Red Silverbeet Pie

I got some red silver beet given to me that I really need to use. Wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it, so I made a “layered pie” with it. A couple of layers of stew and a couple of the silver beet with some pastry on top. Tasted pretty good, although given it took me ages and I was pretty hungry by the time it came out of the oven, that made it taste even better!
Just grabbed some mince meat, threw in some chopped vegies, garlic and Worcestershire sauce, cooked that together in the pot for a while, then once it was in the dish, put the chopped silver beet on top in alternating layers, threw some pastry on top and whacked it in the over for about 20 or so minutes. And yes, tomorrow I will take the leftovers in to work to share around!

Hot from the oven

Plated up

Layers

Silver beet layer

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Scones, Capsicum and Pizza

I haven’t been doing much cooking lately, but here’s a few offerings.

Scones – Had to make some scones to test out the jam I made the last couple of weeks (blood plum and strawberry). See here for the scone recipe. Of course that’s the homemade strawberry jam that I made the other week running down the side… I’d like to say it was the hot scone making the jam melt, but the jam didn’t set. Never mind, it tastes good, even if it is a bit runny!

Capsicums – some home grown sweet yellow capsicums stuffed with some mince (garlic and onion in the mince), some almonds on top and then some cheese. The idea came from a magazine and they suggested using pine nuts and grilling it, but I didn’t have any of them. I put mine in the oven so that the capsicum would cook a bit, everyone liked it at work done that way, but I’m sure either way would work.

Pizza – some Lebanese bread as a base, some tomato paste with mixed herbs, then home grown capsicum, home grown spring onions and home grown tomato on top (thanks to Dad for all the home grown stuff!), then some silverside or tuna and lightly sprinkled with some cheese. A nice, easy and healthy lunch and leftovers will also get taken into work tomorrow!

More of a jam…

So a little over a week ago I made some jam and after that said I was done for jam making this year. But some good value jam making strawberries were a bit hard to resist, so I decided to give it another shot.

36 punnets of strawberries (minus the rotten ones which was probably about 80%) came down to about 2.75kg of useful fruit, 2kg of sugar (a little less than the recommended 1 pound sugar to one pound fruit) and some lemon juice. Fruit cooked, then everything thrown in together. End result: one burnt pot, one pot of jam on the stove top and 13 jars of strawberry jam for about $8! It looks like it didn’t quite set though, but it’s no worse than what you’d buy in the shops and better to be a bit runny as opposed to set like rock.

Putting some marbles in the bottom of the pot is meant to stop it from burning on the bottom – they roll around and make it so it doesn’t stick. Worked last time, but not this time.
To answer two questions: Did I eat much of the fruit and does it taste ok? I only had one strawberry right at the end and it tastes like strawberry jam, so that’s good enough for me!

Ingredients

Preparation

No, they didn’t go in!

Ready to start

Just starting to stew

Nearly done

At least half a jar here!

Oops… burnt pot

This years produce