what kinds of veg do you have, in the 'assorted fresh and frozen'? What about roasting the meat with the veg around it to give it flavour and glazing with a reduced red wine glaze?
Ooooor, you could make a stew by cutting up the meat and braising it in a gravy flavoured with finely diced shallot and garlic (to make the shallot got further with flavour) and make non-suet dumplings to cook in the stew (I'm assuming you don't have suet at all). A variation could be to do a ratatouille stew the way my mum does it: take a tin of tomatoes and a chopped shallot and chopped clove of garlic and toss in a pan, cook together until melded together, add in various chopped veg (par-boiled if they're root veg) and cook until slightly softened then add meat that's been seared to colour. It tastes gorgeous and homey and you don't need specific veg, just whatever's lying around. Mum makes it every month or so to completely clear out the veg baskets and it's never the same twice.
Well, pretty much any of those frozen ones, apart from the corn, beans and asparagus, will easily just go into a stew frozen, they cook in the gravy, so you don't need to worry about precooking them, and chopping fresh tomatoes into the stew about 15-20 mins before you're ready to serve it tastes lovely, it adds a freshness and texture to it. They cook down just enough to meld with the other flavours, but they also five their own difference to it.
The frozen veg would be best being added about half an hour before you're ready to take the stew out, but if you wanted to use the fresh carrots, they should be put in right at the beginning. Dumplings should be added at roughly the same time as the frozen veg.
Can I just point out that you shouldn't thaw meat on your cutting board / counter? Its really not safe. If you want to thaw it fast, put it in a sink of cold water that just barely running. It'll thaw really fast and keep it cold enough that you won't grow any icky bacteria that you don't want.
I second that concern (re: thawing on the cutting board). Yikes.
Lemme make a suggestion: put it in a ziplock bag (or if you have a foodsaver thingy that would be even better) and then put it in the cold water (in a pan of cold water with a slow stream of cold water displacing the water in the pan slowly). That bag will make sure your thawed food isn't waterlogged food.
Previous recipe ideas sound great.
Lemon, by the way, can do wonderful things to beef. :)
Um. I meant to say that if you use a ziplock back make sure to force all the air out of it before sealing it. So the beef doesn't just float on top of the water. That wouldn't help at ALL.
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Use a shallot inplace of onion. Do you have dreid shallots?
Or try http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_28386,00.html?rsrc=search
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Ooooor, you could make a stew by cutting up the meat and braising it in a gravy flavoured with finely diced shallot and garlic (to make the shallot got further with flavour) and make non-suet dumplings to cook in the stew (I'm assuming you don't have suet at all). A variation could be to do a ratatouille stew the way my mum does it: take a tin of tomatoes and a chopped shallot and chopped clove of garlic and toss in a pan, cook together until melded together, add in various chopped veg (par-boiled if they're root veg) and cook until slightly softened then add meat that's been seared to colour. It tastes gorgeous and homey and you don't need specific veg, just whatever's lying around. Mum makes it every month or so to completely clear out the veg baskets and it's never the same twice.
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frozen: cauliflower, broccoli, corn, peas, carrots, parsnip, beans, asparagus.
Oh, and actually I have lard, as well as Crisco. Dumplings sounds like a great idea!
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The frozen veg would be best being added about half an hour before you're ready to take the stew out, but if you wanted to use the fresh carrots, they should be put in right at the beginning. Dumplings should be added at roughly the same time as the frozen veg.
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Lemme make a suggestion: put it in a ziplock bag (or if you have a foodsaver thingy that would be even better) and then put it in the cold water (in a pan of cold water with a slow stream of cold water displacing the water in the pan slowly). That bag will make sure your thawed food isn't waterlogged food.
Previous recipe ideas sound great.
Lemon, by the way, can do wonderful things to beef. :)
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It's nice to know that great minds think a like, and that my fellow pornistas have my back! :-DD
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