Juggling work, family and studying with a Pan fried beef fillet with peppered couscous

I’ve had quite a busy start to the year! The biggest theme being studying. I have this phobia that makes a lot of sense to me. When I’m not constantly learning something new, I literally feel like I can ‘feel’ my brain cells dying, one by one! And it scares the ‘ish’ out of me. So I have to constantly learn. But this year I decided I can’t always be learning medical stuff, I need to branch out a bit and stimulate my brain cells with totally different information. I settled on advanced project management, via UCT( the best university in South Africa and possibly Africa, in my opinion). I dare Wits people to say something, I have my stats ready!😝

4 weeks in, and it is very different from what I’m used to and I have almost zero experience in it, except for DIY projects I’ve had at home but this is to the power of a hundred. So much technical stuff! But I’m holding on and there’s the light at the end of the tunnel. This skill will be handy somewhere, right?

And without forsaking my beloved profession, I am studying for my specialist entrance exams and I’m also doing a diploma in general medical practice.

This is why I’m not able to blog as much as I used to anymore. I hope I’m forgiven now. I still cook everyday though, but the time to blog about it is now limited. Especially on top of a full time job and after hours’ calls at the military hospital.

Anyway, back on to the business if food. I was going through my food pictures, and it’s a lot. For every picture that goes to the blog or one of the blog’s media sites, about 10 get taken. So I was trying to clean up a bit. But I noticed a  trend: out of all the starches I serve, couscous features quite a bit. I didn’t even realize I liked it that much.

Thinking about it though, it does make a bit of sense. I love rice but it doesn’t necessarily go with a lot of foods and there’s not a lot of things you can do with it. So it’s natural then to lean towards couscous as it is the rice’s younger sister.

And guess what I’m making for dinner tonight? Yep, couscous again. Dinner tonight is from my kitchen: Pan seared pepper-crusted beef fillet with mixed peppers couscous and mushroom sauce. Inspired by what I have in my fridge and pantry, as not much planning went into dinner tonight. I would like to make it quick and easy.

What do you need?

• Beef fillet- using portions from a whole fillet portioned previously, and frozen. See prior blog: Jamaican beef fillet curry.

• 1 cup of couscous

• veggies- 1/4 each peppers( red/ green/ yellow),  1 onion, 8 mushrooms.

• Spices- mixed corn pepper, salt, homemade masala, coriander powder, paprika, cinnamon

• Balsamic vinegar

• 200 ml Beef stock

•  50 ml coconut milk

Method

-The beef- marinade the beef in; 4 tbs of balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp of masala, 1 tsp of coriander powder, salt and pepper. Rub on the beef and refrigerate. Mine has been marinating for 72 hours. But overnight is perfectly acceptable.

Take off marinade, dry the beef with kitchen towel and portion.

Then place in a hot pan with  a drizzle of olive oil and sear both sides brown. This shouldn’t take more than 5 min, for medium rare and less than 3 min for rare. Then rest the fillet wrapped in foil, until ready to serve.

– The couscous- in a pan with olive oil, add finely chopped onions and soften not browning. Then add finely chopped peppers, 1/2 tsp of paprika and cinnamon, then couscous after about 2 min. Roast the mixture for 3 min before adding 200 ml of beef stock. Stir and let cook. Should be cooked in 10 min, then season with salt and pepper.

– Mushroom sauce-  soften the mushrooms in a hot pan with olive oil,  then add 50 ml beef stock. In 5 min, add coconut milk, a dollop of mascarpone and season well with salt and pepper.

Combine all your elements on you plate and enjoy this quick meal