Delicious! Make it with minced (ground) beef or lamb. I used lamb here…

I start off by frying the minced lamb (about 8oz/250g) in a little olive oil. I always get the really lean meat but I like to see how much fat comes off and drain it away if necessary. But don’t brown it completely.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil in another pan. Add a rasher of bacon that you’ve chopped into small pieces. This flavours the oil nicely.

Put in two small onions, chopped (I used red onions here), and two cloves of garlic also finely chopped. Keep stirring. After a couple of minutes put in a stick of celery and a small carrot, both chopped. You could also add a couple of sliced mushrooms (I didn’t this time). Cook and stir for another minute or two.

Add the minced lamb, stir for a minute (or longer if you didn’t pre-cook it a little before). Then put in a deseeded and chopped red pepper, a can of tomatoes with juice, a tablespoon of tomato puree, some black pepper, a stock cube, a bay leaf, fresh basil or a teaspoon of dried basil, a teaspoon of dried oregano and a pinch of chilli powder. Once this is bubbling, put on the lid and turn the heat right down so it is just simmering. Leave it like that for an hour.

Now watch the video to see how it turned out:

Download: Windows Media (wmv) | Quicktime/iPod

Serve with spaghetti or other pasta. Sprinkle some grated cheese on top (should be parmesan I suppose but cheddar is just fine!). I get my pasta from Marks and Spencer. They do several varieties that are made with free range eggs.

This is plenty for two people. If you cook up a triple quantity you can freeze it. Giving you several quick meals. Anyway, these things are always better at least kept overnight in the fridge, as it lets the flavours mingle.

Starbucks has been fined £12,000 after one of its coffee shops was found to be infested with mice.

‘Mouse droppings were found next to spoons, knives, cups, clingfilm and boxes of biscuits and coffee that were about to be used, London’s City of Westminster magistrates heard.’

Read more…

The staff need to wake up and smell the er… mice.

I’ve been making a few simple recipes that my mum used to do. Comfort food you could call it I suppose.

This one is really quick but tasty. Into a casserole dish put: a tin of corned-beef cut into cubes, two onions sliced (I used red ones here), some stock, black pepper and herbs (dried parsley here) and add sliced potatoes on top. Sprinkle with some grated cheese.

Cover and put into the oven at 180c/350f for about 20 minutes.

Now watch the video to see how it turned out:

Download: Windows media (wmv) | Quicktime (mov/iPod).

Do you like my old-fashioned cooker? I love them. This is a ‘Creda Carefree’ which I always think sounds like a drag-queen.

Cookers were very camp in the 1960′s and 1970′s. Tricity had a range that included the Contessa, Marquis and Tiara.

A horribly distorted parsnip has won the prize as England’s ugliest vegetable. The competition was created to challenge the idea that tasty fruit and veg must look perfect.