Beef, Pepper and Mushroom Casserole

This made the house smell like pizza all day. I was tempted to add tomato paste and some pineapple. lol
Adapted from "Margaret Fulton's Book of Family Meals"

1kg braising steak, roughly cubed
3 tbsp flour
salt & pepper
3 tbsp oil
3 onions, chopped
1 large green capsicum, deseeded and chopped
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 cup red wine
150g button mushrooms, quartered

Mix the seasonings with the flour. Of course, you could really use any seasonings you want, but don't go overboard, or you'll drown out the other flavours. Coat the meat pieces in flour. Heat oil in a frypan, and quickly brown meat on all sides, frying in small batches. Place meat in slow cooker, and turn slow cooker on low. (I always turn my slow cooker on once I've started putting ingredients in, to keep them warm while I do the rest of the prep)

Fry capsicum and onion in leftover oil. Add to slow cooker. Dry fry mushrooms to add a little colour if you like, or can be bothered. Otherwise just add straight to slow cooker. Mix stock and wine together. This may be too much liquid, I'll let you know once it's finished cooking ;). You of course can use any combination of stock and wine measures to make up 2 1/2 cups, I used 1 1/2 cups of stock because that is the smallest size my stock comes in. (I use alcohol removed wine for cooking btw, just in case you thought I was trying to make Master 4 a booze hound!)Use your liquid to deglaze the frypan, by added slowly at high heat. Once it is all in the pan, add any remaining flour and cook for a minute. Pour all this lovely gravy into the slow cooker, and put the lid on. Leave for as long as you usually leave a casserole on low, or turn it up to high, and leave it as long as you would on that. It's up to you really. I'm not a recipe nazi. After all, if it doesn't work, it's your family who has to eat it! ;)

This was nice, but not anything special. We arrived home from shopping five minutes before our regular dinner time, so I threw some two minutes noodles in with it. I don't recommend doing that btw. Take the extra 10 minutes to microwave some potatoes please.

Chicken & Sultana Casserole

The slowest 2 Minute Noodles I've ever cooked! ;)

I adapted this for the slow cooker from Margaret Fulton's Book of Family Meals.

Chicken & Sultana Casserole
1/2 cup plain flour
salt & pepper
grated nutmeg
4 chicken pieces (I used thighs)
60g butter
2 tbsp oil
2 onions, chopped
8 shortcut rashers bacon, chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
250g mushrooms, sliced
1 can diced, peeled tomatoes
3/4 cup sultanas

Season the flour with the nutmeg, salt & pepper, and coat the chicken on all sides.
Melt the butter in a frypan with oil, and fry the coated chicken until golden on all sides.
Remove the chicken and place into the slow cooker. In the remaining fat, cook the bacon and opnion until the onion is soft. Add any remaining flour and cook for about a minute.
Then slowly add the stock, deglazing the pan and making a nice thickened sauce as you do so.
Pour the lot into your cooker on top of the chicken.
Add the sultanas, the tomato, and the mushrooms and cook on low for about 8 hours, or until done.

About half an hour before dinner time, I added three broken up packets of 2 minute noodles, pushing them under the juice level. These soaked up all the sauce wonderfully, leaving me with no water slopping around at all. Next time I might add a little tomato paste, or another can of tomatoes (or perhaps just use the 4 fresh, peeled and chopped tomatoes the recipe called for). I also might add a tsp of curry powder, because it was nice, but a little bland. Perhaps some tarragon, or anything really, to liven it up a bit. It's very kid friendly though, everyone liked it. I served with loaf style garlic bread. Oh, that's another thing this dish could use, garlic. Tell you what, this is going to be a very different dish next time I make it. You'll only recognise it by the sultanas lol.