Beef, beer, herbs and a school reunion

Last Saturday was already a positive day by the time I'd had a lie in and been to have my swede cut at the local barbers. The reason was that my dog and I had spent Friday night with great company who had made my weekend start in the best way possible.

After walking the dog in muggy heat it was time to prepare a fortifying tea. It needed to be fortifying because I was heading out that evening to a school reunion at my local where plenty of beer was going to flow freely.

I don't eat a lot of meat partly because when I still lived at home my parents were largely vegetarian and as a result I've discovered a wide range of vegetarian recipes that mean I don't need to eat a lot of meat. However once in a while I find the need to cook a meat dish as I think meat gives you much-needed protein that is not always available in vegetarian dishes.

I therefore decided to stew some beef chunks in herbs with ale. As the re-union I was going to was, without giving my age away too much, the class of 1999 some suitable nineties music was in order while I prepared my meal. I put Suede's 1997 effort Coming Up on the player, although not quite as good as their first two albums it does have some excellent melodic moments like "Trash" "Filmstar" and the "The Beautiful Ones" to name but three.

I took a box of beef chunks and fried them for five minutes turning them regularly until they were brown on each side. I also prepared a herb dressing comprised of diced Thyme, Purple Sage, Parsley and Black Pepper that I mixed in a measuring jug with some sunflower oil and half a pint of Tetley Bitter. All the herbs were plucked straight from my back garden.

I put the beef into a glass ovenproof dish with olive oil covering the bottom and then spread evenly over the beef the herb and ale mixture. I then cooked the beef in the oven at Gas Mark 4 for two hours. After two hours I took it out of the oven and turned each of the beef chunks. I then added another half pint of bitter to stop the beef getting too try and then cooked it in the oven for another hour on Gas Mark 3.

After an hour I served it with some steamed green beans, asparagus and butternut squash chunks. A good friend of mine, who was jetting to Vienna the following day, shared the dish with me and as with me it fortified him for an excellent night catching up with him and another close friend as well as meeting some wonderful people who it was great to see back in my life.

Well done, but still tender enough with plenty of herbs and bitter to make this beef come high up in the flavoursome charts

Purple Haze

A colleague of mine, who is a fan of elephant spotting- a hobby that we both indulged in during our lunchbreaks last week- long story, also keeps an allotment and grows lots of flavoursome and decision fresh fruit and veg there. Amongst the produce that I obtained last Friday and gratefully placed in the boot of my aging jallopy just before work commenced for the day was some beetroot.

After I had cleaned up two lots of it I topped and tailed them and peeled them. As is always the way with preparing beetroot the chopping board turned a bright purple, as did my hands, which made them glow as if I was some kind of radioactive mutant.

I next quartered the beetroots and placed them in a glass ovenproof dish, the base of which was covered in sunflower oil, together with some diced cloves of garlic and some sprigs of thyme. I them sprinkled a liberal helping of cumin over the dish and placed it in the oven at gas mark five and cooked it for thirty five minutes.

As the beetroot cooked the music played on in the kitchen; it was more of the Incredible String Band. This time it was their 1969 album "The Big Huge" the record finds the members in, at least as they saw it if not their fans, a better place mentally after their embracing of a new religion and this is reflected in the fact that although the beautifully clear acoustic sounds flow freely, the record is a little too unadventurous even though it contains some solid songs.

Also while the beetroot was cooking I brought a pan of water to the boil and boiled six ounces of spinach for around ten minutes, drained the pan and set the spinach to one side.

After the thirty-five minutes were up I pulled the beetroot out of the oven and turned all the pieces over, as well as hiding the well-cooked garlic cloves under some of the beetroot pieces, and put them back in the oven for another five minutes. Next I took the beetroot out again and laid the spinach on top of it with some slices of mozzerella and put them back in the oven for a further ten minutes.

When I pulled the dish out of the oven ten minutes later I found the mozzerella had browned just enough and the beetroot was crisp, as was the spinach. The cumin also gave it a sharp taste while the the homegrown beetroot was of the highest quality.

Melted Mozzerella, warm spinach plus glowing beetroot with plenty of cumin makes this dish a winner

The Green Man

Today was a day to reflect on a week just passed that, as with this morning, was a mix of old and new. The week saw me return to the Temple for a Monday night meeting out in the Dales that was my first since giving up the Presidency of a club I joined in 2010. It also saw a round of golf with a colleague I've worked with now for nineteen months that was followed by a curry at a longstanding favourite restaurant of mine in Chesterfield and then the following day another colleague vanishing like fat in the frying pan after a quarter of a century's service.

This morning on a walk in clammy and sticky conditions I saw the father of two people I was at Primary School with, he looked tired but hopeful about soon becoming a granddad for the second time in his life.

For me after two weekends involving alcohol related enjoyment with excellent company it was a time also to re-charge my batteries, even in summertime when the longer days give you more energy you still need these type of weekends.

In keeping with the summer theme, and the fact I'd just mowed the lawn for the first time in the month, I decided to cook a green risotto featuring peas, asparagus, runner beans and mint. The ingredients were as follows:

5 shallots.
6 ounces risotto rice.
900 millelitres of vegetable stock.
6 ounces of frozen peas.
3 tablespoons of dried mint.
5 ounces of mozzerella.
3 Runner Beans.
3 Asparagus tips.
3 Large spring onions.

The music I played today was part of what I call my weekend collection, which ostensibly comprises of folk-rock, folk, singer-writer and mellow electronica. The music is more mellow than the type I like to listen to during the long drive to work as that music, largely heavy rock or at the very least up-tempo rock, gets me in the zone to go to work.

Today's soundtrack was the music of the Incredible String Band an almost forgetton psychedlic folk act, and incidentally former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams'  favourite band, who's clean guitar sound and use of instruments from different musical cultures remains unique and enjoyable. The second album "5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion, was the record of choice for preparing this dish. It has many highlights including the opener "Chinese White" and, despite its twee title, the suprising lesson in living life that is "The Hedgehog's Song".

The first task was to line the bottom of my Le Cresceut with sunflower oil and then top and tail and dice the shallots. I then stewed them slowly in the Le Cresceut on a low heat in the hob with the lid on for nearly ten minutes so as to make the onions translucent.

After that I added the rice and stirred it constantly, as you always should do when cooking risotto rice so it doesn't stick, for a further five minutes. Then I added about a quarter of the vegetable stock and stirred the rice again regularly until the rice began to soak the stock up, although the rice was still al-dente at this stage.

After another five minutes I added the asparagus, spring onions and the runner beans after first cutting them into 1 centimetre x 1 centimetre (roughly) pieces and washing them. I also added another two quarters of the stock and simmered the mixture with the dried mint for about twenty-five minutes so as to allow all the ingredients, especially the rice, to soak up the stock.

I then added the peas and took a Facetime call from a good friend of mine, who after successful spells at leading international brands, is once more a student and very much enjoying being one. I also added the rest of the stock at this time and after another ten minutes, which included encouragment via Facetime from my friend to ensure the risotto wasn't too runny, I added the mozzerella and let it melt into the risotto and thicken it enough to make sure it wasn't too dry but not have excess liquid at the same time.

I served it quickly and sat in my conservatory looking at the hills as I did so. The mint and green vegetables gave the dish a fresh taste, perfect on a hot summer's day,while the mozzerella added a richness that lifted the risotto way above the ordinary.

All the greens of summer with an extra dusting of mint atop it