Store cupboard challenge

HowlinWolf

cottage pie with the fatty beef chunks, trim it as much as poss and then give it a quick whizz in the food processor. The longish cooking time and small bits will help alleviate the toughness.
I'd look up the recipe for anjum annands oven fried chilli chicken for the chicken thighs, I think it will be on the bbc good food website.
Save the lamb kebabs for the next suitable-for-a-bbq day
Maybe a lasagne with either the pork or beef mince

ChocClare

If you're not keen on the taste of the pork mince, combine it with the ordinary mince to make a ragu and you won't taste it at all. Italians always use a combination of pork and beef in their basic meat sauce.

In other words:

Chop and fry two large onions and two grated or finely chopped carrots. If you've got celery or courgettes lying around the place you could chop or grate those in as well. (Good way to add "hidden" veg to your toddlers' meals, btw!) Add a crushed clove of garlic if you like. Turn up the heat and fry the meat in batches, mixing in well (if you like, you can fry the meat separately so you don't burn the veg). Sprinkle with either mixed herbs or herbes de provence or oregano. Add a couple of small tins of tomato puree (or the best part of a tube). You can add a splash of wine if you've got any lying about. Now add chopped tinned tomatoes or stock or just plain water until it's quite sloshy and bring to the boil. Once it's boiling, add a couple of handfuls of red lentils (this makes the meat go still further) and turn the heat right down. Let it simmer - the longer the better - until almost all the water has gone. Season to taste with pepper and salt.

This ragu can now be the basis of spag bol or lasagne or shepherd's pie or stuffed pancakes or even - by adding some chili powder and kidney beans - a "sort of" chilli con carne. With this amount of meat and lentils, you could get several meals' worth out of this. Make your meal and divide the leftovers into serving-sized plastic tubs to go in the freezer. You've then got "ready meals" for the next time you're short of time.

The beef chunks - I'd casserole with red wine and maybe a pastry top, but I haven't seen how fatty they are! If they're too awful, you might even be better off whizzing them up in the food processor and using them as mince.

Diced lamb - would you/your husband eat something Moroccan-y? I've just made a meal last night which was FANTASTIC, though I say so myself as I had all sorts of unlikely things to use up. In a bowl combine 1tblsp garlic and ginger (I get mine in a jar because we use it a lot but if not a couple of crushed cloves of garlic and some grated ginger or even powdered ginger plus some oil so it's a bit runny); 1 tsp cumin; 1 tsp ground coriander; 1 tsp cinnamon and half a teaspoon of chili powder. Mix thoroughly and zhuzh the meat round in it. Meanwhile fry an onion in a spoonful of oil. Turn up the heat and add all the meat together with the "marinade" (mine was more like a paste than a marinade). Brown, then add a couple of diced sweet potatoes. Fry for about five minutes then add a tin of drained chick peas (mine were best before June 2008 by the way :eek: - this was why I chose a Moroccan theme - but they were still fine). Add a tin of tomato puree, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a sprig of rosemary and a little water and bring to the boil. I then bunged this in the oven with the roast on the lowest shelf - I needed to add a little more water - and let it cook very slowly while the chicken was cooking, then cool down in the oven. The next day, I heated it through again and served with some best before end December 2008 couscous :rolleyes: - and it was really scrummy. And I (would have) had enough left over to freeze for another meal, except that my husband decided he had to have seconds (ie, another plate piled as high as the first).


If you don't like spicy things (this wasn't hot at all, by the way, just tasted of spices), then you could do something similar with onions, carrots and rosemary; fry off the lamb, add the veg, tomato puree and tinned tomatoes and let simmer, then top off either with mashed or sliced potatoes to make a sort of hotpot. Yum.


The minced lamb kebabs: if your husband is a big meat eater and you're trying to feed four of you, these might not be enough on their own. I'd be inclined to buy some pitta breads, toast and fill with salad and fried onions, then put the kebabs in them (take the stick out first - helpful hint ) and serve with a yoghurt and mint/cucumber dippy sauce. If your kids won't eat that, you could make a tomato sauce by frying off an onion, a carrot, a bit of celery if you have it; add a tin of tomatoes, some oregano or herbes de provence, a spoonful of sugar and a glug of oil, bring to the boil and then simmer about 15-20 minutes. Whizz it up in a liquidiser or one of those stick thingies and it will go thick. Meanwhile, grill the kebabs, cut in half (don't forget that stick!) and bung in the sauce so they're like little meatballs. You could serve with pasta or rice.


I never eat pork chops so I can't help there, but pork steaks (I guess you could cut the pork chops off the bone, but there's not that many of them, are there?!) I do use occasionally. Cover your cutting board with clingfilm, lay pork on top, another layer of clingfilm, and bash to bu@@ery with a mallet - great for relieving stress. Once you've flattened them, dip in flour and egg and THEN in...wait for it... sage and onion stuffing mix. No, don't add water. Tip the dry mix onto a plate and use as a coating. You can then fry these (nicer fried than grilled) and serve with potatoes and veg. Surprisingly nice.


Sausages: fry off a sliced onion and add sausages, cut into inch-long chunks. Cook for 5-10 mins until cooked through. Now add a large tin of baked beans, a splash of worcestershire sauce, a glug of tomato ketchup and some cheese cut into very small cubes. Heat through until the cheese starts to soften - you may need to add a bit of liquid if it gets a bit dry. Ultimate comfort food with a baked potato - or some of those chips.


