Leftover Beef Sturry

Tonight's delight is using up leftovers together with what we have available in the garden.  What true smallholders we are!

Seriously though, I hate wasting food, although I must admit not much gets wasted here, what with seven dogs, two pigs, sixteen hens and a cow.  But with the increase of food wastage always in the news and yesterday Natalie Coleman (winner of Masterchef), was on BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright in the afternoon, talking about her new campaign, 'Love food, Hate waste,' I always try and do something edible for us to eat with leftovers.

So tonight's leftovers being beef and it being Friday, well it had to be a curry - well sort of!  I am renowned for not sticking to recipes's, so I put my own twist on this 'curry'.  Michael likes lots of vegetables in his curries, not just a meat and onion curry with rice, so I raided the garden and collected - a large handful of french beans, a yellow courgette, a kohl rabi, one small carrot, half a dozen shallots, about twenty tomatoes and two chillies.

Collected from the garden

Plus, the already chopped tomatoes and shallots

I chopped all these up and placed them in a large casserole dish, along with the chopped up beef (minus any fatty bits - the dogs ate these!), added some water and a good shake of Bisto gravy granules, just to up the 'beefyness' and to thicken the sauce and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half.

 and this is what it looked like when it came out -

I served it with turmeric and parsley basmati rice and a shop bought naan bread each (which were horrible) -

It tasted delicious, you could taste all the vegetables and the beef was soft and succulent.  The two chillies were enough if you like it quite spicy.  I do think that this type of dish is best cooked in a slow cooker all day, left to bubble away and develop the flavours even deeper, it was a mistake not to do it with this I think.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 9

Sales -
Nil

Expenses -
Nil

Beef, glorious beef

Now if you're a meat eater, like us, you'll love a good piece of roasted meat, whichever is your favourite, mine just happens to be beef.  I can't resist a good sized lump of home grown, properly reared beef, and this just happens to be our own too.

We breed Dexter cattle for our own freezer and sell a small quantity to local friends.  The popular stuff always runs out fast - steak, roasting joints; then I have to find umpteen ingenious ways to use all the mince and stewing cuts I always have left over.

I do a lot of batch cooking, so tend to take out about six packs of stewing beef at a time and fill my two large slow cookers with beef and vegetable stew, leaving them on all day to bubble away happily.

Dexter meat is rich tasting, ours very rarely eat anything but grass or haylage, this being the best dexter food as they are a slow growing cattle, being able to be fattened from grass, with extra forage in the winter.

We hang our carcasses for four weeks, which gives the meat a wonderful dark red colour, and a flavour second to none.  Our butcher is excellent in his cutting and preparation work, and liaises with me when I've sent a beast to the abattoir very well.  I then go and collect copious amounts of joints, steaks, packs of mince and stewing meat, plus all the offal and a box of bones for the dogs!

We have a slight difference of opinion in the house as to how it gets cooked though.  Myself I like it medium, whereas Michael likes it well done, so I try to cook it somewhere in between.  The marbling you get on Dexter beef is second to none, filling the meat with flavour.  I always let mine rest for at least half an hour before carving and always use the juices in the gravy.

For more information about Dexter meat and where you can buy some please visit - www.dexterbeef.org.uk

This is one I cooked yesterday -

You can plainly see the line of fat down the middle and coating around the top, keeping all that flavour in.  This will get used in sandwiches and salads now, but won't be around for long!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 10

Sales -
1 & 1/2 dozen eggs £2.80
1 x Geranium plant £1.50

Expenses -
Nil