What's For Dinner Wednesday? Beef & Carrot Ragout

It's 4am here, and as I sit here typing this out my little redheaded friend is sharing the sofa while she watches In The Night Garden. Screaming banshee act started at 1am, nothing would settle her so I figured we'd sit on the couch together instead of the fruitless settling we had been trying. Little feral! She is as happy as larry now, chatting away as I type this out.

Ok so for this weeks' easy as pie Wednesday recipe I have gone for the ultimate in fuss free cooking. Anything involving the slow cooker is perfect when you are tired or busy... or both. Just prep in the morning and throw the lot in and hit start. Your meal is ready in 6-8 hours. Perfect.

image and recipe via taste.com.au

Beef & Carrot Ragout with Pasta

Ingredients (serves 4)

1/4 cup plain flour
1kg gravy beef, cut into 5cm cubes
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large brown onions, cut into wedges
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
1 cup beef stock
3 sprigs thyme
3 large carrots, peeled, roughly chopped
cooked pappardelle pasta, to serve

Method

Place flour in a snap-lock bag. Season with salt and pepper.

Add beef and shake bag to lightly coat beef in flour, shaking off excess.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add half the beef. C

ook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes or until browned. Spoon into slow cooker. Repeat with oil and remaining beef.

Reduce frying pan heat to medium. Add remaining oil and onion to pan. Cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and tomato paste. Cook for 1 minute. Pour in wine. Bring to the boil.

Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until wine has reduced by half. Add stock, thyme and carrots. Bring to the boil. Spoon sauce over beef and stir to combine.

Cover and cook in slow cooker on HIGH for up to 4 hours or LOW for 6 hours. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon over pasta and serve.

What's For Dinner Wednesday? Chicken Pot Pie

Brought to you by my favourite jailbird housewife, Martha Stewart, this low fat chicken pot pie is easy and perfect for a two dish mid week meal. I have changed it slightly just to save me some time and extra washing up. If you prefer to do things the Martha way, you can find the original recipe on her site.

Hopefully it won't go the way of my ocean trout pie after Sunday's disaster cooking day. Come to think of it, I have had more failures in the kitchen this month than I have had all my cooking life! So maybe I should have a new blog segment keeping score of disasters versus successes?

Ok so today's low fat pie sounds very easy, please let me know if you also give it a go and let me know what yours is like because at the rate I'm going even the most simple recipes are ruinable.

Ingredients

Serves 4

2 large pieces of chicken breast (12 to 14 ounces each)
Coarse salt and ground pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups low-fat (1%) milk
1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas, thawed
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
6 filo sheets (each 12 by 17 inches), thawed

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place chicken on a rimmed baking sheet; season with salt and pepper. Roast 20- 30 minutes. Shred meat, and set aside.

While chicken is roasting, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large saucepan over medium.

Add carrots, onion, and thyme; season with salt and pepper, and cook until carrots are crisp-tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add flour, and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

Gradually add milk, stirring until smooth. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a simmer and thickens.

Remove from heat; stir in peas, lemon juice, and chicken, and season with salt and pepper. Pour filling into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.

Stack filo on a work surface. Using a paring knife, cut out an 11-inch circle from the stack; discard trimmings. Stack 2 circles on work surface, and brush gently with 1 teaspoon oil; repeat with remaining circles and oil.

*I'm using one large square baking dish so I don't have to worry about the fiddly trimming, I'll just whack the ready cut squares of filo onto my pie filling*

Place pastry stack over filling, and press down about 1/2 inch from the edge so pastry fits inside rim of pie plate. Bake until golden and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Let potpie cool 15 minutes before serving.


I have not bothered to translate into metric because I think most of us here in the metric world are more used to translating from imperial than they are doing the reverse. Let me know if you can't, and I'll edit this post.