Last nights dinner!

There's an athletics carnival on today, I must rush... but first, last nights dinner...

Here's the quickest, yummiest winter casserole I think I've ever made! Ok, maybe the yummiest is a bit of a push, but it was completely simple and QUICK! And still very, very yummy! Just what you need when the littlest one was acting up.

Find the nicest casserole dish you have in your cupboard (the prettiness makes the whole process seem a bit more enjoyable!). Plus I served the meal from the dish on the table. To the dish, add a big tin of crushed tomatoes, a good dollop of tomato paste, half a jar of kalamata olives, as much garlic as you like = half a teaspoon of crushed garlic for our family, as many mushrooms as you think you can hide from the small people (mine think they don't like mushroom!), a handful of parsley (I think fresh is best but am not snobby about fresh harbs ;-)) and lastly add about a 1/3 of a bottle of red wine (the remainder is for you to do with as you please). Stir this. Then toss in some meat, I used defrosted oyster steaks that I bought at a reduced price a fortnight ago. Push the meat in under the sauce. Cook on a slow oven for as long as you've got; I cooked this at about 130-150 degrees Celsius for about 4 hours!

The meat just fell apart, so we didn't even need knives, and the sauce was scrummy. Actually, I just remembered that just before serving I added 2 tablespoons of cornflour (dissolved in cold water) to the sauce and popped it back in a VERY hot oven (200 degrees) for about 5 minutes.  Made the sauce nice and thick...

We ate this with a hot potato salad; whole baby potatoes, peas, chopped zucchini, parmesan cheese and a basil/olive oil dressing. Apparently the gorgeous girl has requested this dish for her birthday dinner, or so she told her father, isn't it nice that they tell other people but forget to tell you! :-)

All right, had best run. Don't want to miss THE race, the one by the gorgeous girl! The boy isn't attending due to his great break, he'll be rearing the race by the time next year rolls around!

Happy Wednesday, stay warm, talk soon :-)

PS. Pics are on phone which takes a lovely shot in full daylight but isn't so great in the evening hours, sounds similar to the small people around here! So please excuse the 'moodiness' of the shots, it mirrored the feeling in the house.