Archive for the ‘Freezer Friendly’ Category

Slow cooker Ox tail stew with red wine

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

This simple recipe is a good one if you’re cold, in need of comfort on a tight budget and have plenty of time.

Serves 4.

Searing the tail with galic and onion

Ingredients

  • 1 carrot cubed
  • 1 onion chopped coarsely
  • 2 potatoes cubed
  • 1/2 capsicum chopped coarsely
  • 2 field mushrooms chopped coarsely
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped finely
  • 1 kg ox tail with excess fat trimmed.
  • 200ml beef stock
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 1/4 cup parsley chopped for garnish

Assorted vegies

Method

Pat the tail portions dry and sear along with onion and garlic.Searing destroys harmful bacteria which can flourish at the lower temperature of slow cooking.

Add all solid ingredients to the slow cooker ensuring the volume of liquid is just over half full as the vegetables will release more liquid whilst cooking.

Cover and depending on how much time you have until dinner choose low (7-8hrs), medium (5-6hrs) or high (3-4hrs). Check with your slow cooker instructions for specifics, or, if you’re like me, wing it.

Before serving, skim off the fat from the surface and serve with mashed potatoes.

Ox tail stew

Voila! Ox tail stew

Alternate method

If you’re short on time but rich in ox tail, you can always use the oven instead. Bake at 180 degrees for 1½ – 2hrs or until the meat falls away from the bone.

Secret Hint

In Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery by Margaret Fulton (Australia’s Julia Child), is the hint that if you cook the oxtail the day before and refrigerate over night, the fat is easier to remove (presumably as it is solid) and delivers an improved flavour. I can always vouch for leftovers tasting better.

Hmmm.. I wonder if we can apply the same methodology to pizza. That always tastes better the day after.

Slow cooking

Slow cooking with good wine. Oh yeah!

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Bolognese Sauce

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

This is the Bolognese sauce recipe my Mum taught me. I distinctly remember her serving it on wholemeal spaghetti when I was young. I loved it so much that she went so far as to send this recipe to me when I was living in London.

I tend to whip this sauce up on a Sunday afternoon for freezing, but, of course, it’s best eaten straight away on the pasta of your choice, in a lasagne or for the more open-minded, on rice. Yum!

In the photos above I used extra onion as they were about to turn. Like all recipes on this site, please adjust the quantity of the listed ingredients to your taste and available ingredients.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil.
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
3 rashers un-smoked bacon
A couple celery stalks, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
1.5 cups chopped mushrooms
300g beef mince (more or less to taste)
4 tbsp tomato paste
~1 glass of red wine
Tinned or skinned and chopped tomatoes
~1 cup beef stock
2 tbps brown sugar
ground nutmeg

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a largish saucepan and add the Onion, garlinc, chopped bacon, celery, carrot and mushrooms.
  2. Fry till onion is brown.
  3. Add the beef and stir with a fork to ensure it’s all properly broken up.
  4. Whack in everything else and bring it all to the boil whilst gently stirring.
  5. Lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes.

I tend to leave the lid on the pot for a while and, depending on what saucy consistency I want, remove it to allow excess water to evaporate.

This sauce freezes really well, however be sure to get it out the morning of the day it’s required as it takes ages to defrost.

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Cheap Quiche with Homemade Base

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

Cheap Quiche with Homemade Base
(serves 6-8)

You can use up the scrap vegies left in the back of the fridge at the end of the week in a quiche.  This is so simple and freezes really well, so just bake a massive quiche and enjoy it throughout the week for an easy work lunch.

We don’t even own a quiche dish.  I just use an oven safe 28cm non stick frying pan and it gives us 8 very generous servings.

Ingredients

Crust
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup cold water
approx. 200g self raising flour
salt

Filling
Leftover vegies – I used mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, kumara and onions.  Microwave the kumara covered with water for 3-4 minutes before putting into quiche.
Leftover meats – bacon is great.  You can also do mince and chopped up steak just make sure you cook it first.
5-6 eggs
Grated cheese

Method

  1. Pre heat oven to 200°C.
  2. Mix olive oil and water to make a cloudy liquid.  Slowly add to flour in a bowl and knead to make a dry dough.  Add more liquid or flour as you go to adjust the moisture of dough. Dough should stay together but be a bit flaky.  It should be dry enough that it doesn’t stick to the kitchen bench.
  3. Season with some salt.
  4. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin. My pan is non-stick, so I don’t grease it.  You might want to grease your baking dish with butter if you’re using that. Place dough into quiche dish or frying pan to from the crust.
  5. Chop up your vegies and place on the crust.
  6. Add the meat.
  7. Mix the eggs in a separate bowl and pour into the baking dish, covering the vegies and meat.  Add more eggs if the fillings are not covered.
  8. Sprinkle some cheese on top.
  9. Bake in oven for about 35 minutes.
  10. Remove from oven and allow to settle before serving.

I love tomato sauce on quiche, that’s why I usually don’t season the filling.  Don’t season the filling if you’re using bacon or ham because they’re already quite salty.

To store, once cooled, just cut the quiche into single servings and wrap with cling wrap and pop it in the freezer.

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Chicken Schnitzel

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Chicken Schnitzel
(makes 4)

We don’t usually buy chicken breasts, because we find them too dry and chewy.  We like chicken thighs for their juicier, fatty texture and flavour.  Schnitzel though, is a nice way to enjoy chicken breasts.  Who knew this pub favourite was so easy to make!  This recipe is made extra yummy and simple by using breadcrumbs intended for tempura. Suitable to freeze, so a bit of your time and some crumbly mess, you can pull out a schnitzel from the freezer anytime; how good is that.

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
2 eggs
100g (approx) Panko breadcrumbs
Plain flour
Oil for frying

  1. Beat the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to get to about 8mm thickness.
  2. Ligtly season with salt and pepper.
  3. Beat eggs in a bowl.  Add a bit of water (1 – 2 tbsp) to make it runny.
  4. Set up 3 trays.  Left should have flour, middle tray with egg and tray on the right should have the breadcrumbs.
  5. A note on the breadcrumbs, we actually ran out of Panko the first time we did this.  So we simply put some stale brown bread through the food processor.  It turned out fine, but Panko is definitely worth getting to get a guaranteed crispy result.
  6. Take the breasts and dip in flour.  Make sure you dust off any excess.
  7. Dip in egg, followed by breadcrumbs.  Cover generously with breadcrumbs.  You can wrap in plastic and store in the freezer at this stage.
  8. Shallow fry in oil.  Oil should be on a medium heat.  Throw some breadcrumbs into the oil and if it sizzles straightaway, the oil is ready for your chicken.
  9. Cook until crispy.  This take a lot longer than you would think.  Be patient, the chicken has to cook remember, and wait for schnitzel to be golden brown.
  10. Drain on some paper towels.

We served it with some mashed potatoes with broad beans and green peas through it.

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