I won!

I won a raffle this week! Even better – it was a free raffle, at the organic butchery. When they called me up to tell me I’d gotten the second prize, my reaction was: “but I never win anything”

Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true – I did win a jellybean guess at the school fair when I was about 9 years old. But I think I was the only kid who didn’t just ‘guess’ – I counted the beans visible on the base of the jar, counted the number of beans going up the height of the jar, and multiplied. The irony was that I didn’t like jelly beans!

Anyway, I went in to the butchers – The Southern Cross Organic Butchery in Murwillumbah – to collect my prize. I love the guys there (even before I won the free raffle I thought they were great) – they’re always friendly and happy to cut up beef knucklebones for me to make stock, and since I’ve now healed a bunch of cavities in my teeth from eating stock and following the Weston Price dietary guidelines, I love it even more :)

The butcher handed me a $50 note – I was expecting to get a $50 credit for meat, but he just gave me the money. Of course, I bought meat with it! LOL Yep, it’s not very vegetarian, but I like my teeth better than I liked vegetarianism ;)

So I got a kilo of chuck steak (among other things) and made Beef Bourguignon – it was DELICIOUS!

RECIPE FOR BEEF BOURGUIGNON:

1. 1kg cubed beef, marinated all day in 2 cups red wine with a bay leaf, some fresh thyme, parsley and whatever other herbs are fresh in the garden. Drain the beef, put aside the marinade and pat beef dry with paper towel.
2. Brown the meat in a big frypan (in batches) and add to a big casserole dish (note that the dish should be big enough – mine wasn’t and the casserole bubbled over and burned on the bottom of the oven, filling the house with smoke).
3. Pour the remaining marinade in with the beef, add 1 cup home made beef stock and a big spoon of flour, mix it up, cover and pop in the oven at 180C for about an hour and a half, stirring every 1/2 hour.
4. Heat 30g butter and a schluck of olive oil in a heavy pan, cook about half a dozen small onions, peeled and halved for about 10 mins, set aside. Then fry in the pan 200g mushrooms, set aside with onions. Then fry about 250g bacon, in strips until crispy.
5. Add the onions, mushrooms and bacon to the casserole dish with a cup of water, stir into the meat and back into the oven for another half hour.
6. Serve over rice or couscous. ENJOY!!!