I wanted to make Anjum Anand’s Gujerati lamb with fenugreek dumplings at the weekend, so sent Pete out to the icy wastes of the outdoor freezer to fetch some lamb.  He returned without, as he couldn’t find any, and it’s all gummed up with ice and we need to defrost it.  But he was clutching about 3lbs of Dexter stewing steak.

Anjum’s book isn’t big on beef, so we compromised, switched things round, left it to cook a lot longer over a low heat – I did most of it, while Pete struggled with a recalcitrant RAID array in our Linux server, and then he did the dumplings.  And delicious it was too.

But I only used half the beef – we’re not big meat eaters, so I put in far more chickpeas than she recommended, and thus was left with the same amount again to deal with.

On Monday, we stirfried some with some tinned black beans from the chinese supermarket (gorgeous – but half a tin was too much; wonder if they freeze), and green pepper and so forth.

And on Tuesday lunchtime, I whipped up the rest of it into a pie filling.  Fried off the beef, then quickly sautéd a chopped onion, some garlic, three big mushrooms chopped, and a couple of carrots, diced.  In a big casserole dumped the beef and veg, a slosh of red wine, a small tin of tomato purée, a slug of balsamic vinegar, a little water, a bouquet garni and some seasoning.  Brought it to the boil and then put it on a very low heat on a diffuser, and we suffered the smell wafting up the stairs all afternoon.

Cheated, and got some puff pastry out of the freezer to make the pie, which we had with potatoes roasted in olive oil, and broccoli and cauliflower.

So, that 3lbs of beef made:

• 8 portions of beef curry (I put three tubs in the freezer)
• 4 portions of pie (we shall have the rest of it tomorrow or Friday)
• 2 portions of stir fry

Which I think is not at all bad.