I seemed to spend a lot of my 6 hours of child free time today making a casserole for the weekend (obviously with breaks to read the papers online, check Facebook, check out the sales I have been emailed about etc etc). Tasks can easily be persuaded to stretch and fill up my day when I want an excuse not to do something else (like tidy up the spare room which really, really needs doing) - it's Classic Work Avoidance Tactics to do something else entirely so you look and feel busy but don't get to what you should really be doing - but making beef casserole and clearing up afterwards should not really have taken 3 hours.
I suppose it was rather a lot of beef to cook as it is for 13 people - not sure how much beef I had because, as usual, I just asked the butcher for a large amount of stewing beef and kind of gestured with my hands, when it looked right I said 'yes'. Maybe one day I'll grow up enough to know how much I actually need per person so I can ask by weight next time, but I am always so relieved to have got the correct looking amount that I forget to check the weight and just pay. It came to over £8 in cash so was a fair amount I think. Hard frying that amount of meat took 2 pans, 5 batches and a long time - extractor fan on full blast, windows and back door open and kitchen door firmly shut to stop the smoke alarm going off. I'd dredged the meat in flour mixed with spices first too, tossing the cubes around and checking that each piece had a fair coating.
I peeled and chopped the carrots and mushrooms to go in the casserole pot while the meat was burning.... I mean hard frying.... with the splatter guard firmly on. Once fried I put all the meat in the casserole dish in batches and bunged in the remaining flour, a beef stock cube, some onions, clove of garlic, cinnamon stick and herbs - a bay leaf, bit of rosemary and a tiny amount of thyme (gingerly picked from the garden while dodging the cat poo on the grass). Then added 4 cans of Brains SA (slightly out of date so allowed to be sacrificed for cooking) and bunged the whole lot in the oven for 2 hours.
Whole house smells deliciously of it now I'm back from the school run and can actually smell it but it tastes pretty bad, as stuff with beer in it usually does the day you make it. Somehow the flavours will mellow down overnight and taste fab tomorrow (I hope). I will then feel like a domestic goddess pulling out a casserole I 'made earlier' for supper and will be able to actually talk to my family and importantly my elderly grandparents who are on a precious and rare visit to Wales from SE England.
I miss them all and especially my grandparents, that's one of the few bad things about moving to Wales, I used to just be able to pop in and see them for a cup of tea (and always some homemade cake or biscuits) in a low key way. Now we live far away they can't travel here very often and, necessarily, when we visit the SE time seems tight and the contact with them feels less relaxed as it is fitted in between seeing everyone else we need to see.
So, hopefully, it will be beef casserole to the rescue, for maximum grandparent facing time while providing supper for 11 other family members too.
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