CHRISTMAS 01#

So yesterday Christmas Day was put on hold. There was no opening of presents, no christmas Turkey and no crackers today!!!

I hear your gasps! Why, you may ask? Well my wonderful nephew and niece weren't coming over till the evening and after a discussion with my sister we decided we thought it was important to do whole hog. Do it properly or not all! When Louise and I were kids the favourite part was the morning getting up together and opening presents together. It was very much a ritual!

As this year it is her in-laws turn to get them, we thought we'd just do two days! Why not!? So Boxing Day will be this years festive feast! More about that on the next post.

So today Dad and I released mum from her apron strings to take over the kitchen and cooking for the day. We decided that as we'd be heading on a walk to distract us from what day it was it was a good idea to do a Slow Cooker Chicken Curry. So on our return lunch would be ready.

We headed out after a brekkie of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon

 that set us up for a good two hour walk.

Monty was a little less than enthusiastic about having his photo been taken.

But after some persuasion mum and I managed to change his mind.

I found this tasty Chicken Curry on the Lemon Bowl Blog and it was a perfect recipe that very straight forward. I tweaked the recipe ever so slightly to suit the ingredients that were in my mum's pantry.

RECIPE

Ingredients

• 500g boneless chicken thighs
• 1 medium onion – thinly sliced
• 1 can chickpeas – drained and rinsed
• 2 medium sweet potatoes – peeled and diced

 (I used white sweet potatoes ones but the standard orange ones are good too) 

• 1 can of coconut milk or a sachet of coconut cream mixed with hot water up too 400ml
• 200ml chicken stock – low sodium
• 1 can of Chopped Tomatoes 
• 1 tablespoon of Tomato Puree
• 2 tablespoons Hot Curry Powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cayenne powder – optional
• 100g frozen green peas 
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Coriander chopped to garnish

Instructions

1. In the bottom of the slow cooker, whisk together coconut milk, chicken stock, tomato sauce, curry powder, salt and cayenne.
2. Add chicken breasts, onion, chickpeas and sweet potatoes. Using tongs, gently toss ingredients together to ensure evenly coated.
3. Cook on Low for 8 hours or High for 4 hours.
4. Stir in peas and lemon juice 5 minutes before serving.
5. Serve over brown basmati rice and with plenty of fresh coriander.

A perfect comforting meal to come home to after a bracing winter walk.

Hitherto a chilled-out Sunday

So this weekend we decided we hadn't enough energy to do the whole Sunday Roast thing. So thought we'd make ourselves that 'spiced beef casserole we'd given to the the 'Day's' the previous weekend.

As this recipe takes 2 hours to cook in the oven we made it the day before, which allowed us to go for a chilled out coffee at "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" cafe.

I have to say the do a ruddy good hot choc there as well a good cuppa tea.
As you can see, I've managed to keep up the knitting, not far to go now! Think Pete's starting to get a bit worried that I am actually gonna finish it, and he will actually wear it!! :D

Pete was working on some new sketches for his new series...

Soon we started to feel a bit hungry so headed back to get stuck into the tasty casserole. The recipe is my sisters and I'm yet to have found another that comes anywhere as near as good! It is LUSH!

 

Weeze's Spiced Beef Casserole

Recipe:

1.5kg Stewing / casserole beef

4 Onions sliced

Oil

1 clove of garlic crushed

225g  Field Mushrooms

25g Plain flour

half tsp ground ginger

1 tsp curry powder (when I'm not looking pete usually adds more!?)

1 tsp Muscavardo sugar

1 pint beef stock

2 tbsp Worchestershire sauce

salt/pepper

Horseradish - as much as you want :)

Directions:

Brown the meat in oil making sure the oil is HOT first, then drain the meat onto some kitchen roll. Keep same oil hot and add the onions, mushrooms, garlic and more oil if needed. Fry for 4 mins.

Then add the flour, spices & sugar whilst stirring continuously for 2 mins. Add stock a little at a time and then bring to the boil.

Place the meat back into the dish and mix it up. Place the dish in a pre-heated oven at 170oc for 2 hours - Watch the casserole if it becomes a bit dry & add more water if this happens.

Once out of the oven add seasoning & Horseradish to taste.

Enjoy!!

We had ours with rice and Kale (our new fav veg! Lush with pepper and butter). Also after trying many different Horseradish's we think Colmans is the hottest & tastiest. If you think there is a better one, do let me know. Mx