Hearty Mince

I'm not a chef. I'm not even much of a foodie. I could quite happily eat the same five meals between now and when I die and not really feel too worried about the situation. Which means that cooking gigantic vats of food to eat across the week really suits my temperament, as well as my schedule.

And there's something about this time of year, just after the clocks go back, that makes me feel all autumnal and jolly and quite in the mood to batch cook the crap out of something. So tonight I cooked..... well I'm never entirely sure what to call it. Is it a bolognese if you're not serving it on pasta? Is it a chilli if it has no kidney beans? I have no idea. So instead, I'm going to call it 

Hearty Mince

The first thing to note about making hearty mince is the invaluable nature of the sous chef. Mine is quite keen on veg preparation, but soon loses interest thereafter.

Murdoch loves raw carrot

There is no set recipe for this meal, not really. I look at what veg I've got in the fridge, pop to the supermarket to add what else I fancy and chop it up quite finely, as I don't like having big chunks of stuff in my food. This time round I had onion, garlic, leeks, chillis (with seeds left in for a bit of ooomph), carrot, courgette (not chopped in this picture as I ran out of room on the chopping board), fresh peas and edamame.

Chop veg finely. Or don't. It's your dinner, have it how you like.

Once you've got your veg ready to go, heat up a bit of butter (or olive oil) and chuck the veg in a big pan to soften on a low heat. I left the peas and edamame out at this stage, to be added later.

Probably at least fifteen of your "five a day"

Next, turn up the heat a bit and add some mince. I bought two large (750g) packets of extra low fat beef mince from Tesco and forgot to take a picture of it cooking, mostly because my pan isn't really big enough to accommodate that much meat, so there was quite a bit of unseemly swearing at this stage. Please imagine a picture of a metric fucktonne of beef mince browning off with the veg. Thanks. After it was all browned off, I drained it a bit, as there was quite a bit of liquid at this stage.

Starting to look quite tasty

Add some herbs, stock cube, salt and pepper (and if you fancy it, a spoonful of Marmite. But not coffee, as Sainsbury's seem to be suggesting. WTF Sainsbury's?! Give it a rest), some tomato purée and a couple of cartons of chopped tomatoes. Lower the heat again and let it bubble away for a bit.

Add the peas and edamame

Near the end of the cooking, I added the peas and the edamame. They only need a light steam, so best add them towards the end, otherwise you risk ending up with green mush.  I popped the lid on so that all of the steam stayed in and left it alone for about 10 minutes.

Everything tastes better with cheese on it. FACT.

This made eight nice sized dinners, which you could serve with pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, veg or even eat just by itself. As you can see, I've popped some grated cheese on top to serve.

My final top tip is to decant into individual dinner sized containers, especially if you're a greedy bugger like me.  Then you have ready to go portions, rather than spooning gigantic helpings out of one big tub and wondering why it only lasted a day (come on, we've all been there).

Mind the Gap

Sometimes the gap between who I think I am (who I'd like to be?) and who I actually am is huge.

This has been brought home to me in a number of ways recently.

1.  The quinoa conundrum

I'm a bit of a homebody.  I spend a lot of time at home (more on that later), so I'd like to see myself as someone who has the hang of it all.  Someone with a lovely clean, tidy, well put together home, who could welcome people in at the drop of a hat, possibly whipping up a quick batch of scones for them, without smudging my lipstick.  You know the sort of thing.  Nigella Lawson crossed with Kirsty Allsopp.  Well, I'm busty, dammit, so I should be able to pull this off.  And yet, somehow I'm hopeless.  As I sit here on my sofa and type this, I can see mess everywhere.  My washing is drying on the curtain rail in my living room and my knickers are on the radiator.  I wouldn't want to invite anyone here, and I certainly don't have the makings of scones in the cupboard.

What I do have in the cupboard is quinoa.  Lots of it.  I first bought it, oh, about a year ago, cooked some, quite liked it, and then promptly threw it to the back of the cupboard.  A few weeks ago, I bought a book of quinoa recipes from the Book People. It's still in the bag.  I just took it out to take a photo.  Here it is.

Delicious!

So in an attempt to unleash my inner domestic goddess, I am........ [drum roll]........

GOING TO COOK SOMETHING FROM THE BOOK THIS WEEK.  Then I will blog about it.   

2.  An intro-version of me.

A couple of weeks ago, B sent me a text message, telling me about a book I had to read.  It's called Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking.  She said that she kept thinking about me as she read it.  I was initially astounded by this statement. Me?  Quiet?! Ahahahahhahaaaaaa!! No, really.  Aaaahahahahhahaaaaaaaaa!  Sorry.  But I trust B, she's amazing and she knows me well.  So I downloaded it to my Kindle and got around to reading it last week.  Well blow me down with a feather.  I'm an introvert. This has never occurred to me before.  Because, well, you know.  I'm quite loud.  And full of quips and banter and things.  But nonetheless, I am quite clearly an introvert.  I prefer low key social situations where I'm with people I know, but even then I often get overwhelmed and need to go, be quiet, regather myself. 

Source: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via Chelsea on Pinterest

If I'm out with friends, and there is a plan to go to a bar after we've had dinner, I excuse myself and head home.  I am quite clear that I do not want to be in the bar.  It is too much.  It is likely to be loud, with lots going on and it is JUST TOO MUCH.

Source: Uploaded by user via Lindsey on Pinterest

I'm only about halfway through the book, but it's just fantastic, and I recognise so much of myself in it.  I highly recommend it, if you are introverted (or suspect that you may be!) or you are close to someone who is.

3.  Homework.

I worked from home today.  I have an important presentation next week and wanted to work away from the distractions of the office so that I could focus on the task in hand (interestingly, open plan offices are not ideal for many introverted people, who need space and quiet to function better.  Who knew?).  In my mind, I thought that I'd be quietly sitting and thinking about the requirements of the project, maybe with a pencil lodged quirkily behind my ear.  In my mind, I'm wearing something simple, casual and stylish as I sip a cup of tea and ponder the needs of my client.  I'd be pacing up and down, before suddenly having a moment of inspiration and rushing over to my laptop to type furiously.  Hmmmmm.  In reality, I've spent all day in my hoodie and pyjama bottoms.  Alternately thinking about the client's needs and stuffing mini poppadoms into my gob.  I haven't had a cup of tea all day.  GASP.

But the good news is that I do have a handle on what we're doing for the presentation on Tuesday.  So I guess sometimes, it's not how you get there, but the end result that counts.  Phew.