"I love you loads, sugarplum" My wife said earlier. "And I love you tons." I replied. "What, no nickname for me?" She asked Sometimes I could swear that fatty is going deaf.
most baking trays have twelve slots, two are missing........where are the missing two, come on, own up.
Today, I added chopped tomatoes to my usual slow-cooker stew and left it cooking all day. The chopped tomatoes were the missing ingredient, it turns out and they've transformed the merely good to something out of this world. Fucking orgasmic
After attending a site survey in Kingston (Upon Thames...not Suicide city MK) I had a wonder around the shops. Looking at all the people going about their daily business I realised that the scene was like that in the star wars bar. I'm getting old.
LOL. It doesn't have a recipe, it's way too simple. The secret is in how slow you cook it and how starving you get from the delicious smells it emits towards the end. The fun part is working out which simple ingredient to add next. For instance, the addition of chopped mushrooms was a pivotal moment and today's addition of finely chopped tomato was a game-changer. The hard part will be replacing the Knorr stockpot with something home made. Incremental changes, one bit at a time. I'm considering adding a little bit of grilled bacon to the mix next but ... you know ... I'm scared
Good grief, there's nothing in it! Baby potatoes with skins on, halved Chopped carrot (top/tailed but not peeled) Whole small onion, chopped fairly finely Chopped stringless beans Sliced closed-cup mushrooms Chopped single salad tomato 200-300g diced lean stewing steak 1 Knorr Beef stockpot Minimal seasoning (salt, black pepper) No added water (my original and worst mistake early on - so don't add water) Cook for 10 hours at the slow-cooker's lowest setting. There's a few tricks to how you cook it up. Layers. Layer the spuds and carrots at the bottom. Next, the stringless beans, then the onion, then the steak, then the mushrooms and finally the tomatoes. Don't stir at this stage. Start all the ingredients off at the same time. Do not stir until about an hour before it's finished. By doing it this way, some of the mushrooms with have been desiccated somewhat (near the edges of the stew) whilst others in the centre will have retained some moisture. This helps the texture no end. The steak falls apart if you stare hard at it. The potatoes, beans and carrots retain some of their structure. The onion almost disappears and the tomato is just a hint of flavour. The whole thing feels so healthy it could cure a broken leg instantly. Simple flavours. I just need to sort out a replacement for the store-bought stockpot - and maybe try the bacon idea. It might work. I am thinking too about red wine but I'm not convinced - it might make for a decent flavour though. I might try different spuds at some point, to see how this affects the texture. Stupid simple recipe, just like me
It's one of these new-fangled stock cubes, like an Oxo Cube, only squishy. I was worried that the thing would just melt and over-flavour a small fraction of the stew but it just works, perfectly.
