Beef Stew Recipe!

Beef stew is one of my favourite meals to make. It's delicious, easy to make and very filling. Plus you can put about ANYTHING in it.
My recipe is slightly different every time, but this time the ingredients included:

Diced beef
Chorizo sausage
Mushrooms
Courgette
Red pepper
Shallots (or onions)
Garlic
Red wine
Vegetable stock
Butter
Olive oil
Tomato puree

Sadly there are no measurements - I don't tend to use them :/ If you decide on how much beef you want to use then you should be able to just estimate the rest of the ingredients.

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 (or thereabouts).
Put a small amount of butter and olive oil in whatever pan/casserole dish you're using and heat it up the hob. Cook the garlic and shallots (or onions) until soft, then add the beef, chorizo, assorted vegetables, red wine and stock. Simmer on the hob for 10-15 minutes until the vegetables have gone soft.
Add salt, pepper, a small amount of tomato puree and whatever herbs you like using. Bung the whole lot in the oven until the beef has gone all soft and tender - mine's usually in for 2-3 hours :)
Serve up with mash and enjoy!

This was the first time I used chorizo and I think it worked really well - but make sure you only use a small amount. A lot would overwhelm the other flavours! The vegetables listed can be substituted for whatever you like in your stew - carrots, parsnips and sweet potatos all work well.

Enjoy!

Gilbert and Sullivan

Afternoon!

Today has been a bit...disjointed. Lecture was fun (Greek Sexuality, always good for a bit of a giggle), swimming was also good but I just don't feel like I've got anything done!

Specifically in regards to the University's Gilbert and Sullivan Society. We're well under way with rehearsals for our next production, 'The Mikado', but we still don't have a comic baritone.
For those who don't know their G&S, the comic baritone part is a fairly major one. It also looks like a lot of fun to play :D But we just haven't had anyone interested in playing it come and audition. Or even tell us that they're interested.
It's led to myself and Siz trying to work out what we'll do if we can't find anyone. We can't write the part out - it's far too important and we'd lose most of the amusing parts. The best suggestion we've come up with is too change it into a spoken part only. So have a normal actor play Ko-Ko (comic baritone character) and recite the songs as if they were poetry or something similar. We'd have issues with and duets/trios, but at least we'd have the character there.

Can you think of any other options?