Proper Cottage Pie

As a first year student, I once bought a ready-made cottage pie and it's safe to say I NEVER bought one again. The potato was soggy and grey in colour and the meat and sauce was grim - the mince was sparse (even in a Asda Extra Special pie) and the sauce tasted like cheap beef gravy only without any seasoning. 
I only made it a couple of times whilst at uni since, to do the dish properly it's very time consuming.

To make my really rich, meaty cottage pie you'll need:

2x290g beef steak mince

I red onion

2 garlic cloves

2 carrots

3 celery sticks

6 chestnut mushrooms

1 tomato

1 carton tomato passata

1 beef stock cube

1 tsp vegetable bouillon 
250ml freshly boiled water

1 tbs tomato purée

2 tbs ketchup 

2 tbs HP sauce

4 tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp dried herbs 

For the potato topping:

4 large floury potatoes 

2tbs butter/margarine

4tbs milk

Salt and pepper 

Begin by prepping the veg - peel the potatoes, cut into small chunks, put them into a saucepan and cover with water. Wash and finely dice the carrot, celery and mushrooms (don't worry about peeling). Skin, de-seed and finely chop the tomato. Finely chop the onion and garlic, either by hand or in a mini chopper. 

Brown the mince in a heavy based pan in a slug of oil. Once browned transfer to a bowl.

Add the veg and sweat for ten minutes till softened. Add the meat back in with the tomato puree and the passata. Dissolve the beef stock cube and the bouillon in the boiled water and pour in, stir in the ketchup, brown sauce, Worcestershire sauce and the dried herbs. Leave to simmer on a low heat for at least 30 minutes until the sauce has reduced.

Taste for seasoning - you may need to add more salt, pepper or any of the sauces to get the flavour just right to your taste. 
At this point turn on the heat under the potatoes and allow to boil away till soft.
When the potatoes reach mash-able softness, drain them, add in the milk, margarine and seasoning and mash to a perfectly fluffy consistency  slightly runnier than normal mash so it's easier to spread.
Pour the sauce into a deep oven proof dish. Spoon on the mash and spread over the top (don't worry if the sauce peeks through the potato, it all adds to the homemade appeal). Create some kind of pattern on the top of the potato, partly for decoration and also to create crispy bits while it's in the oven.

Cook the pie for 20 minutes until the sauce is bubbling up on the potato and the top looks browned. Serve with vegetables of your choice. 

And there you have it, a low fat, vegetable packed cottage pie. Hope you enjoy!! 

Making burgers Becca style

Hey there, little short one from me today since I forgot to put this into my blog on BBQ's. 
Making burgers is a really lovely thing to do. Yes you can buy really excellent quality burgers in supermarkets these days but I really cant think of anything better than the sound and smell of homemade burgers on a barbecue in summer, or even in a frying pan. 
You can put absolutely everything in a burger. You can use different meats, herbs, spices, binding agents and flavours.
Basic burgers are simple to make and really delicious. To make 4 good sized burgers, you'll need:
400g lean beef steak mince
1 small red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
To start off you'll need to very finely chop the onion and garlic, either by hand or in a food processor (I have a Kenwood mini chopper which makes light work of chopping and keeps your eyes tear free).
Heat the oil in a frying pan and slightly sweat the chopped onion and garlic until nice and soft - do not colour it. Leave it to cool down.
In a mixing bowl lightly beat the egg and add the salt, pepper and parsley. Adddin the minced beef and the soft onion and garlic. Mix well together - I use my hands as I find it therapeutic but if you prefer you can use a spoon. Split this mixture into four equal patties. Cover and chill until needed.
To cook the burgers, you can grill, fry or barbecue them. To fry or barbecue, heat your pan or griddle to a medium heat. Put the burgers onto the heat and cook for 8-9 minutes on each side until cooked through. 
Serve with bread rolls, salad and relish. 

You can use all kinds of meats for burgers - lamb, pork, turkey or chicken all work well although turkey and chicken need more moisture to hold them together, such as breadcrumbs soaked in milk.
I like to add more flavours and ingredients to some burgers. I like to add two table spoons of chunky apple sauce to pork burgers as well as shopped sage. 
Fennel seeds are lovely with pork, although personally I would prefer the seeds to be ground to powder. 
Lamb is famously associated with mint and rosemary and these would be lovely but I like to be a bit different and add some lemon zest and oregano to the meat.
You can encase a baby mozzarella ball into your burger for some oozy cheesy-ness in your burgers (I know my bestie, Alex loves everything mozzarella touches so that's one for her) and you can add grated cheeses to any burger mix. My family are massive fans of the Mexican spicy cheese so I crumble a bit into my burger mix which spices the meat from within.
Burger accessories as I call them are limitless. You've got the classics of salad and chips with ketchup and but you can make all kinds of burger sauces using a mayo or yogurt base and any number of spices, herbs and other sauces. I like a mixture of garlic mayonnaise, ketchup and whole grain mustard spread over a warm burger bap (or cob as my friends from Leicester say). 

