Minced beef hash

When I was at uni I always said that if I were to write a cookbook it would be 101 ways with mince. At the start of each term, mum and I would go to the butchers and buy 2lb of minced beef which we'd portion up in freezer bags for me to use. I was lucky to go to university with slightly more than a working knowledge of the kitchen. Unlike one of my flatmates in the first year who genuinely survived on beans on toast - with beans and sausages on toast for highdays and holidays. No word of a lie. Every day.

Many of the recipes I use then, I still use now - with some tweaks thanks to either additional equipment (God bless the food processor) or my own changing tastes (no more dried garlic). One that I never made at university was minced beef hash - I actually made a tuna hash with red pepper which I keep threatening myself with revisiting.

I saw the origin of this recipe on a Jamie Oliver programme, and scrawled down the ingredients and a kind of method a couple of years ago. I've since then kept to the rough idea of it, but changed it up fairly significantly.

Minced beef hash - by me (with some help from Mr Oliver)
Serves 4

4-5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
500g minced beef
4 sticks celery
4 carrots
250g chestnut mushrooms
1 red onion
Worcestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
2 small baking potatoes (I work to half a potato per person I'm feeding and have been known to double this when money is tight and there are extra people around the table).
Olive oil

First off, use a food processor or knife to thinly slice the celery, carrots, mushrooms and onion and set aside
Now brown your mince in a little olive oil in a non stick pan
Add the thyme, rosemary and a good grind or 12 of pepper
Add the veggies and stir well so it's all mixed up
Add the Worcestershire sauce - about 6 tablespoons (you'll notice we've not added salt so far - this is why)
Now using the food processor or knife, thinly slice the potatoes - add these into your pan
Put a lid on and let it simmer for 30 minutes or until everything has cooked down

Now this can be served so many ways - it's already got potatoes so you don't need an extra carbohydrate, but it goes epically well with garlic bread. Or so I'm told. Ahem.

The other way I cook this is exactly the same, but instead of adding sliced potatoes - bake up a potato per person in the oven and then after an hour or so, remove the potato. Split in half and take out the cooked middle. Mix this with the cooked minced beef, and pile it back it, topped with grated cheese. Heat through for about 20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and crispy. Epic. The mince goes a lot further this way so this much ends up serving 8. 

 

Chilli con carne - slow cooker or oven

Another recipe that's ideal for leftover roast beef, just call me the leftovers Queen. Or something. You know I'm not fussy.

Chilli con carne is something I never used to really think about making - if I wanted something of that ilk I'd make my chorizo, pepper & cannelini bean chilli. However, something I've come to realise over the last 4-5 months is that iron is important, and no matter how much kale and other leafy green veg I eat, I do sometimes need the oomph of beef.

This is a fantastic recipe - pretty failsafe, as I've made it in both the slow cooker and the oven. For ease I generally wallop everything in the slow cooker and head off, paintbrush in hand, ready to tackle skirting boards, but if I want to knock it up a bit faster, then the oven is just as good.

In the past I've used ancho chillies - dried, smoky, yet slightly sweet chillis that I leave whole and let the cooking process impart their flavour, but today for ease I used the Gran Luchito chilli paste I've oft raved about of late. 

You could easily switch out the cooked beef for mince, or even for stewing steak. And I'm (unsurprisingly) not averse to bulking it out with carrots and celery grated or finely chopped to make it go further. Also, see lentils or oats.

Slow cooker chilli con carne

2 red onions very finely chopped
2 sticks of celery very finely chopped
2 large(ish) carrots very finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 ancho chilli/ heaped tsp of Gran Luchito chilli paste
1/2 tsp lazy chillis (or similar)
1 tsp ground cumin
Cinammon stick
500g beef (or reduce this down and up the veggies)
250g mushrooms, sliced
1 jar of sundried tomatoes, drained of oil and whizzed up in the processor to make a thick paste
2 tins chopped tomatoes
2 tins kidney beans, drained

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C
I pop the garlic, celery, carrots and onions in the food processor and blitz until finely chopped (mainly because I'm lazy - a knife would do just as well)
In an ovenproof pan, sweat off your veg and chilli in a little oil until the onions begin to go translucent, then add your cumin and continue to cook off.
Add the beef - if you're using leftover cooked beef that you've whizzed up, if it's mince, then add it in and brown it first.
Add the mushrooms, and whizzed up sundried tomatoes, stir again
Add in both tins of tomatoes - when emptied, fill one up with water and add that too (if you're doing this in the slow cooker you don't need the extra water)
Pop the cinammon stick in
Add both tins of drained kidney beans

Cook in the oven for an hour and a half.

