I love cooking meals from scratch and knowing what ingredients go into the food I make for my family. However, I so cheat a little sometimes and I have used ready made and ready to cook roast potatoes with a roast dinner, ready made frozen mash potato to top a cottage or shepherds pie and I always use gravy granules.
Therefore, when I discovered that there was an Aunt Bessie #halftermfoodchallenge hosted by Britmums (which you can read more about here) where the task is to create a family meal using at least one of the ready made/prepared food items that the Aunt Bessie brand is famous for, well I thought I may aswell give it a go.
Here is my menu
serves 6-8 people in one sitting
or 4 and then freeze rest for another time (which is what I do)
I make my mince in the slow cooker
For the Minced Beef you will need:
500g minced beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1 parsnip, peeled and grated
1 oxo cube
1 x 415g baked beans (cheapest ones are fine)
3/4 pint of boiling water and 2 -3 tbsp Aunt Bessies instant gravy for beef (needs to be thick) to make the gravy
black pepper for seasoning
based on a 6×4 inch oven dish (which serves 2 adults and 2 children)
For the topping you will need:
1/2 bag of Aunt Bessies carrot and swede mash
enough mash for the dish – in this case I used 8 small potatoes, peeled and chopped
To Make The Minced Beef
Place the beef in a deep bottomed saucepan and start browning
Meanwhile add the onion and continue to cook with the beef until the meat is browned.
Crumble in an oxo cube and stir.
Add the baked beans, thick gravy and black pepper and mix
Pour into your slow cooker and turn it onto low and add the grated carrot and parsnip, mix and place lid and allow to cook for about 4 hours.
To make your topping:
Place the potatoes in some water, bring to the boil and simmer for about 25 minutes until the potatoes are cooked
Drain off the water and mash – dont add any butter
Add the carrot & swede mash and mash with the potato mix
Leave to cool
Once the minced beef mix is cooked, transfer to your oven dish and add your potato and root vegetable mash and cook in an oven (180oC / 160oC fan ) for about 30 minutes
Once cooked serve with any vegetables of your choice if you wish, I serve mine with peas
On to dessert
Serves 4
You will need
1 x Aunt Bessies Sticky Toffee Pudding
4 eating apples
butter
1 packet of Aunt Bessies instant custard powder
Then you need to:
Pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC fan
Cook the sticky toffee pudding in the microwave as per the instruction on the packet
Meanwhile decore the apples and scoop out a little of the apple flesh
Then using a sharp knife, make a score around the middle of each apple through the skin
Lightly grease an oven dish
Remove the cooked sticky toffee pudding and stuff pieces of it into each apple – you may need to use your fingers to push it down into the apples
Place the filled apples into the greased oven dish and dot some butter on to the sides of each apple
Place into the oven and cook for about 45 minutes
Make your custard as directed and there you have it sticky toffee pudding baked apples and custard
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Thank you xx
Thank you xx
Yum!! I so want this now!
Very nice!! I didnt know Aunt bessie did instant gravy, I’ll have to have a look!
this looks lovely Jenny! x
Changed it about a bit and used Bisto and all fresh veg but it was very yummy – just needed to have made the gravy thicker! 🙂
I’m so hungry and looking at those baked apples is not helping – yum!!
Lovely warming comfort food with the help of Aunt Bessies. Like how you get vegetables into the mix so cleverly. Fruity too with the sticky toffee pudding additions.