What's to eat

I have decided that Sunday night will be the food blog night, I will post a recipe each week. Some that I have made up and some that I have made from other people's recipes.
Sunday 3 August
Pizza Bagels'
This is a lazy recipe, it is quick and a hit with everyone.
Heat your oven on the hottest setting, it only take 5 min then for dinner to be ready.
Tonight I used bagels, sometimes I use a roll and sometimes just slices of bread.
Use I bagel per person
Pasta sauce of your choice. (tonight I used a South African favorite, tomato and onion relish)
Finely grated cheese of your choice.

Slice open the bagel and spread the sauce.

Then sprinkle with cheese, place in your oven.

5 minutes later it is ready to serve, my kids often make this with bread in the microwave themselves.

This weeks recipe is an adaptation from The South African Food and Cookery Encyclopedia, which I bought in 1990.
Shepards Pie
2kg or 1,5 pounds of mince (ground beef)
1 onion chopped
1-2 cups of mixed frozen vegetables
3-4 large potatoes
3 tablespoons of oil
1/2 cup of beef stock
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Seasoning of your choice (I use Trochamere (vogel's))

Method
Peel and cut your potatoes in four and boil in salt water till soft (20-30 minutes)
In frying pan use half the oil to saute your chopped onion till soft and add the vegetables, if you are using carrots put then in with the onion as they take longer to cook. I like to use peas and corn which you can even add after the meat is cooked.
Add the mince to the onion and vegetables and fry until no longer pink, and your spices, worchesterchire sauce and half the stock and cook uncovered for ten minutes add the rest of your stock as necessary to keep the mince moist.
Mash the cooked potatoes in a bowl with the remainder of the oil and season to taste.
 pictures courtesy of cookbook

 

Place the mince and vegetables in a baking dish and then spread the mash potato over the top, make markings on the potato topping so that it is not smoothe, (it browns better this way)

Cook at 180C or (400F) in the oven until it starts bubbling and the potato starts turning brown

Sloppy Joe's my style
1 kg Mince meat
1 onion diced
1-2 cloves garlic crushed
Spice mix of your choice (I used curry powder, cumin, turmeric)
1 tin baked beans in tomato sauce
1 tin tomato and onion mix
oil for frying
+/-850ml boiling water
salt and pepper to taste
6 bread rolls (or slices of bread)


Fry the diced onion and garlic in oil add your mixed spices fry till soft and glassy. In a separate bowl mix mince, tomato and onion and baked beans.
Combine mince and onion in heavy bottom pot, fry until mince is mostly cooked.
Add boiling water (enough to cover) add salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer for 30 minutes.


Cut open your rolls and spoon mince over and serve
Tonight I am posting a mac and cheese recipe that I saw this season on MasterChef Australia made by Neil Perry.  I have made a few changes to adapt the recipe to my family's needs. This is his photo too.

NEIL PERRY'S MAC & CHEESE
Serves 4
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Skills needed: Basic

400g dried macaroni (I used 700g as I have a family of 6 big eaters)
Extra virgin olive oil
3 rashers smoky bacon, diced(I used 3 fry's vegetarian sausages, sliced)
500ml pure cream (increased this to 750ml)
125g cheddar cheese (Increased to 175g)
250g gruyere cheese (I used Munster as I couldn't find Kosher Gruyere and increased to 300g)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsps Dijon mustard
1 tsp smoked paprika
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
80g fresh breadcrumbs (I used Kellogg's cornflake crumbs, I like their texture)
100g grated parmesan cheese
For something slightly different I added 1 tin of peas. I have diced cooked broccoli into this and it worked great.

Cook the macaroni in a saucepan with plenty of boiling water until al dente. Drain and refresh in iced water, then drain again.
Heat a little extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the bacon (vegetarian sausage) and cook until golden. Remove and drain on paper towels. Add the cream to the same pan, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove the cream from the heat and gradually mix through the cheeses until they are melted.Add the peas/broccoli.
Combine the crushed garlic, paprika and Dijon mustard to form a paste. Stir the paste through the cream and cheese. Season and add the macaroni and bacon (vegetarian sausage).
Place the macaroni mixture into four bowls or one large gratin dish. Sprinkle the parmesan
over the macaroni, then the breadcrumbs.
Grill until golden.
Serve with a salad.










Picture from Lauren's Latest blog.
This is quick and very easy to make, no actual recipe needed.
Chop as much broccoli as you want to as fine as you want it. I don't do much chopping so I use frozen broccoli and about 1-2 cloves of garlic
I shallow fry them in mixture of oil and butter (the butter just tastes nice, but isn't actually necessary)
While the macaroni is cooking (as much as you would use for your normal mac and cheese), grate some cheese finely, I like to use two cheeses, cheddar and mozzarella, but whichever cheese you like. 
I put lots on as we like a lot of chees in this house.
When the macaroni is cooked add frozen peas to this (the heat of the macaroni will cook the peas), mix in your broccoli and garlic then stir in the cheese and enjoy! Add salt and pepper to taste.