Sun-dried tomato beef sauce

One of the first things that my mother taught me to make - or the first dish that I internalised - was spaggy bol.  It's not spaghetti bolognese, the real thing, the way the Italians make it; I highly doubt that they put julienned carrots in theirs, or use quite so much Lea and Perrins.  But it's bloody good.  Having said that, it can be improved upon.

The man puts red wine in it.  And more Lea and P.  And sun-dried tomatoes.  And he likes the mince to be in big lumps - or does he?  Maybe that's just how it ends up.  And slow-cooked in the Le Creuset in the oven.  And not on spaghetti.  Because spaghetti is a recipe for white-shirt-death.

Today I'm making something mincey and red and (according to the man's mother) 'oh my god Elisabeth garlic'y - but I can't even call it spag bol.  It's just going to be hearty and pleasant on something starch-related.  Here it is.

Stuff To Put On Stuff What Is Beefy And That
You Will Need: Chopping board; chopping knife; vegetable peeler; cheese grater; casserole pan; teaspoon; wooden spoon/spatula; oven gloves

1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
400g beef mince
(small lump of steak, thinly sliced (leftover from the other day))(optional) (lots of brackets)
one carrot
one onion
half bulb garlic
half bottle red wine
Lea and Perrins
tomato purée

1) Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C.
2) Heat a few teaspoons of oil from the jar of tomatoes in the casserole.  Finely chop the onions and garlic; into little squares, or half-rings if preferred.  If you have some, finely slice the steak.
3) Fry the onion and garlic on a high heat for about 2 minutes, then turn the heat down.  Add the mince and steak if using, and turn over until it's all brown on the outsides, more or less.  Add more oil from the jar if needed.  Turn the heat down some more.
4) Add half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, draining them on the side of the jar with the spoon as you go.
5) Grate the carrot on the cheese grater.  Add to the pan.  Stir.
6) Slosh generously with Lea and P; add the wine.  Spooge generously with tomato purée.  Stir.
7) Bring to a simmer, then take off the hob and put in the oven.
8) Every hour or so, take the pan out, give it another stir and add water if needed to re-cover the ingredients.
9) Boil/roast starch of choice to serve.  Blob.  Nom.

Chutney update...

So, the slow cooker may after all have been a bad idea.  Its small base and lid have not been conducive to the evaporation of the vinegar; perhaps next time I shall add even less vinegar than I did - half-quantities - to speed the process.  After boiling for 7 hours, the chutney has now been jarred in good ol' recycled honey pots, sterilised by washing and putting in an oven heating up to 150 degrees C.  Hopefully once it's cooled, it'll look thicker than it is.

Mek Chutney all daaaay...

'Bees make honey, and this is an amazing thing - we never think about it but it's an amazing thing!  Do spiders make gravy?  Do earwigs make chutney?'

from the Cottage Smallholder website

I have paraphrased, but this is Eddie Izzard's wonderful stance on chutney, which I have decided to make myself.  I am not an expert earwig, so I have turned for my chutney recipe to a wonderful blog called the Cottage Smallholder.  Their recipe for plum chutney can be found here, and I have a batch of it (minus the apricots, as I didn't have any) in the slow cooker at the moment.  I am using half the amount of vinegar specified, as the slow cooker tends to conserve a lot of the liquid in any dish.

I ought here to mention two people who will have made this chutney possible.  My wonderful boyfriend D (who also prompted the invention of a chutney rather than jam, as he loves cheese) bought me the slow cooker for a birthday present about two or three years ago, for cooking at university.  It has served me well during that time, and I am delighted to discover on the internet that it may be possible to slow-boil such preserves in one rather than on the hob.
The second person is my friend V the Bearded Bat-Woman of the Night, who allowed me to plunder the extensive orchards of her Oxfordshire home for damsons, yellow plums, hard pears and cooking apples.  I shall be trying to condense this plunder into multiple jars of multiple kinds of jam and chutney over the following days, for multiple purposes.