Catch-up for my cousin Helena ;)

Sorry readers, I haven't been great at posting this week but I HAVE been eating.... a lot!!!

On Wednesday Mum cheated and made a cheats casserole. It contains chicken, bacon, pinto beans, tomatoes and some seasoning. It was served with some baby veg (mange tout, sweetcorn, beans and carrots). A lovely warming meal!



Last night, after a couple glasses of wine at a local pub with a good friend, we had a goulash with potatoes and cabbage. Another hearty meal which is perfect for the weather we've been having!



See, told you we'd had some wine:



Tonight was the traditional boiled ham, mashed potatoes, cabbage, carrots and parsley sauce. And it didn't disappoint, it was freaking delish!!! Looking forward to having some cold ham with cheeses etc on boxing day.



Tomorrow? CHRISTMAS DINNER!!!!

Sorry this has been a short entry, things are picking up around here :)

My turn to cook

So my Mum locked me in the kitchen today and told me I wasn't allowed out until I had cooked something.

Well not really, I offered to cook as Mum and Dad had a late carol service and wouldn't be back till 7ish.

So as it needed to be both a low fat and low carb meal I chose a cajun chicken recipe served with pineapple salsa on a bed of cauliflower rice.



The turkey was fried with some cajun seasoning. The shredded cauliflower was cooked for 6 mins in the microwave and then added to some sautéed red onion and red pepper with kidney beans in a small amount of chicken stock. The pineapple salsa consisted of fresh pineapple, red onion, red pepper, chilli pepper and lime juice.

The turkey was a little on the dry side for my liking. I would cook it in the chicken stock and veg next time in order to make it succulent.

I was pleasantly surprised with the pineapple salsa. I had feared it'd be too sweet, but the chilli gave you a punch in the face after the sweetness of the pineapple and so you were left with spice rather than too much sweetness. A good mix!

Mum and Dad both finished their plates and ate some remains too, so they either enjoyed it or I didn't give them a good portion size ;)

OH and I forgot to put up last nights pictures of our delicious chicken fajitas.




Rupert the cat liked the smell. He hung out with Dad for ages like this:

LAMB, I love LAMB

Tonight Mum made a greek lamb and lemon casserole. I myself get nervous using any kind of lemon zest in cooking as I've often found that it doesn't soften up enough and I don't like the sudden bite of zest. This meal however did not have that problem as it was cooked low and slow.

The lemon flavour was fresh, without being overpowering, and the crumbled feta cheese added some saltiness that complemented the tang of the lemon.

As for the lamb itself, what can I say? It was succulent and delicious, the sauce did not cover its flavour and the lamb, feta and lemon really went well together :)

I also got to have my first glass of wine since I got here. And I still haven't had any beer, and I'm in IRELAND.... that's just wrong!!

As always, don't forget to kiss your cook!!!

I write this blog entry feeling pleasantly full after 3 wonderful meals.

This morning I woke up at 3am (due to jet lag) and after 3 hours of reading and resting I decided to go downstairs to have some tea and toast.

When Mum and Dad had their breakfast around 8 I wasn't planning on having any more to eat...... until I heard what Mum was having.

It was a plain and creamy yogurt with blackberries, raspberries and red berries on top. There was also a heaped spoon of a ground up mixture that contained flaxseed, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame seeds and goji berries.

It was a great fresh second breakfast, though a little on the tart side. If I were making it for myself I would probably use frozen strawberries, blueberries and mango.

Lunch was a salad. Just what you want on a cold winters day, it really helped us warm up......ahem!

It was very tasty though and it was nice to have non-American cottage cheese for the first time in several years, it reminded me of why I used to love it so much.

After a 2 hour walk along the beach I was ready for a good dinner. Mum cooked savoury mince served with broccoli. The smell through the house when this was cooking was amazing.

The result (after wrestling with 2 pepper grinders) was a warming (seriously this time) hearty meal. I wasn't going to have anything for dessert.... until I saw a vanilla custard muller rice in the fridge which I then inhaled after heating it in the microwave. Definitely going to pick up some more of them when I am next in the shops.

Tomorrow we are going caroling at a hospital and somewhere else, so Mum thinks we might have stir fry, but we'll all have to wait and see.

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook :)

Chicken Cacciatore in County Cork

After 18 hours of traveling I was more than ready to eat some of my Mums delicious home-cooking. How come it always smells, looks and tastes better when your Mum makes it?

