Lamb – Retro Hippie Cook

Easy One Pot Lamb (with slow cooker instructions)

Every now and then my husband Pete gets a real craving for a good lamb casserole. Especially on cold wintry Ballarat days when the air blows icy from the Antartica, it whooshes right over Tasmania and straight up to our front door and nothing beats the cold like a hearty one pot. This is my go to recipe. It’s super easy and yummy and I make it in our slow cooker. I pop it on at night and the next morning we have hot lamb ready to eat all day with Golden Mash or Parsley and Cheese Dumplings – I have given you the recipe for both.

You will need

1 kg of lamb – I used a leg but you can use any cut of lamb you like. I cut it into large chunks.
4 Cloves of Garlic chopped finely
1/4 cup of plain flour
2 large potatoes sliced
2 Onions sliced
4 small to medium Carrots sliced
1/4 cup of mixed herbs
1 cup of Mushrooms sliced

if using a slow cooker add 1 cup of any broth

if using a stove top use 2 cups of broth

To Make It

Cut the excess fat off the lamb and chop it into large pieces and put it into the pot or slow cooker.
Tip in the flour and rub it over the lamb covering the pieces
Put in all other ingredients.

To Cook It

If using a slow cooker cook on auto or on high until bubbling then turn to low and cook for 8 hours (Or do as I do and put it on at night and leave over night)

If using a pot on the stove cook covered over a low heat for 2 – 4 hours or until the meat is tender and falling apart

Serve with either Golden Mash or Parsley and Cheese Dumplings:

Golden Mash

Cook equal parts potato and pumpkin or yam and then mash with sour cream

Parsley Dumplings

Mix together:

1 cup of self raising flour
1 egg
2 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley
1/4 cup of grated cheese
1 tablespoon of milk

Drop balls of dumpling mix about a dessertspoon size onto the top of the stew, cover and continue to cook for 20 minutes or until dumplings are cooked.

Poor Student Vegetable Soup (now also called Actors Soup)

I lived on this soup when I was a poor art student in the late 70’s. I dressed in bright green tights and retro 1930’s dresses from the op shop, lived on a student allowance of $70 a fortnight and made gallons of this soup. I passed on this recipe to my youngest son who is at present a poor Jazz Piano student at the Conservatorium in another state (God I miss him!) . This soup is great because you can use it as a base and add anything you like to it according to your budget. It’s super healthy and so now I am putting it here for my son Seth who is an actor on the other side of the world in L.A. (God I miss him!) ,

Vegetable Soup

Into a large pot place one and half cups of each of the following vegetables:

diced onion

sliced celery

grated parsnip

grated turnip

grated carrots

Add

1 tablespoon of mixed herbs

A good lug of olive oil – about 4 tablespoons

salt and pepper

Fry everything for about 5 minutes stirring often. Its really important not to skip this step, this is what really brings out all the lovely vegetable flavours.

Add

500 g (1 lb) of the cheapest bones you can find, lamb, beef, oxtail, ham hock, chicken anything is fine. I used lamb bones today but I just use what ever is cheapest. If you want a vegetarian soup leave out the bones but add some lentils or other legumes instead.

2 litres of vegetable stock, you can use the ready made stock or you can use powder or cubes and water which is what I did.

Bring to the boil then simmer gently for one hour.

Remove the bones. The dog is waiting patiently for the bones, this is the dog with his I’m being good waiting for those bones face

Chop a bunch of parsley and add to the soup – this will taste great and give you a really good shot of iron.

Serve sprinkled generously with parmesan or tasty cheese.

Things I sometimes add to this soup are

bacon pieces, lentils, white legumes like haricot beans, other veggies like potato, yams, zucchini etc.

Hidden Shepherds Pie – a Fair Dinkum Aussie Meal

Shepherds Pie with hidden layer of Cheese Melt — Shepherds Pie with hidden Cheese Melt

My baby daughter (okay she is 17 so maybe not a baby) is off to the other side of the world – to Italy and she wants to make a Fair Dinkum Aussie Meal for her host family. She decided there was nothing more Fair Dinkum Aussie than Shepherds Pie and asked me for my recipe.

So why do I call it Hidden Shepherds Pie – I have been making this one for years and when the kids were little they never picked up on the hidden veggies and lentils which add to the texture. But its not just stuff kids don’t like that are hidden in here – there are also yummy slices of Tomatoes and Cheese.

It looks like a lot of ingredients but it is really quite simple to make.

The secret to this recipe is it tastes even better the next day.

This serves 6-8 people.

