Ivonne from Creampuffs In Venice for sharing her mum’s wicked lasagne recipe, unlike Ivonne I left the meat in but next time I think I would take it out (and maybe use homemade pasta, I used store bought fresh lasagne sheets as we were going out last night and I had no time to make it fresh).
My lasagna wasn’t very photogenic but it did taste wonderful!!
After reading through Ivonne’s recipe I realized that in order to make a delicious lasagna you didn’t need to faff around making a bechemel sauce (this is what has always put me off, plus Stewart really dislikes bechemel sauce so normally doesn’t eat lasagna).
Here is my try at a simple lasagna recipe. Enjoy!