Chicken thighs (not sure what chicken parcels are): Put into a casserole dish: 6 tblsps wine; 3 tblsps soy sauce; 1 tblsp water; 1 tblsp sugar; 1 tsp mustard. Stir. Add chicken thighs. Stir again. Bung in oven about gas 5 and cook until it starts to smell nice. Take lid off and cook a further half an hour (sorry, I've been making this for years and I've never timed it - the longer you cook it, the better really - the chicken should fall off the bone). If you can make this the day before, do, as you can then scrape off all the fat. Do leave the skin on the chicken though - it goes crispy and nice. This makes a surprising amount of "gravy" - serve with mash to mop it up plus whatever veg.


Apple sauce is yummy if you make a plain sponge, bung a spoonful of hot apple sauce (I'm assuming it's like stewed apple, no?) on the top and add some custard. Plums I like roasted with icing sugar on top so it caramelises - great on puff pastry base. You can actually spread a layer of apple sauce over a puff pastry base, bung halved plums on top and cover with icing sugar, then put in a very hot oven for quite a nice pudding.


And yes, I do know it's August, but it's pouring with rain here and I'm thinking of comfort food!


Hope this helps

boredjellybean

mix the pork mince & beef mince together to make little meatballs - a nigella lawson recipe (I can find it if you like) really yummy & a nice texture too, you cook them in a scrummy tomato sauce

one beef casserole

one lamb casserole

are the minced lamb kebabs on a shaped like a sausage stick (koftas?) they can be grilled & put in a pita bread with a nice dollop of hummus

I'd say sausage, egg & chips or sausage casserole

chops, mash & veg

is the chicken plain uncooked meat? I would marinate & bbq

hope that helps
BB

ragz_2

ChocClare thanks so much for taking all that time to write your post, your idea for the pork steaks sounds lovely, as does the morrocan thing and chicken casserole. Will be trying those!
Pudding idea will definitely be on the menu, I managed to mess up a crumble the other day (ended up like congealed jam with crunchy bits in, too much juice from the plums) so disheartened with puddings as usually I'm a fab pud cook!

Thanks eveyone for your ideas, I now have the basis of a meal plan and will be tweaking it until I can write a shopping list, what started as making room in the freezer has ended up saving me quite a lot though does point out that I must have been spending too much if I ended up freezing so much!

Butterfly_Brain

• Slice the sausages and make a nice susage toad or sausage pasta or even a sausage stew.
• The kebabs are usually grilled but you can take the meat off and use them in wraps or pittas with salad leaves and some plain yoghurt or mayo, or add them to pasta or rice
• Mix some apple sauce with the pork mince and either make them into meatballs or burgers
• Mince = Cottage Pie, minced beef and veg pie (pastry), meatballs, spag bol, chilli,or even curry
• Chicken Thighs are so tasty I use them in stir fry or make a nice stew, pie, or add mushrooms and a nice creamy sauce and serve with potatoes, rice or pasta
• Lamb stew or pie using pastry or mash as a topping
• Beef stew or pie using potato pastry, pastry,mash or a savoury crumble topping.
• HTH

debtmuncher

nigella lawson does a meatball recipe using beef and pork mince. not made it for ages but goes down well with the family

greenbee

Beef mince - well there's the mince thread but either cottage pie or some kind of ragu for pasta/lasagne
Pork mince - either combine with the beef mince to make a ragu, or make into meatballs (pork is good with coriander, chilli, spring onion, lemongrass)
diced beef (this is a bit poor quality, which is why I bunged it in the freezer, big chunks and very fatty) - I'd slow cook this for a very long time, and the fat should melt into the casserole. Find one of the recipes designed for cheap cuts of meat, which should be suitable.
diced lamb - a lamb casserole of some kind (sorry, too many options and its too late, but definitely a casserole). I remember doing a very nice one with coffee & chocolate. I think it was a swedish recipe...
minced lamb kebabs (no idea what to do with these, bought them reduced!) - as someone else has already said, have these with pittas and salad
pork chops and 1 pork steak - you could grill these and have them with lots of veggies. Alternatively, take the meat off and use in a stir-fry
sausages - sausage & bean casserole if you want it to stretch or sausage & mash if you want to use them up quickly
chicken thighs/parcels (OH won these at meat raffle!) - again, great for a casserole in the slow-cooker with lots of veggies & herbs.

Plums - I generally stew these before freezing, then eat with yogurt for breakfast.

I also have an abundance of frozen plums and apple sauce!
Oh, and a lot of chips!

System

Give me the chips

ragstoricheswannabe

with the diced beef, cut all the fat off that you can and cut into mouth size pieces. Put into deep bowl and cover with bitter/stout (we use john smiths or tetleys as my fella drinks it but any is good). cover the bowl and soak over night then cook meat as per normal in a pan. Great in a pie, over a jacket potato, with pasta etc!!!!

what about turning some of your plums and apples into a jam??? my nan makes a mean plum, apple and anything else she can find jam!!!

Curlytop40

Some of these ideas have made me hungry despite just finishing my tea. I've made pork meatballs with onion, breadcrumbs and some stilton added to the porkmince. Yummy if you like stilton.