Ingredients

1 Onion
2 – 4 cloves of Garlic (depending on taste – we are 8 cloves kinda people)
2 Tablespoons of fresh Herbs or 1 tablespoon of dried Mixed Herbs. For fresh I used rosemary, thyme and oregano because that is what grows on my back porch.
1 Stick of Celery sliced thinly
1 kg of Minced (Ground) meat. We use Kangaroo – its low fat, cheap and ecologically sound in Australia. Kangaroos breed prolifically and don’t hurt our environment. You can use Lamb or Beef just as easily
I Grated Carrot
I cup of Peas fresh or frozen
1 can of Lentils
2 Tablespoons of any Gluten Free Flour
2 Tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons of Red Wine (more if like me you want to have a glass while you cook) or Balsamic Vinegar
4 generous Tablespoons of Tomato Paste
Olive Oil
3 Cups of Diced Sweet Yellow Potato or Yams or Butternut Pumpkin
4 Cups of Diced Potato’s
Sliced or Grated Mature Tasty Cheese
Fresh Tomatoes

Let’s Make it

Meat Base

In a deep saucepan fry the onion, garlic and herbs in a good lug of olive oil until the onion is transparent. Then add the meat, grated carrot, celery and peas and continue frying until the meat is cooked.
Remove from the heat.
Add the flour and stir thoroughly so lumps don’t form. Then add the Lentils, Soy, Worcestershire, Red Wine or Balsamic and the Tomato Paste.
Pour into a deep baking dish and pat flat.
Cover the meat with slices of fresh tomato
Cover the tomato with a yummy layer of Tasty Cheese.

Potato Top

Boil the diced Potato until cooked soft enough to mash.
Mash the potato with Olive oil (I used 3 tablespoons of Oil) – you want a soft but firm consistency.
Place the mashed potato on top of the cheese and spread evenly with a fork
If you want to you can drizzle olive oil or grated cheese over the potato to assist browning.

Bake 20 minutes @ 350F

Best Gluten Free Meat Pie Ever

Welcome to my Gluten Free Recipe Blog.
So I am starting this blog with my kids favourite recipe. Aussie Meat Pie with an epic gluten free pastry. I thought I would bring my kids up to be good Vegetarians and to entice them I made them Apricot Tofu instead of Apricot Chicken which they declared was yuk! and Kidney Bean Bolognaise which was yukker! and eventually I gave in to their demands for meat. Mince is without a doubt the easiest meat to cook, especially for an ex veggo.

My Coeliac daughter bemoans the lack of gluten free comfort food – (as she’s a bit of a carnivore) especially a good yummy gluten free aussie meat pie.

So I made her this one.
Credit where credit is due it was inspired by Jamie Oliver – thanks for the cream cheese idea Jamie – it’s great for holding gluten free flour together.
I thought there would be left overs but it all got gobbled up.
I served this pie in Aussie tradition with Mash, Gluten Free Gravy and Peas.

Ingredients

Pastry
200 grams of Gluten Free Self Raising Flour. (I use Organ)
100 grams of Cream Cheese
100 grams of butter

Filling
A good splosh of Olive Oil
600 grams of lamb mince (you can use beef)
1 large onion – red/purple onion is best because of their sweetness
2 teaspoons of French mustard grained
1 Tablespoons of GF Soy Sauce (I use Kikomans)
3 Tablespoons of GF Worcestershire Sauce (I use Spring Gully)
2 extra Tablespoons of GF Flour
140 gram tub of Tomato Paste
1 heaped cup of grated carrot
1 Gluten Free beef stock cube (I use Massels)
2 Tablespoons of Balsamic or Red Wine Vinegar
Prep Time 20 mins.

Making the Pastry
Now normally you would use plain flour in this recipe but I rarely use plain flour for any Gluten Free flour item because anything using GF flour tends to be heavy. So to combat that I nearly always use Self Raising.
Put the 200 grams of Self Raising Flour into a food processor with the 100 grams of cream cheese and 100 grams of butter and pulse process until thoroughly mixed. It won’t form a lump like ordinary flour but will form granules like bread crumbs. Tip it into a bowl and then form a ball of the pastry with your hands.
Put the pastry into glad wrap or aluminium foil, seal and put it in the fridge. I use aluminium foil because I think that plastics leach into our food and we don’t want that! Leave it in the fridge whilst you make the filling.

Making the Filling
Leave the pan on the stove for all these steps, I am a patient cooker and use a low gas setting.
Finely chop or process the onion.
Put the onion into the olive oil in a pan and fry till browning or at least translucent. Stir occasionally.
Add the mince and fry until browned, continue to occasionally stir.
Add the 1 heaped cup of grated carrot, stir well.
Add the 2 teaspoons of mustard, the 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 3 tablespoons of Worcestershire, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, sprinkle in the crumbled stock cube, add the 140 grams of tomato paste and stir to combine.
Sprinkle the extra 2 tablespoons of gluten free flour over the top then stir really well and cook for a minute to cook the flour to remove the flour taste and thicken the filling.
Remove from the stove top, cover and set aside to cool.

Don’t worry that the carrot isn’t cooked.

It will be by serving time.

When the filling is room temperature remove the pastry from the fridge.

Now this is the tricky bit with Gluten Free flour. Put the pastry onto one sheet of baking paper and work the pastry until it is soft and warm and pliable again.
Then push it into a round shape and flatten it out as much as you can without over working the pastry.
Put a sheet of baking paper over the top of the pastry and roll it out the rest of the way until it will cover the top of the pie dish.
Put the filling in the pie dish.
Keeping the pastry on the baking paper gently tip it onto the filling then chuck out the baking paper and with a fork make some holes in the pastry for air to escape and scallop the edge if you like. It’s really important to use the baking paper to support the pastry while you get it on the filling, gluten free pastry is extra crumbly.

Bake for 20mins at 180C 350F

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