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Monday 16 January 2012

Cooking away the January Blues

How horrid is the month of January.
Dark mornings.
Cold Afternoons.
Extra Cold nights.
Overweight from all the bingeing
Broke, From the christmas spending

All the broken promises you make about going to gym falling by the wayside by middle of them month.

And finally opening those presents you received from your friends and loved ones.

That is where i am going with this blog entry

For Christmas this year i got many items for the new flat. Crockery, recipe books, coffee machines and todays topic of subject, a slow cooker.

Have you ever used one? Nifty little items they are. I had the parents over recently and decided to use the slow cooker and use them as my guinea pigs.

What should i make, Well that morning i woke up and looked out the window. The winter weather was well and truly here, Only one thing i could make then, A nice Beef Stew.

Ill tell you something though. Slow cookers really emphasize on the slow word don't they. 8 hours of slow cooking and it was finally ready to serve and well worth the slow long stewing time. the meat melted in my mouth and the vegetables and the potatoes were so juicy yet not overcooked and were still al dente.

A highly recommended dish in this cold spell we are having. So simple to make you can out it on before you go to work and will be ready in time for dinner. Does it get simpler than that, As i for one after work can not always be bothered to make dinner.
Below is the recipe, if you decide to make it let me know how you get on and what you thought of it.





Ingredients

Serves6
  • 2 pints water boiled from a kettle
  • 1/2 a swede, cut into small chunks
  • 3 medium sized carrots, cut in chunks
  • 250g mushrooms 
  • 1 kg stewing meat
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 75g flour
  • Bunch Of Parsley
  • Bunch of Coriander
  • 3 Beef Stock Cubes
  • Splash Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 Bottle of ale
  • 3 medium potatoes
  • 1 leek
  • 1 celery
  1. Chop up the beef into 2 -3 cm cubes and cover in flour
  2. Pan fry the beef to brown it off whilst boiling the water
  3. Chop all the vegetables and put in the bottom of the slow cooker. All vegetable except the mushrooms that is.
  4. Add the potatoes which have been peeled and quartered.
  5. Now layer the Beef on top of that.
  6. Pour over the water and ale on hot heat temp and once it starts to simmer add the beef stock and worcester sauce. 
  7. Lower the heat and leave on low heat for about 7 hours.
  8. One hour before the end add mushrooms and rest of the flour to thicken the stew
  9. Serve with fresh, warm crusty bread





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