Tomato Stew Beef

The weather in the UK backs to normal, around 10 degree C recently. It is nice. Not so cold as long as it is not so windy. X’Mas is coming soon that my friend and I were discussing what kind of X’Mas movies we should watch together? I have no ideas what she talked about, like “Miracle on 34th Street” or “It's a Wonderful Life”. For me, X’mas movies are like “Home alone” or “The Holiday”. HAHA… It is a huge difference. I have no ideas what those movies are. And I don’t think they are broadcasted in Taiwan. But, I will definitely watch those classic movies in the UK to experience the real X’MAS.

Recipe: Serve for 3~4 people
 

Steps of Tomato Stew Beef

(1) Prepare a saucepan. Add some oil in. Switch the medium heat on. Add the beef in. Fried the beef until the surfaces turn golden. Then, pour the beef into a bowl. Set aside.

(2) Add the chopped onion and carrots into the pan. Cook around 5 minutes until it turns soft

(3) Add the quartered tomatoes into the pan. Stir it with onion and carrots. Boil it until tomato start to juice.

(4) Use a kitchen blender to blend all ingredients

(5) Add 2 table spoons of tomato puree, 1 dried basil and beef into the tomato sauce. Bring it to boil. Then, switch off the heat.
(6) Pour tomato stew beef to slow cooker. Turn it to the low heat and cook around 3 hours until beef turns tender. Then, season with salt if it is necessary.

 

I like tomato stew beef that I never tried this before. This is my first time to cook this. It is very delicious that my friend and I want more after we ate out all. Will definitely cook this again. Eat with pasta, rice, or bread. Or, any way you like. Enjoy it.

Meatball Pasta with Tomato Sauce

IKEA is very famous worldwide because of not only their design of furniture, but also their meatball. If I go to IKEA, I would like to have a plate of meatball there. They also sell the frozen meatballs. So, of course, I purchased a bag of meatball. If you have purchased one, you know how many meatballs per bag. I can’t use the same way to cook meatball every time so that meatball past. Um… It sounds yum…

Recipe: Serve 4~5 people

Tomato Sauce Link

Steps of Meatball Pasta with Tomato Sauce

(1) Prepare a fried-pan with oil. No need to have too much oil that just needing to cover the bottom. Add meat balls into the pan. Switch to the medium heat. Fried all meatballs until it turns tender.

(2) Prepare another saucepan that boiling water to cook spaghetti. Add salt and a little olive oil in to avoid sticky. It takes around 12~15 minutes depend on every manufacturer. Stir a while every 5 minutes.

(3) Get meatballs out of the pan into a bowl. Set aside. And then, use the same pan to fry mushrooms.

(4) When mushroom turns tender, adding meatballs back
(5) Add tomato sauce into the pan, the amount of tomato sauce needs to over the height of meatball. Add salt and black pepper to season the sauce. Boil the sauce around 2 minutes and then switch the heat off.

(6) Place spaghetti on the plate. And then, pour the sauce and meatballs over the top. Sprinkle some cheese over the top.

 

Meatball pasta was inspirited by the movie, Hancock, that Mary cooks meatballs pasta for their family. As I said before, I am not a fan of tomato sauce so that I just leave this recipe away. After cooking Bolognese Lasagna last time, I found out tomato sauce can be so scrumptious. So, why not just cook meatballs pasta with tomato sauce!! Enjoy it.

Tomato Sauce

Food with tomato sauce was not my top choices when eating at restaurants. Because the flavor of tomato are too much too be real tomato flavor. After cooking Bolognese Lasagna, I found out… YES… The really tomato sauce should be like this, a mild tomato flavor with light tomato color. And  it is very scrumptious. Everyone cooks it in different ways. Here is one of my ways to cook it.

 

Recipe: Serve 5~6 people

 

Steps

(1) Heat up the vegetable oil in a big saucepan. Then, put some chili pepper in. Stir around 1 minute.

(2) Then, add chopped garlic cloves into the pan. Cook around 3 minutes to let the oil full of garlic flavor.
(3) Add the quartered tomatoes into the pan. Stir a little bit to let the oil cover the tomatoes. Cover the lid and cook around 10 minutes until it starts to become very soft.

(4) Add the chopped onion and carrots into the pan. Stir it with tomato. Boil it until tomato start to juice.

(5) Pick chili peppers out. Use a kitchen blender to blend all ingredients. Then, put chili pepper back.
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: If you love spicy food, it is definitely okay to blend chili pepper with other ingredients.)

(6) Add 2 table spoons of tomato puree and 1 table spoon of soy sauce into the pan.

(7) Simmer it around 60~90 minutes until it turns thick.

(8) Add some sea salt and black pepper to taste

 
I have discussion with my friends that homemade sauces won’t have a very strong color like sold at jar. But, the taste is much better than those. Then, why would we like to buy them? Because of beautiful color? Or, very convenient? I am not sure if I could cook or bake every day after going back to work. But, I would like to try.

It is a very yum tomato sauce that I use this sauce to cook pasta, risotto, roast meal or anything you want. Enjoy it.

Bolognese Lasagna

My lovely friend did Bolognese last week. When she cooked it, the smell of Bolognese was full of the house. I asked her how to cook it. Surprisingly, she roasted tomato before starting to simmer the sauce. I think this one more step enriches the flavor. My friend used Bolognese with spaghetti. Doing some different cooking. How about cook Bolognese with lasagna sheets?

 

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/392F/Gas Mark 6

Baking Time: around 45 minutes

Recipe: Serve 4 People

 

Steps of Bolognese

(1) Wash tomato and halve all of them. Place them on a baking plate

(2) Drizzle some Olive oil over the top. (I used 2 table spoon, totally)
(3) Drizzle some sea salt and black pepper over the top. Send it to the pre-heated oven at 160C/320F/Gas Mark 3 for an hour.

 

(4) When it is ready, place all roasted tomato into a bowl. Then, juice all by a kitchen blender.

 

(5) Prepare finely chopped garlic clove and onion and chili pepper. Place around 2 table spoon of olive oil into a fried pan. Switch to medium heat. Place chili pepper and clove into the fried pan. Stir for around 1~2 minutes.

(6) Place chopped onion into the pan. Stir for a while. Cover the lid and cook it around 5 minutes.

 

(7) Place beef and pork mince into the pan. Fried the mince until it is colored.
(8) Prepare the gravy. Pour gravy and tomato sauce into the fried pan.

 

(9) Add tomato puree and grated carrot in. Mix all ingredients well. Boil them. And then, simmer it for around 2 hour.
(10) At the last 30 minutes, add sliced mushroom into the sauce. Mix it well. When it is ready, cool it a little bit. Set aside.

 

Steps of Assembly

(1) Cover the Bolognese sauce at the bottom of a baking dish

(2) Add 2 lasagna sheets over the top.

(3) Cover the Bolognese sauce over the lasagna sheets. And then, drizzle some grated cheese over the top
(4) Repeat step (2) and (3) until using out all lasagna sheets.
(5) Cover the Bolognese sauce over the lasagna sheets. Use the rest of grated cheese over the top. Cover with a kitchen foil and send it into the pre-heat oven at 200C/392F/Gas Mark 6 for 25 minutes. Then, uncover the kitchen foil and cook for another 15~20 minutes until the surface turns a little golden and brown.

 
Learning how to cook Bolognese sauce can do lots of different meals. Although Italian people may disagree this, I use that for pasta, pastry, rice, or bread. Enjoy this Bolognese sauce and I’ll share how to use this sauce on another cooking next time :D