The Birthday Register

Each year we could nominate our birthday dinner and the cake we would have for our birthday.  Most of us seemed to have a bit of a pattern to it, or have become famous for particular choices that we made.

The cake would come out after dinner and would be accompanied by other party foods.  To this day, it is not a birthday if we don’t have a bowl of bite size Violet Crumbles and a bowl of cashews on the table.  Of course, it is not the same as “home” when we always used those brown and cream plastic woven bowls that someone once recieved in a craft kit as a gift.  They are still there, at Mum’s place, running strong after all these years.

Here is a chance to look at some of our menus:

Jan – Boiled Fruit Cake

Colette – Boiled Fruit Cake with green icing

Di – Sponge Cake

Paul – Spice Cake

Moira – Roast lamb with pumpkin and green beans.  Golden four fruits pudding.  Apricot Cake.

Julie – Ham Salad and Ice Cream Cake

Matt – Marble Cake with blue icing

Me – Honey Beef and Beans followed by chocolate cake.  I also went through a stage of requesting a bbq dinner.  Our barbeque was a little hibachi charcoal powered one, and, although Mum would try and talk me out of it when I would request it, somehow Dad would manage to produce dinner for the whole tribe.  We would sit in the yard under the clothes line by the shed – ah, summer nights in the ’70s…

Honey Beef and Beans

This is the recipe that has been most requested by the family, therefore it deserves to be the very first post.  It is one of those dishes that was always there, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever I eat it.

I regularly requested this for my birthday dinner.

I also remember Mum freezing this in portions in ice cream containers: one portion; a layer of freezer wrap; another portion; another layer of freezer wrap…  I always felt unduly excited seeing portions being lifted out of the freezer.

I hope you enjoy it, too.

 

3 Tbsp oil

3 Tbsp butter

2 large onions, finely sliced

4 Tbsp seasoned flour

1 kg yearling topside, cut into strips

1 1/2 cups beef stock

4 Tbsp honey

4 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup vinegar

1 cup tomato sauce

250g fresh green beans, cut into 2cm pieces and parboiled I have to admit, I do double the amount of beans in this recipe these days… I remember when I used to pull them out and slip them onto Moira’s plate!

4 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

1 Tbsp ginger

 

Heat the oil and butter mixture

Fry the onion lightly and remove from the pan

Add extra butter if necessary

Toss the meat in the seasoned flour. Fry in batches until well browned (about 10 minutes)

Add stock, honey, soy sauce, vinegar and tomato sauce

Simmer until meat is tender (about 30 minutes)

10 minutes before serving, add beans, parsley and ginger.  Adjust the seasonings to taste.

Serve with boiled rice (brown rice is my preference for this dish) and onion bread.

Serves 6-8 (Apparently!  Maybe if they are vegetarian…)

Published in: on August 8, 2009 at 5:55 am  Comments (1)  
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