Mexican stew for hob or slow cooker

As you know I've been a bit busy recently having spent 9 weeks in the UK. I'm now, well the kids are, in the middle of exams, the youngest is leaving for the UK to go to boarding school in just over a week so I've been extremely busy, what with packing, revision and of course getting my hair and nails done.

The slow cooker has been my saviour this week. The school run is at 7am and now the eldest drives, I find myself up at 6am, giving them a kick up the back side and in between drinking tea and barking orders, I start the dinner.

So far this week we've had a Thai Green Curry, Hungarian Goulash and Chicken in Mushroom. We've also had a take out and dinner out with friends.

But the favourite this week has been the Mexican Stew, served with plain rice and peas. If you don't have a slow cooker it also works well on the hob on a low heat for 2 hours.

Brown the beef in a table spoon of olive oil. Remove from the pan.
Gently cook the diced onion, finely chopped clove of garlic and chopped pepper for 5 mins.
Put the onion, pepper and beef in the slow cooker.
Add half a tea spoon of cumin, 1 finely chopped chilli, a tea spoon of brown sugar (removes the bitterness) 9 fluid ozs of beef stock, a tin of peeled and chopped tomatoes, a generous helping of tomato puree and a glass of red wine.

Set the slow cooker to low for the day.

And don't forget to make sure the dog is around to clean up all the floor scraps.

My slow cooker settings are ideal and I've yet to have a meal dry up, but you may need to check there is enough liquid in there and top up with stock or water if necessary.

I really should thank the following companies for their support, they didn't sponsor the post, but I think they should consider it for the future.

Kenwood
Global Knives
PicknPay

Top tips for baking with kids

Grrrrrrr another challenge from Mediocre Mum and this time a Slow Cooker recipe. Today she is actually using the oven to cook dinner so that only left us the Slow Cooker grrrrrrr (again).

Banana bread baking with a 5 year old.

I measured out all the ingredients in advance under Chrissies watchful eye. I prefer to bake using the trusted old method of....'that'll do' All I then had to do was supervise 5 year old and instruct.

Bananas mashed, melted butter stirred in, baking soda, vanilla essence, salt, sugar, egg, flour all added and mixed with a wooden spoon.

Slow cooker prepared by buttering and dusting with flour. Mix poured/glooped in. Switch on high for 90 minutes and leave 5 year old to do the washing up.

 

 

 



Top 3 for the perfect roast

I cook roasts in the slow cooker as I find the meat is more tender. Over the past 3 years since I've been an expat/out of work, I've learnt to cook. Roasts are my favourite and I have the timings down to perfection.

The top 3 tips for the perfect roast (as discovered by me) are:

1. Use apple juice for Pork, coke for Lamb and beer for beef in the slow cooker, after browning the meat. I put the slow cooker on low for about 6 hours.

     2.  Put the meat in he oven for the last 30 minutes and use the liquid from the slow cooker to make
          the gravy with.

     3. Mix 3 eggs, a cup of flour and milk, mix in a jug. Add a few drops of olive oil to a muffin pan
         and heat in oven for a few minutes, before pouring to a third in depth and return to oven at the
         same time as the meat.