If you're doing this in the slow cooker - I know I should brown the beef first if I'm using mince, but normally I add in all in fairly bleary eyed, before I go out to work and leave it on low until I get back.

This is a fairly low chilli version - but if you like heat then add more to your taste. 

We have it with steamed brown rice, grated cheese, avocado and greek yoghurt if I have some around. If I'm doing it for guests then I make flatbreads so that people can either dip or scoop up the chilli as they go.

This is amazing as leftovers - M particularly likes it, stuffed into tortillas with a handful of cheese and baked off in a low oven, a sort of naked enchilada if you will. Personally, there's a lot to be said for a big bowl of steamed greens with this lollopped on top on my knees whilst watching Revenge.

Meal Planning Monday: Begone January blues

I'm being a lazy blogger at the moment - as I'm sure you've noticed. It's not that I'm neglecting the blog. Far from it. I have several posts in draft that I keep coming back to, but nothing that's made me want to hit the publish button. I'm blaming it on the January blues, which means there's hope for this week as February is coming bounding over the horizon. 

I'm hoping that the snow going will help me to get remotivated with my running, as I've been a bit too afeard of breaking something to face the chill. No matter how pretty it is, I don't think my trainers would tackle the snow and ice lightly. Last night's rain seems to have put paid to the last lingering patches of slush and ice, so depending on when I get home today will warrant a run. 

M's working in Derby for a lot of this week, and I'm bounding around the country too. This makes for a dynamic week for us both and makes meal planning tricky. 

Breakfasts: I've actually got into eggs over the last couple of weeks, in place of my usual porridge. I'm finding that poached eggs on toast seems to keep me going for longer than porridge does. Which is odd as I always thought of porridge as the healthy choice.

Lunches: Last week's chicken got turned into a shredded chicken soup - so I'll be defrosting that, adding some rice noodles and shredded spring greens to make chicken noodle soup. 

Dinners: This is where this week gets tricky - who's going to be home at any one point in time? Who knows?

Sunday: Sausage pasta bake (this one, that I should have made last week!) 

Monday: Leftovers

Tuesday: Minced beef hash (but with pork mince as that's what I've got in the freezer)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Working away, so I will treat myself as I do each month, to a meal from the little Chinese restaurant that's close to the B&B I use for work. It does a fixed price menu but with tapas sized dishes so I can pick a few things without feeling piggy. Although the sugar content is probably sky high!

Friday: We're off to Guide holiday - Harry Potter here we come! We're deciding the menu tomorrow, so I'll do a midweek Harry Potter post and then follow up with a picture post after the weekend. 

I'll try to remember to link up this week - but be sure to pop on over to At home with Mrs M to see what everyone's up to. 

Come over for dinner. There's plenty to eat! Chilli con carne

When talking about blogging people always say you should find your niche. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure what mine is, if I even have one that is. (M's input on this was to suggest that I was jumping the gun and it might be a nephew. NICHE!) However, when I look at how people find me, it's often with "how do I?" searches, and some of my more popular posts are the comfort, family food. It's logical really, it's the food I eat the most, and am most passionate about, because it's where anyone with any level of confidence in their cooking abilities can make a difference to their health and wellbeing with a few,small, easy changes. Moving from sugar and preservative laden jarred sauces to making your own, fresh, unprocessed meals is the biggest difference anyone can make to their diet. I'm not talking about weight loss here, but how you feel - not craving sweets all the time, feeling gently full, healthier skin and brighter eyes, from making that switch.

