Lamb Casserole

The other day hubby brought home a fistful of different Maggi recipe bases to try and I've been slowly working my way through them. Last night we tried the "Cook In The Pot" Lamb Casserole.

He bought that one because it says on the front of the pack you can cook it in the slow cooker, but upon further reading I found you're supposed to use lamb shanks for that, and have you priced those lately? I chose the much more cost effective option of making it in the oven with lamb steaks I cubed myself.

I used 2 chopped carrots (packet asks for just one but they were quite small), 2 cubed potatoes, 500g of lamb steaks which I trimmed the fat off then cubed, a can of diced Italian tomatoes, and the packet. It probably asked for an onion as well, but onion made me very sick while I was pregnant and I'm yet to jump back on that horse. All I did was pop the meat and vegies in a casserole dish, stir together the tomatoes, the packet mix, and a 1/4 cup of water, then add that to the dish and mix it all together. Then I baked it in a 200c oven for 1 1/4 hours. I served it with some fresh bread rolls so we could sop up the sauce.

Thoughts - loved it!!!!! This was so good, I even went back for seconds, which is rare for me. My only complaint is that some of the larger potato chunks were a bit crunchy, so next time I'll chop the cubes smaller. But there will definitely be a next time because this was seriously easy and seriously yummy.

Three cheese pasta bake

Last night for dinner we had the Dolmio three cheese pasta bake. I've made this a few times before but always found it rather bland and therefore not worth the calories. But this week I actually bothered to read the instructions on the side of the jar and discovered you're meant to put bacon in it. Must read instructions more often....

I used 2 1/2 cups of penne pasta, the jar of sauce, 150g of rindless bacon which I chopped, and about a cup of grated cheese on top. It's easy enough to make - you boil the pasta, stir in the sauce and bacon, sprinkle with cheese and bung it in the oven. Cheap too - I think all up I spent less than $10 on the ingredients. And the great part is that I was able to make it hours ahead then just do the oven part at dinner time. But I did find that the 15 minutes the jar specified was nowhere near long enough to properly melt the cheese, let alone make it all crispy. I ended up baking it for more like 25-30 minutes.

Thoughts - even with the bacon, I still found it bland. Hubby liked it, but he covered his with barbecue sauce so it's kind of hard to guage. I'll keep it in mind for a quick, cheap meal, but it won't be finding it's way into my regular cooking. Generally if I'm going to eat that many calories they need to be worth my while, and a dish this bland just isn't worth it.

Baby Shower Cupcakes

I actually made these a few months ago, for my baby shower in August.... but I felt they deserved a mention.

I found the inspiration for these cupcakes from a photo on Flickr. I used a basic vanilla buttercake recipe (from The Crabapple Cupcake Bakery Cookbook - an old favourite) to make the cakes, and a plain vanilla buttercream for the frosting. I portioned up the frosting, coloured some a peachy colour for the faces, some a rosy colour for the cheeks, and some black for the detail. The dummies were very hard to find. I must have gone to every party store, craft store, and $2 shop within an hours drive to find them, but eventually located them in Blacktown.


I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to work with black food colouring. The nasty lady at the cake decorating store told me not to add too much because it would affect the flavour. She said to use just a little and "leave it for a bit"... I still have no idea what she meant, because I did leave it for a bit, but still had to add another big glob of it, and a heap of cocoa, and I still couldn't get it to turn completely black, just a very dark brown. But it looked ok I guess.

Thoughts - I am generally not very good at cake decorating, mostly because after all the time spent baking I want to get on with eating them, so I tend to rush the frosting. But since Mr T was in town for the baby shower, and was looking over my shoulder, I couldn't really back out this time. On the whole I was really happy with them. A few looked a bit rough, so as a joke Mr T decorated one to look like the Elephant Man. But most of them looked really sweet, and I got a lot of compliments.

Mum's Sweet Curry

My very first entry is an old recipe of my mums. And I mean old. I think it's from some ancient cookbook from the 1970's, back when curries always contained Keens Curry Powder, and before anyone realised curries came from India and Thailand. She used to make it all the time when I was a kid, and back then I never liked it. But now in my 20's I've grown fonder of it - it's become a comfort food for me. Last night was the first time I've ever made it myself, and in an attempt to work around the baby's sleeping patterns (or lack thereof) I made it in the slow cooker. Here's the recipe, as I cooked it:

1kg chuck steak, diced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 sticks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 tsp salt
2 tsp curry powder
1 tbs golden syrup
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbs flour
1 can condensed tomato soup (I used Heinz Big Red)

Place meat, carrots, celery, onion and apple in slow cooker. Mix together flour, salt, curry powder, golden syrup, lemon juice and soup, add to the slow cooker and mix well. Cook on high for 4 hours.

Thoughts - like most things, it's better when mum makes it. That said, she usually cooks it on the stove, not the slow cooker. I found the meat went very dry and the sauce was very wet, but I find that's the case with most things I make in the slow cooker. I'll give it another whirl on the stove top. And I'll serve it with some better bread next time - the cheese and bacon rolls we ate on the side were a bit greasy.