Packet Meals - Beef and Red Wine Casserole

Beef and Red Wine Casserole

With the weather getting colder, and my supplies running low, I decided it was time to get the slow cooker out. Useful for me a couple of the remaining packets that I have from my friend's pantry clean out are slow cooker specific packets so I decided I felt like Beef and Red Wine. I also felt like red wine, so that's a helpful thing too.

^{Looks tasty, here's how I made it}

Ingredients

^{Celery is in, Celery is out, indecision led to it not being in the photo, but ending up in the dish. I also skipped the oil in the photo.}

1 teaspoon Oil
500 grams Beef, diced
200 grams Mushrooms, sliced
2 Carrots, diced
2 tablespoons Tomato Paste
125 ml Red Wine
1 packet Masterfoods Beef & Red Wine Casserole Recipe Base

^{Sliced mushrooms and diced carrots. I usually don't dice the carrot because it's so much more work than just doing quarter coins, but It certainly makes for a much nicer dish}

Additional Ingredients

3/4 Onion, chopped
2 sticks Celery, sliced

Method

• Heat a pan with a little oil over a medium heat.
• Add the beef and onion to the pan, cooking until the beef is just browned.

^{The onion could have been larger than this still.}

• Add the celery and mushrooms to the pan and reduce the heat to low.
• Cook, stirring for 5 minutes to soften the mushroom and celery, and to soak up any juices with the mushrooms.

^{I think I browned the beef a bit much, but it is all browned, and some of it was being a little troublesome to brown the last bits}

• Transfer to the slow cooker
• Add the rest of the ingredients (carrot, tomato paste, recipe base, red wine) into the slow cooker and stir to combine well.

^{All in the pot and ready to stir and let it do all the rest of the work}

• Cook on high for 4 hours, or 8 hours on low.

^{At the start, all stirred up. and with reflection from the lid just because I was too lazy to remove the lid again}

^{After 2 hours I decided to give it all a stir and take another photo}

^{With 4 hours passed, it's time to serve up and enjoy}

Side Dish

Serve with Mashed Potato. As someone that is cooking for one, I've often made mash for one. I usually take 1-2 potatoes, peel them, chop into 6-8 pieces and boil them until soft. That is usually when the fork breaks the piece in 2 when I stab it. Strain them and add them straight back into the hot saucepan and add around 50 grams butter. Use a mashing device (I use either a fork or the flat wooden stirrer) to combine the potato and butter while it's still melting from the pan heat. Add finely grated cheese for a cheesy mash. I like parmesan so I'll put about 20 grams of it grated into the mix before a final mash until it's well combined and creamy.

In the version pictured in this meal, I also added about 1/8 cup milk, because I had milk to use up, but I often don't because it can easily make the mash too runny.

Serving

^{Almost managed to plate it up without dripping sauce onto the mash. Almost}

I didn't eat this immediately after cooking it as I was actually running late already by that point. So on Friday I got to make mash and have what turned out to be a quite delicious casserole and tasty mashed potato. My only disappointment was that it made a bare 4 serves, or a better 3 serves. I had the other serves with rice which also worked really well.

Previous Packet Meals

Country Beef Casserole
Marinades Part 1
Creamy Herb and Garlic Potato Bake
Chicken Korma
Steak, Veggies and Diane Sauce
Farmhouse Chicken Casserole
Pasta Carbonara
Roast Chicken, Veggies and Gravy
Chicken and Mushroom Risotto
Spanish Chicken and Chorizo Paella

^{Upgoats made by the talented @ryivhnn}