Tonight Mum made Chicken Cacciatore, a dish of chicken, sun dried tomato paste, tomatoes, garlic, black olives capers and red bell pepper. It was served with bow tie pasta and fresh green beans.

Mmmmm it was yummy!

A wonderful combination of flavours, chicken that was lovely and moist and the fresh bite of the green beans resulted in a well rounded meal that leaves a gentle taste in the mouth afterwards.

I can't wait to see what Mum puts together tomorrow!!!

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook, I kissed mine :)

On a side note, I'm going to have tea and toast for supper tonight.... for those of you who know me, you'll know how big a deal that is!

How to Cook Stew

Find a recipe.

Chuck the meat in a pan with hot oil to brown.

Swap the meat for roughly chopped onion and carrots.

Throw the browned meat and veggies into a slow cooker with some herbs. Add the guinness.

Drink the remainder of the guinness. Try not to think about the fact that it's 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, you're wearing last nights makeup, pyjamas and drinking alcohol.

Let the stew slow cook for 3-4 hours. Try to stay awake while knitting a hat using double pointed knitting needles for the first time.

Bung in some mushrooms during the last hour of cooking.

Get dressed

Serve with mashed sweet potatoes and mashed parsnips.

This is a great hearty recipe if you like guinness. It tasted too much like guinness for my liking.

Don't forget to kiss your cook; unless she's passed out, then just leave her alone!

Tonights dinner was brought you by the colour Orange and the letter Mmmmm

Although Matt thought I should name this entry "Orange you sad you're not having dinner with us?"

So as I mentioned earlier tonights dinner was a moroccan themed dinner. I made moroccan spiced fish on a bed of ginger mash and a side of moroccan spiced carrots.

The meal was cooked in 30 minutes and was easy to make, but it was non-stop for the 30 minutes.

Another success, the fish with its butter sauce was delish. I had never thought to put ginger with sweet potatoes, but it really went well together. The ginger added some depth to the potatoes without adding more sweetness. Matt has decided that we should add ginger to our thanksgiving sweet potatoes next year.

The carrots were steamed for 12 minutes and still had a bit of a bite to them. The dressing that they were tossed in was quite lemony, but not in a bad way. After the creaminess/sweetness of the mash it was nice to have something with a bite, both in texture and in flavour. Next time I would serve the fish and mash with a non-orange veg. Matt suggested just adding steamed broccoli along with the carrots.

I wasn't able to find any harissa and instead used a hot chilli paste that we use for making spicy sushi and Pho. I could have added more, neither of us were able to detect any hotness.

Tomorrow we are having left over soup for lunch (YUMMY!) and for dinner, before Matt flys back to Indiana, I'm going to make a beef and stout stew with carrots.

Spicy Lentil Soup (said with a lisp)

I am a big fan of lentil soup. I love how hearty and warming it can be. Over the past several years I have tried several lentil soup recipes and I have always been disappointed. The end result was a soup that was bland, other than the pungent garlic, starchy and not worth keeping for left overs.

My big sister and Mum had both said great things about a BBC Good Food Spicy lentil soup recipe. And so it was a little bit of skepticism that I decided to try once more to make a lentil soup.

I was happy to see that there was no garlic required in the recipe. There must be something about lentils that cause them to react with garlic, absorb the flavour and make it extremely pungent.

The soup was extremely easy to make and took only 30 minutes. I was surprised at how few lentils went into it.

The final product was a fragrant thick soup. In my opinion it was a tad on the thick side, I would have preferred it to be a little more on the 'soupier' side and so will adjust the amount of vegetable stock accordingly next time. A squeeze of fresh lime at the table helped to cut through the starch.

The flavour was wonderful. There was a lot of "mmmmmmmm" and "aahhhhhhh" and "finally a lentil soup that tastes the way lentil soup should!" I think Matt would have preferred to have eaten his soup minus the soundtrack.

What's great news is that there are leftovers for tomorrows lunch!!!!!

As he was tidying the dishes off the table Matt asked "Naomi, why is your bowl so clean?"

I had used my finger to swipe around the empty bowl to get every last delicious morsel of the soup.

If you like lentil soup I cannot recommend this too strongly. It was great! Try it!!

Cooking again tonight, so there might be another post later today. Dinner tonight is a spicy moroccon fish dish with ginger sweet potato mash and moroccan carrots.

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook.