Thai Beef Salad

Hubby cooked steaks with roast vegetables for dinner on Saturday. To keep healthy, I cut up my steak and added to some greens, tomatoes, cucumber, sliced Spanish onion, fresh basil from the herb garden. Then I mixed the Nam jin dressing and added to the meat and salad.

Thai beef salad - easy, healthy and spicy!

Meatloaf

When we visited our friends in the Southern Highlands late last year, we were served this simple yet yummy meatloaf for lunch. It was served cold but still tasted very good. It's a great meal to make for children as you can hide vegies in the meatloaf.

500gm lean minced beef
1/2 onion, chopped
handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 carrot, grated
1 small zucchini, grated
2 tbsp tomato sauce
cracked pepper
salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 tbsp BBQ sauce

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a loaf pan with baking paper.
2. Place the mince, chopped onion and parsley, grated zucchini and carrot into a medium size bowl. Add the tomato sauce, pepper and salt, beaten egg and breadcrumbs. 
3. Using your clean hands, mix until well combined. 
4. Scope the mixture into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until firm to touch, remove from oven. Drain excess fat.
5. Spoon the BBQ sauce over the top of the meatloaf. Cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the top is glazed. Stand on tray for 5 minutes. 
6. Slice the meatloaf and serve with beans and mashed potatoes or any vegetables. 

Foonote: Adding the vegies makes the meatloaf moist and juicy. Another option is to top the meatloaf (from step 5) with mashed potato and cheese, then back into the oven for another 10-15 minutes until the cheese is brown. 

Toad in the Hole

Ever heard of this baked dish called 'Toad in the Hole'? Neither have I until two weeks ago when our friends Jim and Georgie made it for dinner on our 1st night at their farm.

It is a traditional English dish. Sausages are cooked in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy. No one knows where the unusual name originated from but there are suggestions that the sausages resemble a toad sticking its head out of a hole. Not sure I can see that from the dish. What do you think?

Nonetheless, it is a simple one dish dinner (hurray!) that children will love.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thai Beef Salad

Gradually over the last 12 months, I have been trying to reduce the amount of carbs I consume in my diet. So far, I have cut down on wheat carbs like pasta and bread. It was a challenge to cut down bread altogether as I love breads (more than rice), but I try to keep bread consumption to the weekends and will choose sourdough or rye breads. It was easy to take pasta out from my diet, but not so easy with rice. We have been eating basmati rice now for years and love the separate grains when cooked. I have not eliminated rice but have reduced the quantity that I eat. It has not been easy to make these changes; slowly it's becoming easier to choose the right options for me.

Tonight, we had steak for dinner and I turned mine into a Thai Beef Salad with Nam Jin dressing. It's easy to make the dressing:

lemon juice
fish sauce
soya sauce
sesame oil
brown sugar
chilli - chopped
garlic - chopped finely

Mix all the above together in a glass jar or bottle. Taste and drizzle over salad and steak.

For the salad, I put together salad leaves, cucumber, grape tomatoes and yellow capsicum (bell peppers). I will usually throw in sliced spanish onion as well, but I didn't have any so omitted it this time.

Simple yet fulfilling meal. I even had enough for lunch at work the next day.

It's not difficult to eat healthy, but there needs to be some planning involved to have the right ingredients in the pantry.

Vietnamese Pho (Beef Noodle)

One of my favourite soup noodles is Vietnamese Pho, especially on cold day. The clear beef broth and slippery rice noodles topped with beef balls and thinly sliced beef garnished with crunchy bean sprouts and thai basil definitely hits the spot to warm me up. Sydney has a Vietnamese precinct in Cabramatta which is too far from where I live. There are other Vietnamese enclaves too around Homebush and Flemington, about 30 minutes from my home. Too far for me to head to when I crave for a bowl of pho. The local Vietnamese is alright but it's always busy and crowded. What's a girl to do? Make my own.

Lorraine from NQN shared her recipe a few weeks ago. It didn't seem too difficult, time consuming maybe to make the broth but it is worth it. I left the bones to simmer on low heat to make the stock for about 3 hours. Then, I removed the bones, sieved the stock several times using a muslin cloth and two sieves to get a clear broth. After which, I added 2 star anise, Vietnamese cardamon (3 pods, bruised), ginger and cassia bark and left it to boil for another hour. The fragrance from the stock was heavenly.

In a bowl, add the rice noodles (thin ones), beef balls and sliced beef and white onions. Ladle the soup over the beef - the hot soup helps to cook the raw beef. Top with bean sprouts and basil. Ta da....

Crispy Fried Noodles with Beef

With the leftover noodles and kailan, I cooked the same dish as here, but I used beef instead. Tasted just as good.

Hubby Cooking #11 - Rib-Eye Steak

My iron intake for the week.