So that's my quick blog on burgers. Essentially, anything goes. Now why did I not just say that in the beginning rather than ramble on for months?

Work at Weddings and BBQ's

Well hello!!
I have returned with my head full of words and my stomach full of my delicious morning Slim Fast milkshake (summer strawberry today).
It's going pretty well - I've lost 4 pounds in a week so I'm hoping i can continue for as long as possible so I can lose my desired two stone :)
I've had a pretty busy couple of days: I went back to work on Saturday after 5 months on uni and while most things are exactly the same, there are some little differences I need to get the hang of.
We had a venue only wedding on Saturday, which means that the couple hire the venue and bring their own food, drinks, staff, glasses, plates, linens and essentially everything you need to run a wedding. Sadly though, this wedding came close to being a disaster. The staff they hired were a bunch of 16-17 year old girls with sour faces who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. They turned up late and so we had to sort out the deliveries of the drinks and get the caterers sorted. During the ceremony they were talking loudly right by the doors and during meal service they were disorganized as a group and generally looked untidy with messy hair, un-tucked shirts and muddy trainers.It made us realize how good we are as a team. There was only two of us working as we are not supposed to be doing anything for the wedding other than showing people where stuff is and what they can and can't use but because the hired in staff were useless we were pretty busy in the morning. In the afternoon we spent a while folding napkins into various origami shapes and I spent three hours cleaning candle wax off 6 candelabras with a hair dryer. Then we discovered Alison's car had flat tyre so we were outside pumping it up for fifteen minutes. Never a dull shift.
On Sunday though it was business as usual with all our lovely kitchen staff back on with all of our waiting team ready to roll. 
It was a really lovely wedding - colour scheme of pastel Tiffany blue with lots of crystals and diamond details. They had the ceremony outside which was really lovely and they had a harpist playing which set the mood perfectly. They had a really lovely, simple menu of a brie and red onion tart, followed by a parcelle of chicken with a leek and bacon stuffing with a brandy cream sauce and finished off with a pavlova. I always feel you're better off going for a simple, classic menu at a wedding. I often see couples who have tried to please everyone and have given the guests a choice but more often than not this leads to confusion both among the guests who cant remember what they ordered, and in the kitchens when we try to serve a table where they're having two beef, three chicken, four lamb and a vegetarian. It's a massively expensive way of doing things and, in my opinion, unnecessary. It's not about your guests and weather or not they like lamb or if they eat beef, it's about you and your husband/wife.
I ended up doing an 11 and a half hour shift on Sunday since I was there from 8.30am and because I haven't worked there in 5 months I haven't got used to the burning pain in my feet I get after a few hours so driving home changing gears was a whole new level of pain.
We're having some lush weather at the moment (I'm currently sitting in my favorite chair in the garden although sadly I'm having to sit under the parasol so I can see the screen) and so we've had a couple of BBQ's. Yesterday I marinaded some lamb chops in lemon, garlic, oregano and olive oil and left them for four hours. They were so juicy and the lemon really tenderizes the meat. I also made a couple of salads, one pasta one cous cous. I use trofie pasta and a homemade green pesto (use a food processor - large bunch of basil, a lump of Parmesan  grated, a handful of pine nuts, two garlic cloves and a glug of olive oil) although a jar is just as good but add some freshly chopped basil for freshness. Cook a standard mug full of the pasta to al dente and drain. Chop a large handful of baby cherry tomatoes in half and add then to the pan with the hot pasta. Stir through two table spoons of the pesto, transfer to a serving dish and chill until needed.
For my cous cous salad I put however much dried cous cous as I need into my serving dish with half a tablespoon of Boulion stock powder and the zest of a lemon, then pour over enough freshly boiled water to just cover the cous cous. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and allow to steam for ten minutes. Meanwhile, lightly toast a handful of flaked almonds and a handful of pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan until the almonds are lightly golden and the skins on the pumpkin seeds have split open (they make a very satisfying popping sound). Stir the cous cous with a fork to separate the grains and add in a handful of golden sultanas. Stir in the nuts and seeds and then just before serving sprinkle over a tablespoon of chopped coriander. 
I love a good marinade and I do different things for different meats. For lamb I use a lot of lemon zest, garlic and oregano with a splish of olive oil. Pork likes strong flavours so I do a squirt of tomato ketchup, a teaspoon of seedy mustard and a tablespoon of runny honey. Chicken is good with just some sweet chilli sauce or I also like to just chop of loads of fresh herbs and some olive oil. 
At the moment we have my Nana staying over as well as my brother and his girlfriend so as a special treat for desert we've got a kind of disassembled pavlova. Nana makes perfect meringues and British strawberries are just coming in so I had Annie hulling the strawberries and we got some raspberries too and lashings of cream. Perfect end to a Tuesday of beautiful sunshine!!

Here I am, writing away in the sun!