Robert’s Cooking

[T1 Terry]

Thank you Robert. After I make my smoker that will adapt onto the rocket stove, I plan to give a number of these smoked meats a try. Might make a very different Taggerty Master Chef entry for next yr, well dreaming is still free eh

T1 Terry

[RobertNotBob]

Terry you will enjoy it just remember it does take time And a bit of concentration so its easy on the wine while doing it.

That said I am doing lamb shanks in a mushroom and cream sauce with mashed spuds, steamed carrots, peas and beans tonight. This is about a 2 1/2 to 3 hr cook and I had to open a new cask of red as it requires a glass to be added. Evaporation rate is high here so not sure what will be left at the end of the cook. Recipe is from Ron Wilson Camp Oven Cooking book.

[RobertNotBob]

Not a great fan of winter but it does give you the chance to doing more of the old stew, braising and soups.

Last nights combined effort with the good wife was Braised steak and onions in a dark, rich mushroom sauce with potato and pumpkin mash, peas and beans

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[supersparky]

That looks very edible Robert. Do you do takeaways?
I am waiting for the price of tomatoes to come down so I can have a crack at the relish recipe.

[RobertNotBob]

More than edible David, will need to do more relish and pasta sauce as well next season. Cheers

[RobertNotBob]

Up early today as we will be doing or starting our pasta sauce for the coming year. Picked up 40 kilo of tomatoes yesterday and very pleased with the quality as they were only $6 for 10kg. Nice and firm and a few will be kept for salad in the next week.

Started the morning by smoking some cheese for Christmas. The morning was cool after some rain last night but I put a 5kg block of ice in the smoker to help keep the temperature down.

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Did some Cheddar, Gouda and Edam. Used Apple pellets and a cold smoke.

Next in line were the two pork belly for bacon as I am no longer allowed to buy store bacon.

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Used a combined Apple and Olive smoke and came out quite well, very pleased.

By this time the wife was up so bacon and eggs with fried tomato's with toast but no photo there.

After breakfast on to the sauce and we also can only do about 10/15 kg at a time.

Molly set up inside to do the skinning and I set up outside to sterilise the bottles and lids then came in to cut up the tomatos.

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First box out of four.

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Getting ready to do the jars with two more boxes of tomatoes to go.

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Once they are sterilised I keep them in the oven till ready

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First lot on the go only add a table spoon of cracked pepper and a tea spoon of salt. Will adjust if need once it is blended.

And then repeat. Cheers Robert

[Shirley]

Makes me feel tired reading the process, do you use all that pasta sauce yourselves?

[RobertNotBob]

Hi Shirley a few jars will go to our daughter in law as she is doing duty on one the Medihotels, 8 hr days till end January no break. The rest we will use ourselves.

Sauce is still reducing so the good wife has done the last of the Christmas cake. The fruit was soaked in rum and has been for 12 months, we put the usual down last year then realised that most of it went as presents and we were not living in Qld any more so it has been maturing nicely.

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So now it is a waiting game, sauce to reduce and bottle, cakes to cook and enjoy. End of the days cooking, cricket is on and will soon be wine time. Been on my feet since 3:30 am so I think I deserve one. Cheers Robert

[RobertNotBob]

First lot of sauce bottled about 10kg and 9 bottles done.

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Did I say that the cooking was finished silly man. Next lot of tomato's being done now So a couple more repeats and we will finishe.

Take care Robert

[supersparky]

You have done very well Robert. The 10kg that I used yesterday cost $20 and I thought that was cheap. I only use Roma tomatoes though. All the other varieties knock me around too much. It looks like you have a very nice setup. What do you use to cure your bacon?