Beef Ragout

'Make do and mend' seems to be the war-cry of the masses at the moment, or is that 'waste not, want not'?  Anyway, we are all looking after the pennies and generally a tightening of the belts is occurring everywhere, especially, although not limited to, Channel 4 cookery and lifestyle shows.

Oh and my kitchen. With this thought in mind, I wanted a nice and tasty way to use up some left over roast beef that had been hanging around in the freezer since a Sunday roast proved that I had eyes bigger than my belly (Today's recipe is brought to you by over-used homilies) so I found this nice Ragout.

Incidentally, the word ragout is a french term meaning 'to revive the flavour' and can be any slow cooked stew.  Mine uses left over roast beef but you could use just vegetables, lamb or add some pulses.  It's all good

Ingredients
200g Onions
400g Carrots
400g Potatoes 
300g Cold Roast Beef
25g Butter
75g Prunes
500ml Beef Stock
60ml Port
3/4 tsp Salt
1tsp Lemon Juice

Method
1. Chop the onions and add them to a large oven-proof pan with the butter, and soften for a few minutes, dice the carrots, potatoes and meat and add the the onions once they are soft, then add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil.

2. Transfer the pan and transfer to the oven and cook on a medium heat (150ºc) for 2hrs

3. Serve with crusty white bread. Enjoy!