Beef and Vegetable Pie

We were away last weekend visiting our friends - Jim and Georgie - at their farm in Wingham, which is about 4 hours north of Sydney. It is not a huge farm, but there is plenty of open space, a few cows, some hens and sheep plus a vegetable garden to keep us busy. Not that we did very much, since our main aim was to catch up with Jim and Georgie and also to relax, and enjoy the fresh country air. We went with our good friends - Freddy and Lee Fong - and their two beautiful children, Yasmine and James.

Whilst we were there, Georgie passed me a simple recipe to make a Beef and Vegetable Pie, that Yasmine and James love.

500gm mince beef
1 packet Continental Spring Vegetable Soup
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup diced mixed vegetables
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
salt and cracked black pepper

1. Combine the meat, soup mix, breadcrumbs and vegetables together.
2. Cut pastry sheet into 4 squares. Scoop some mince mix onto one of the pastry squares.
3. Wet the edge of the pastry square. Place another pastry square on top and roll the edges inwards to seal.
4. Make a small hole on the top to allow the steam to be released.
5. Place the pie on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Place it into the fridge for about 15 minutes.
6. Heat the oven to 200C (for my oven 180C). 
7. Remove the pies from the fridge and brush with the beaten egg.
8. Bake at 200C (180C) for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. 
9. Serve hot or cold.

Optional: you could also serve with salad. For the girls tonight, I made some mashed potatoes and gravy.

Easy Beef Curry

Recently, my Mum taught me how to cook beef curry, the easy way.

First, I cut up the meat into cubes. I used chuck steak, but you could also use gravy beef (it takes longer to cook). Then I place them into a casserole pot, together with sliced pieces of ginger, 2 pips of garlic and cinnamon stick. I also added some water, not too much, just enough to cover the meat. Then, I let the whole thing boil on high heat, then lowered the flame till low to simmer until the meat is tender and cooked. Cooking time: about 1 hour on low heat.

When the meat is tender, I drained the stock into a separate bowl. I then added the A1 brand instant curry sauce which I found at the local Asian store. I only used half the pack, depending on how much meat. After adding the paste, I poured some of the stock (after fat has been removed) back to the pot, and stir well. Add some salt and sugar to taste. Simmer on low heat.

Optional step: you can add coconut milk if you like. I added some kerisk (toasted grated/dessicated coconut) instead to thicken the curry.

Hubby Cooking #9 - Beef Stroganoff

Hubby cooked Beef Stroganoff for dinner tonight. This time, he made the dish from scratch, whereas I used a packet mix previously.

Beef Stew with Winter Vegetables

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Winter is a time to cook slow-food like casseroles or stews. At the local Coles supermarket, there was a stand with different recipe cards "Feed your family for under $10" with recipes by celebrity chef Curtis Stone.

I picked the "Beef Stew with Winter Vegetables" recipe card on the weekend and tried it out today.

1 tbsp olive oil
700gm chuck beef, cut into large bite-sized cubes
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 brown onions, each cut into 8 pieces
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 1/4 cups dry white wine
2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 cups beef stock
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
rosemary leaves
thyme leaves

1. Heat oil in large heavy casserole pot over medium-high heat. Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper and place into pot. Cook beef until brown. Remove and place into a bowl. (If there are too many pieces of beef and pot is small, then cook the meat in two batches).
2. Add onions, garlic, rosemary and thyme to the pot and cook for 3 minutes. Add the wine and tomatoes. Simmer for 8 minutes or until the wine has been reduced to about half. Return the beef to the pot.
3. Add the stock and bring to a gentle simmer (beef should be covered with the liquid). Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the potatoes and carrots and cover. Simmer gently for another 55 minutes, or until the vegetables are cooked and the beef is tender enough to cut with a spoon. The liquid in the pot should be reduced by now. (We like to have some gravy with rice, so I kept some stock for that).
5. Serve with rice, crusty bread or mashed pumpkin.
   

Beef Stroganoff

I tried another pack of Maggi Cook in a Pot today - Beef Stroganoff. The recipe is easy to whip up for dinner especially on a weeknight. Easy to cook, I used beef eye fillet instead, much more tender and easier for my girls to chew and eat. I serve the stroganoff with rice. Girls loved it.

Beef Wellington

I came across the recipe on the Lifestyle channel website. We've seen Ben O'Donoghue make this dish on "The Best of Australia" show. It is a simple recipe to follow. We replaced the flat field mushrooms with button and swiss brown mushrooms instead. We also did not wrap the meat in the crepe and bacon.


When the meat was resting after taking it out from the oven, the juices seeped through the puff pastry (on the bottom). Next time, we thought we'll try making the crepe to warm around the meat before wrapping the puff pastry. Over all, it was a satisfying meal, definitely one to make again. A bit of time to prep, but a lovely dish to serve for a dinner party.