What to do with dreadfully tough steak???

I really hate it when you buy a whole rump and then find it's not that good because it's tough and lacking fat.

So, instead of giving it to the dogs, I turned some of it into a 'stew'.

I cooked two roughly sliced onions until they were opaque, then browned the beef that I cut into strips, and with a very good shake of Cumin (I love Cumin and the way it smells)and a couple of tablespoons of gravy powder.

I don't know how much meat I used weight-wise; I bag the meat into 4 pieces.

Once the meat was browning I threw in a couple of massive chopped tomatoes (they were huge and courtesy of Deb from A Clothesline Out The Back).

Thinking it didn't look colorful enough I chopped up what was left of a massive zucchini that had been growing in my garden (I seem to forget to check on them and when I do they're almost like clubs!)

Hmm, Little Man doesn't like pumpkin, and I had a heap of pumpkin cut up in the freezer, so I added a handful of the stuff.

It is still frozen so that adds extra liquid to the dish to the pan to thicken it up.


I also like the way the steam rises off the pan when I put the pumpkin in, but I'm weird like that.

About a cupful of water is added once it's all mixed together.


To disguise the fact that there is a heap of pumpkin is in the pan, I smoosh it up with the spoon before serving - he'll NEVER know the difference!

I only needed to cook this until the pumpkin was soft and until the whole sauce had thickened until I was happy with it - probably about an hour or so from start to finish.

And guess what - he never noticed the pumpkin!

I did tell him though, and he didn't believe me!


(I think I broke a toe yesterday so tonight I'm treating us to fish and chips for dinner - I'm such a lazy mum sometimes! And yes, I can obviously still drive the car.)