1/2 kg of beef and a Malbec

aka... a ridiculously long post regarding food.

More on my relationship with wine can be found here.

What food means to me can be found here.

Today I explore both once again.

I don't buy meat that often. If I do, it is usually the cheapest thick cut of steak, which I tenderize the heck out of and soak forever in a lemon, oregano marinade. As the cold weather is upon us,  it leads to thoughts of comfort food once again, so with the intention of making Shepherd's Pie, I picked up about 1/2 kg of extra-lean ground beef (*) the other day. It isn't very much meat, but I figured I should get five or six meals out of it.

First problem I encountered is that I stayed in bed this morning and went on the laptop to read a bit of stuff. Then after determining what I should actually GET DONE, I realized the kitchen was, as usual, a mess, so I had to put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher (wait... first I had to take the clean dishes OUT... gak). I also wanted to put all the Halloween crap away and get some laundry done, but the metal Halloween trunk was sitting on top of the box with the soap and bleach, so I definitely had to put the crap away first. Spiders, cobwebs, spiders, fabric, bats, garlands, costume bag, wings, birds, skulls, skeletons. Done. But barely fit everything in.

So at some point I chopped up peppers from dad's garden that were just starting to go... soft, and decided that I would try to make Shepherd's Pie AND chili, with that wee bit of beef. Chopped up some onions, cooked them up with the beef, kept some for the Shepherd's Pie and moved some to a small pot for the chili. Call me ill prepared. I dumped the peppers into the pot and went to grab a can of tomatoes, finding that I only had a very large can.... too large for the smaller portion of chili I was making. Brilliant idea.... I have that three year old jar of sun-dried tomatoes...  It's only a year past its best before date, it should be fine. What else... I have grape tomatoes in the fridge, so I sliced some of those up as well.  I knew I still had red kidney beans. As I was dumping every thing in the pot, I realized that the pot was a tad too small.... but it would just have to do. Spices... Sea salt with thyme, black pepper, hot red pepper flakes, a lot of chili powder, some oregano... a lot of tabasco sauce. Wait... after a few minutes it seemed too thick already. I have some old red wine in the fridge... the one that had that strange diesely tinge (not really, but can't otherwise explain it). It was a Malbec from Argentina that I opened several months ago and was still sitting in the fridge, 2/3 full. Beautiful purple colour. I sipped it after tasting the chili... it didn't seem bad,... but then it hit me... I hesitated for a moment, but... then dumped some in the pot, stirred and left it to stew. I tasted it after a bit and it was damn spicy, so I added a little bit of cocoa powder. When I tasted it again, it seemed bland,... but then.... not bad. Still really thick, so I added some more of that wine.  I realize now that I used the same amount of spices that I normally use for a whole batch, but it didn't seem to make that much of a difference... yet.

In the meantime, I chopped up a couple carrots for the Shepherd's Pie. I had noticed a couple days ago that I had two bags of carrots, one of the bags had seemingly rubber versions of carrots, as they had been sitting in there so long, but thankfully there were two or three that were still firm. Reheated the skillet with the beef and onions, added the carrots, beef broth, sea salt w thyme, black pepper, red pepper flakes, Worcestershire Sauce and oregano. I realized that the amount of beef was about 1/3 of what I should be using, so the one can of broth seemed a little too much. I added some flour to thicken it up, but after a bit, it seemed too thick, so I added some of that Malbec, and a drop of lemon juice. While that was simmering away, I peeled and cut up two big potatoes for the topping. I knew that I had run out of milk a few days ago, so I would have to go to the corner store to grab some. I waited til the potatoes were done (Safety first.) before I left, even though it is less than a block away. Of course, it was POURING rain. Got back, mashed up the potatoes with a little milk, added a bit of sour cream and a couple shakes of rosemary. I preheated the oven, then dolloped the mashed potatoes over the beef mixture which I already had cooling down in the multi-purpose souffle dish. Popped the dish into the oven and 15 minutes later, done.

So... since I had tidied up my kitchen table for Halloween, it was still tidy enough today so that I actually sat down and ate dinner!!! And, I decided to write this in the kitchen too. Haven't done that since I watched the Gold medal hockey game of the Olympics. Yeah, long time.  Perhaps a sign of life?

Cooking Music:

My Mid-Life Crisis Mix 

As I Lay Dying 

Wine:

2007 Malbec (I know very little about

wine, but the description on the label

sounded great.)

*Cost of the beef:  $5.52