And with that - here is the Pantry version of how to cook Chilli con carne. Freezes beautifully. Works really well in the slow cooker - I just whack everything in before work, leave it on low and eat that night. Also, eats really well a day or so after making - so I made this on Friday night after work, and we had it today. The flavours have really developed and it was lovely.

This goes well with red wine, if you're having people over. If you want to be a bit more fancy and foodie about it, I picked up some dried anjo chillies at the Newbury show last year. I chop one with everything else in the food processor, and add one in whole to the chilli just before it goes in the oven. After cooking I take that one out, but if you're feeding someone that likes a bit of heat - pop it on their plate!

Penelope's Pantry does Chilli con carne

1 glug olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped
500g (or so) of minced beef
1 red chilli
1 teaspoon cumin (powder or seeds - if using seeds, crush first)
1 stick cinammon (or a pinch of dried if you've run out. Not that that happens here. Oh no *shifty eyes*)
1 teaspoon of chilli powder/ dried chilli
2 tins tomatoes
2 tins red kidney beans
About 100g of tomato paste (you can make your own by blitzing sundried tomatoes) or buy it. Either way.

Preheat oven to Gas mark 3/ 150 degrees
Either chop, or food process the onions, garlic and red chilli (if I'm being fancy/ organised and using home made tomato paste, I add the tomatoes into the food processor and blitz it all together)
Add to an ovenproof pan (with a lid) over a low heat on the hob, cook until the onions are starting to colour
Add your spices; cumin, dried chilli/ chilli powder
Add minced beef and cook, stirring regularly until browned
Add both tins of tomatoes - rinse them out with water and add that
Drain both tins of kidney beans in a colander
If you're using one, add the cinammon stick now
Add those, stir in
Put on the lid, and put in the oven for a couple of hours
Voila! - this easily makes 4-6 adult portions, I normally serve 4 and freeze the rest.


I've served this with cornbread or brown basmati rice, in tortillas, in tacos, with cheese on from a bowl on my lap. Anyway that suits me at the time.

Moving too fast? Slow down

The Last Five Years is one of the first more modern musicals that I grew to love. Jason Robert Brown's music caught my attention immediately, and having not seen it onstage until a few years back, had to ask my friend Claire to put the songs into narrative order for me. Whilst not the prompt for this post, I've embedded Colleen Ballinger singing Summer in Ohio below, just because it's one of my favourite songs and never fails to raise a smile, no matter how miserable the day.

Now where was I? Slowing down. The sheer length of this year's winter. Has it seriously not been the longest ever winter in the history of the world? The sheer length of this year's winter has meant that I feel like I've been eating casseroles for ever. Although at least twice a week I have a tendency to have to skip dinner as I just can't eat after Guides and Brownies - it's too late and I'm too shattered to start cooking. Certainly anything nutritous. I'm quite good at marmite on toast.

Just after Christmas, fuelled by decongestants and paracetamol I bought a slow cooker as my boyfriend wasn't having any of this toast and marmite for dinner business. What we took to doing was putting a casserole or similar in the cooker the night before and then switching it on low as we went out of the door in the morning.

I just thought I'd post about something simple and cheap I've been cooking at least every couple of weeks as Mark likes it, it's dead simple and the flavour improves if you eat it the next day.

Slow cooker Spag Bol

1 onion
2 cloves garlic
4 carrots
350g lean minced beef
1 tin tomatoes
Red wine (fill the tin of tomatoes up with wine)
Tomato puree
250g mushrooms (I say this as a quantity but only because I use half a packet of mushrooms when I cook it)
Oregano
a bay leaf

Spaghetti
Parmesan cheese

Now I have to own up, I might be able to do the chef style onion chopping, but for this and the casseroles I've been cooking, I throw that, the garlic, the peeled carrots and mushrooms in the food processor and blitz them until they're all finely chopped. This all goes straight into the slow cooker. As do the tinned tomatoes, wine, a big blob (such a technical term!) of tomato puree, and of course the mince. I then give everything a stir and switch it on in the morning.

When I get in from Brownies or Guides all we do is cook the pasta in salted boiling water and grate some parmesan (some, when in conjunction with cheese, means lots in my book). Serve in a bowl in front of that week's episode of Glee cwtched up.