Beef and Bean Chili

Beef and Bean Chili













I've never cooked a chili before and have read many many mouthwatering accounts of how tasty they can be. I thought I had been a little restrained on the amount of cayenne pepper used, however the three year old demanded more sour cream before he'd eat his and he has a pretty high spicy threshold, so I guess I missed the mark. Oh well live and learn. I cleaned my plate and so did my wife.

Ingredients

• Beef mince
• Pork mince
• Red kidney beans
• Cannalini beans
• Diced tomatoes, canned
• Celery
• Onion
• Cayenne pepper
• Paprika
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Sour cream
• Cheddar cheese
• Garlic bread (purchased)
  

Method:
Soften onion, celery in big ass pan with some olive oil, when soft brown meat in there and drain off any excess fat and remind self to mince your own meat again. Just as the meat starts to go brown, chuck in the spices. When it's all the way brown chuck in the beans and tomatoes and simmer for an hour or so. Season at the end to taste. Serve on a hot piece of garlic bread, covered with grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Try to remember to photograph before you start eating and fail.

Time to prepare: 2 hours
Number of serves: 8
Cost of ingredients: $32
Recipe inspiration: Many many accounts of tasty chili

Beef StirFry with Oyster Sauce, Veg and Noodles

Beef Stir Fry with Oyster Sauce, Veg and Noodles












I used to stirfry all the time, I stopped, dunno why. They are quicky tasty and cheap. Eaten with gusto by the wife, less so by the 3 year old and I was more than satisfied.

Ingredients:

• Beef fillet
• Noodles, hokkien
• Oyster sauce (bottled)
• Spring onions
• Snow peas
• Celery
• Baby corn
  
• Bean sprouts
• Coriander
• Salt
• Cashews

Time to prepare: 15 minutes
Cost of ingredients: approx $20
Number of serves: 5
Recipe inspiration: Particularly uninspired, but I guess the million and one serves of noodles I've consumed to date.

Steak Chips and Veg

Porterhouse Steak, Home Made Chips Peas and Corn












I had a hankering for some real honest to goodness (well honest to badness if you take HDL into account) hand cut home fried chips. It was pure serendipity when I paid a visit to Nepean Bulk Meats and discovered they stock a large range of bulk supplies of King Island beef. I took home a 2kg piece of porterhouse for $30, tough to complain. It portioned up nicely into 9 2cm thick steaks. The chips I lusted after were not as good as they could have been, perhaps I blanched them for too long in the first cook? *shrug* but the steak more than made up for it. The veg were there to make me feel a little virtuous and the corn to be fair was extremely sweet, something to be said for picking and snap freezing in the peak of the season I guess.


Ingredients

• Porterhouse steak
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Potatoes - golden delight if you care. Greengrocer swore you couldn't make a chip out them that wasn't crunchy. He lied.
• Canola oil
• Corn
• Peas

Time to prepare: About 25 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $18
Number of serves: 3
Recipe inspiration: I could lie and say bifteck et pomme frites in some fancy french restaurant, but really just my childhood where this (sans the KI beef) was standard fare

Restaurant Meal: The Dava

Baked "American Style" ribs

Holy smokes they didn't mess about, an entree serve was 14 (yep 14) ribs. Very tasty sauce, very mediocre meat. What the heck, yum.

Detectable Ingredients:

• Beef ribs
• BBQ sauce

Open Yiros

Another monster serve, this time char grilled (within an inch of shoe leather) lamb, piles of tomato, onion and lettuce, all mixed up with tzatziki on a pita.


Detectable Ingredients:

• Lamb
• Oregano
• Tomato
• Lettuce
• Pita
• Tzatziki

Time to cook: about 20 minutes (entree was up in 5 minutes, pays to be the first in the restaurant)
Cost of meal: $29.90
Number of serves: 2 (I ate both)

Guiness Beef and Vegetable Stew

Guiness Beef and Vegetable Stew













Nailed the seasoning on this one, very tasty. Perhaps I could have let it simmer a little longer for falling apart beef rather than just tender. All four plates were wiped clean, although that may be a testament to the quality of the garlic bread rather than the stew.

• Beef shoulder
• Guiness beer
• Beef stock
  
• Red wine
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Garlic
• Tomato paste
• Sugar
• Bay leaves
  
• Thyme
• Vegemite
• Butter
  
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Coriander
• Sour cream

Time to cook: About 2 1/2 hours.
Cost of ingredients: About $25
Number of Serves: 4

Thai Beef Salad

'Thai' beef salad












Not quite sure why I gave this the appellation 'Thai' maybe it's the fish sauce and lime juice combo. Either way it was fairly tasty.

• Fillet Steak, char grilled
• Shaved cucumber
• Badly julienned carrot
• Crushed peanuts
• Rocket
• Misc Salad leaves
• Coriander
• Mint
• Parsley

Dressing:

• Fish sauce
• Lime juice
• Palm Sugar
• Chili
• Coriander root
• Dash of sesame oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Time to cook: 30 minutes