Corned Beef Curry

This was something we had often as children, to use up the leftover corned (or other) beef. It's sweet and salty comfort food. The approximate recipe is something like this :

~Corned Beef Curry~
2 double handfuls of cubed cooked corned beef
slurp olive oil
about 1 tablespoon Keens dry curry powder
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, sliced in rounds
1 stick celery, sliced
leftover veges, eg capsicum
hot water to cover
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dessert spoon brown sugar
1 large handful sultanas
1 green apple, cored and diced
flour and water to thicken

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan or frypan and fry off the onion, carrot, celery and any other veges. Add the curry powder and stir through.

Cover with hot water, add salt, sugar, sultanas and apple and allow to simmer for about 20 min. Add the meat and allow to simmer for another 20 minutes or so.

At this stage you can turn off the curry and leave to sit until ready to thicken before serving; the flavours will develop if it sits a while.

Before serving, reheat the curry till simmering; mix a tablespoon of flour to a paste with a little water and stir through; stir whilst simmering for several minutes to cook the flour and thicken the curry.

Serve with rice and lemon juice. This quantity is approx 4 smallish meals.

Zucchini baked with Fetta and herbs

This is an adaptation from Paul Gayler. We ate it a lot last summer, and have just begun to bring it to the table again with the glut of new season zucchini. He makes it with a yellow tomato sauce which I didn't care for, so we eat this on its own, as a side, or as a delicious leftover the next day.


~Zucchini baked with Fetta & Herbs~
8 small to medium zucchini about 2.5cm thick (or the equivalent - this is particulary good with golden button squash)
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed with a little salt
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
100g crumbled fetta
2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
black pepper

If you wish to follow Paul Gayler using small baton-like zucchini, slice off their ends and remove the centres with an apple corer (easier than it sounds). Or if, like me, your zucchini have grown past baton size or are the round type, halve and scoop out the flesh. Either way, chop the scooped out flesh into a small dice.

Heat the olive oil in a pan, add shallots, garlic and zucchini flesh, then cook down until tender and a little reduced. Turn into a bowl and cool a little, then add the cheese, breadcrumbs, herbs and pepper and mix well. Extra herbs are always good.

Par cook the zucchini shells in the microwave if you wish (I do this as my oven is a dud and seems to burn without cooking). Stuff baton zucchini with your fingers and a teaspoon, or the large halved type by piling the filling high.

Paul then grills the oiled and stuffed batons under a hot grill, and this is quite delicious, but generally I bake them in a moderate oven for a while until they are nicely browned and smell good.