Well, by the time you see this I'll be heading home from my 3rd conference on the trot. Not sure how we managed that, but I started in Melbourne for the Romance Writers of Australia, followed by a Risk Management one in Sydney and now Gladstone for the Local Government Manager's Association.
In case you haven't worked it out yet, Mr Nix works in local (municipal) government.
But after three straight weeks of conferencing and feeling so exhausted that I will barely be able to lift my head on Saturday morning, what does one cook on arriving home?
Hubs is a firm believer in The Chicken Run (This means lugging an esky/icebox to the conference, sourcing ice and shoving KFC in the box for transporting home.) Now this is okay, you can heat it up in the oven but I still have to make chips.
The other day, i was floating around Facebook and saw the best ideas of mini quiches (I can already hear the refrain "real men don't eat quiche") so you can cross that out.
So... what to do? I've eaten out more in the last three weeks than I do every year. We could waddle over to the Leprechaun Club over the road from our house, but I want something easy. Something vegetably...
So here is the recipe:
600g mince. (don't worry about whether it's lean...)
Olive oil for growing
Gravox (make about 1/2 cup)
3 -4 good sized potatoes
Butter for mashing
Grated cheese.
(optional: diced mixed veg for added veggie goodness)
Brown your mince in a hot pan. Boil the peeled and chopped potatoes until soft. Add the gravy/gravox mix to the mince and let thicken on the stovetop while butter mashing the potatoes. (Butter mash is creamy and tastes awesome!) Then add the mince and gravy mix to the bottom of the baking pan. If you add mixed veg, this is the time, then mix them through well.
Dollop on the potato and top with grated cheese. I like to pop in the oven at around 150C and cook until the cheese is golden on top.
Then simply serve. 3 pots into the dishwasher and little messing around.
Yes, I'm thinking that will be tonights dinner!
Imogene