My friend picked me up a bargain!!
Phone call yesterday morning to say her local bargain shop had an organic meat box for £12.50. She had the last one in the shop for me, even put back some of her shopping so she could buy it for me! :)
So we went down last night after hubster finished work to pick it up.
Lamb noisette (I know! I'd never heard of it either)
Cubed Venison (that has been bled, I rang and checked)
Cubed lamb
Minced steak
Sausages
Chicken leg quarters
Chicken leg quarters
Bacon!
Fabulous! :D The only thing is, these have been pre-frozen, and are dated within a day of expiry. So it means a day of batch cooking and freezing everything, which is what I've been doing today. And I am SHATTERED! Heres what I made with it:
Tuscan sausage casserole.
I had a packet mix for this, including baking bag. It smells wonderful! I chopped the sausages into 3 pieces each, added a red onion, carrot, red pepper and tin of kidney beans. All into the bag with the mix an a little water and into the oven.
Heres what it looked like once cooked:
You could serve with pasta, mash, rice, top with mash for a pie, or even a pastry pie. There is enough for our family of 4 and maybe a lunch portion for hubby to take to work. Its in a tuppaware and frozen.
I am overflowing with peppers at the moment. They have been half price at Lidl the past couple of weekends, and I got some reduced aswel, so I'm sticking them in absolutely everything.
The oven was already hot so I stuck in a tray of red pepper and red onion drizzled with olive oil to roast, to make some quiches.
Packet of pastry mix made up (or you can make your own) to line two flan cases.
You can blind bake the pastry, or not, completely up to you.
Reduced goats cheese leftover from the weekend, chopped up ready to add.
Veg all roasted.
So, 4 eggs per case (8 for the two) a pint of milk per case (2 pints for my two). Salt and pepper to season.
Divide the roast veg between the dishes, add cubed goats cheese and pour over the egg/milk mix.
In the oven for about 30/40mins.
1 for lunches through the week, and 1 for camping at the weekend, maybe, if it lasts that long. Probably not ;P
The steak mince got turned into:
Italian meatballs.
I just did these quickly on the stove. Mince, plus breadcrumbs and seasoning. They broke up a bit so next time I will add an egg. Fried with onions, add canned tomatoes, a bit of beef stock, salt and pepper, herbs etc. I added grated carrot, courgette, mushroom and peppers to my sauce too. Enough for a family of 4 for dinner and a little 2 person portion too.
With the cubed lamb I made:
Lamb Bhuna curry
With another packet sauce mix! I know, its so lazy but when your cooking this much in 1 day, while juggling 1 little ones you need all the help you can get.
Added lots of onion, mushroom and pepper aswel as the lamb.
This one is also in the freezer.
The chicken leg quarters I stuck into the slow cooker with water and some herbs from the garden. In the morning I will strip all the meat off and make a soup with it plus the stock for freezing.
12 (or at least there were 12 before the kids got hold of them) raspberry and white chocolate muffins because I had a free shelf in the oven once a quiche came out. Used another mix from approved food.
Defrosted a pack of puff pastry and punnet of mushrooms to make a venison pie.
Rather tired, made a mistake :/ tried to line a pie dish with puff pastry and blind bake ready to fill with the filling.
A word of warning:
Don't.
It melted rather than crisping up like shortcrust. I could've lined it with shortcrust and then topped with puff pastry. But after cursing the universe and throwing a hissy fit I've decided I'm too tired. Ive got the filling in the fridge and will make the pie later in the week when I can look at it without getting angry. D'oh.
The bacon has. Long date so is staying in the fridge for a special breakfast treat.
Which just leaves the lamb! It was a rolled joint, and you can cook it as a joint. But I really fancied something fancier, so I cut it into medallions and marinated them in olive oil, sea salt, cracked black pepper, rosemary from the garden and a grated garlic clove.
I will be pan frying them both sides so that they are still pink in the middle and serving with roast potatoes and carrots. And I will try and take a picture if I remember before I eat them!
