I've been cooking - cottage pie and magic cake

Cottage pie with mash top.

I've been cooking. Isn't a warm kitchen a comforting place to be on a cold Sunday? I can see the steam coming up from my tea and the food cooking on the stove and it makes me feel grateful that I'm warm in my own home and that for us, at this time, life's good. The cooler months are the best time for cooking. When I'm baking, it's nice and cosy near the oven, and just spending time there reminds me that our food today will be warming and nourishing. Gratitude seems like such an incompetent and weak word when I think of all the people who have neither warmth nor nourishment.

My first recipe is for a variation of the humble cottage pie. This one is curried beef mince with a sweet potato topping and it's delicious any time of the year, but particularly satisfying when it's cold outside. All that spice warms a body deep down to the bones.

I'm sure most of you know how to make a curried mince filling but I'll go over it again for the new cooks.

MEAT BASE - serves four hearty meals

• About 500 grams/one pound of beef mince
• One large onion, chopped
• One large carrot, diced
• Three sticks celery, sliced
• ¼ medium cabbage, finely sliced
• One clove garlic, crushed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ litre/1 pint water
• Two tablespoons curry powder or paste
• Two tablespoons corn flour with enough water to mix into a paste

MASH TOP

• Two large sweet potatoes, chopped
• Two medium potatoes, chopped

Brown the meat in a frying pan and remove from the pan. Cook the onion, carrot, celery and cabbage  in the same pan until they start to turn golden brown. Place the meat back in the pan with the vegetables, add the salt, pepper, garlic and curry powder and stir it to prevent burning. Allow the spice to become aromatic and add half a litre/one pint of water, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat to simmer.  When the vegetables are cooked thoroughtly, add the cornflour paste and mix until the thick gravy forms. You can use any vegetables you want to use but these work well in this combination.

To make the top, peel and chop the sweet potatoes and potatoes into similar size pieces. Boil in salted water until soft, about 20 minutes, then pour off the water and mash the potatoes. Add salt and pepper with a little butter or cream until the potato is smooth. You can add herbs to the mash if you like.

Pour the filling into a baking tray and top with the mashed potato. Place in a 190C/375F oven until the mash is golden - about 30 minutes. Serve with brussel sprouts, silverbeet/chard or spinach.  If you use all the vegetables listed above you'll be eating six different vegetables. It's a healthy, filling and frugal meal.

The next recipe is for a new (to me) cake I've just started baking in the last week or so. It's similar to impossible pie, in cake form. For our new cooks, impossible pie is a pie made with a variety of ingredients which separate into layers while they cook. Often you have them come out of the oven with a sort of crust, a filling and a top, even though it went in as one single batter.

This is the cake they call magic cake, I got the recipe from here and it was absolutely delicious. You'll love it if you like custard desserts. The cake makes up as a very thin batter and comes out of the oven as a base, a custard layer and a cake top. The next time I make it, I'll make a coffee version.

What were you cooking on the weekend?

There is a thread on the forum about cottage pies now. If you have time, go and share your recipe.