Winter Beef & Red Wine Casserole

Ingredients:
2 cups chunky diced beef (I used Rump Steak).
1 large roughly diced onion.
6 cloves garlic, whole.
1 cup brocoli
2 medium carrots
2 medium potatoes
1 cup tomato paste/chopped peeled tomatoes
1 1/2- 2 cups cheap red wine.
1 pack (serves 4 people) of gravy mix OR beef stock.


Cooking:
Cook the onions in a little oil until clear and add the garlic for a minute. Coat the diced meat in season flour (Tuscan spice, rock salt and pepper works well) and add to the fry-pan for about a minute. 3/4 of the red wine to the mix and simmer for a few minutes. Add the gravy/beef stock and let it bubble while you cut the veges. Save the broccoli until 5 mins before serving as it doesn't take long to cook. 


Depending on how long you're planning on letting the casserole simmer you may want to par boil the potatoes and carrots for 5 mins. Let the casserole cook on a low heat for at least an hour, checking it every 10-20 minutes. Add the red wine and broccoli 5 mins before serving. If you're cooking in a pot/fry-pan you'll probably find the sauce to thick so add water to stop it sticking (it should be fine in a crockpot). Season with salt, pepper and rosemary/oregano if you have some!
-Serves 5 light eaters or 3 hungry guys!

The finished product.

Served with homemade 1-Day bread.

The First Post.

I've grown up in a cooking household and as a result, love to cook. My mum and grandma are both amazing cooks with very different styles. Mum is a bit of a foodie who can cook almost anything, if she feels like it, Nana was a farmers wife and is a roast and soup whiz. As kids, my siblings and I spent our winters in South East Asia, and have been keen eaters of Asian cuisine since. Watching mum cook usually ended in me asking her for the recipe, and being told 'oh I just put a bit of this, and about a handful of that and then...'. Really helpful for someone trying to learn! So i've developed my own mismatched cooking style. Sometimes I work from a base recipe and add things to change the flavour, sometimes it's from memory or taste, and most often it's from what ever is in the cupboard. 

I'll share my successes, failures, flat-as-pancake cakes and a bread recipe that magically improves everytime. I'll also be blogging about restaurants, cafes or street stalls that I come across on my upcoming trip through Bali, Malaysia and Vietnam, during my final month in Korea and from back in Auckland.

It's currently -2 in Korea, balmy compared to the -10's and snow we've been having! Last night I put together a hearty beef and red wine casserole and attempted a loaf of handmade white bread. As a bit of a side note, Korea  is probably a terrible place to start a food blog- my student flats had cupboards and equipment better suited to cooking...and a real oven too. Cooking here is bare-bones basic cooking...Koreans don't tend to use spices or herbs aside from salt and chili and i'm really missing basil, rosemary and coriander! My 'oven' is a little toaster oven- and a gem- but not entirely suitable for baking...I am looking forward to getting home and heading to the supermarket. For now- Winter Beef and Red Wine Casserole and 1-Day White Bread.