Beef Cheeks with Celeriac Puree...perfect winter comfort food

It's taken me a while to get my blogging mojo back after being stuck in hospital for a couple of weeks, so I hope you'll forgive my lack of quality posts and yummy recipes over the past month.
But I'm back!

I made Beef Cheeks with Celeriac Puree on the weekend - freestyled it with the slow cooker and damn! It was goooooooooooood. So rich, but goooooooooooood! Perfect winter comfort food...

what you need

for the beef
2 tbsp olive oil
4 beef cheeks (about 250gm each)
3 onions, halved, thinly sliced lengthways
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 fresh bay leaves
3 thyme sprigs
375 ml red wine
125 ml (½ cup) beef stock
1 celeriac
50g butter
cream
small handful frozen peas
8 button mushrooms
2tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves (extra), crushed

what to do

Preheat oven to 180C.

Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add cheeks, cook over high heat until browned (3-5 minutes each side), then transfer to a plate. Add onion and garlic to casserole and sauté over low heat until starting to caramelise (8-10 minutes). Return cheeks to casserole, add herbs, red wine and stock, season to taste, then bring to a simmer. Cover, transfer to slow cooker and cook for up to 8 hours (or to oven and cook until beef cheeks are tender - 3 to 3½ hours).

Remove cheeks to a warm plate and strain braising liquid into medium frying pan. Cook over high heat and reduce until liquid is syrupy. Season to taste.

For the celeriac puree, peel and chop celeriac - immediately plunging pieces into a bowl of salted water (it browns as soon as it is exposed to air). Cook in boiling, salted water until tender then puree in food processor. Add butter and cream and pulse until smooth. Season to taste.

Remove stalks from button mushrooms. Combine butter and crushed garlic and fill centres of mushrooms. Place in baking tray and cook until butter is melted and flesh is golden.

Cook frozen peas in boiling salted water for six minutes, or until tender. Refresh under cold water.

To plate, dollop celeriac puree in centre of plate and drizzle beef cheek 'syrup' around the outside. Place beef cheeks in centre of puree and scatter peas around the perimeter, in the 'syrup'.

Serve with a gutsy red wine - we enjoyed Wirra Warra Church Block, one of my fave red blends. Yummmmmm!