10 days, no updates - I’ve been sorely neglecting this blog. And it’s not because I’ve been away, or lazy or had nothing to write. In fact it isn’t really my fault at all. You can pick any one of four people to blame. If I was pushed to pick I’d lay the blame at the feet of Sarah Palin, but to be absolutely fair I could equally choose her boss or either of the opposing team.

I’ve become obsessed with the US presidential election.

I am definitely spending way too much time reading about it, watching various clips on YouTube and talking about it with the increasing number of people who seem to be similarly and completely caught up in the strangely fascinating politics of another country.

Staying up into the wee small hours to watch debates has thrown my internal clock into complete disarray - my body now believes that 4 or 5 am is a good time to start thinking about going to bed, even though I still have to be up for a school run. It’s not good. Needing afternoon naps makes me feel old.

I’m also very busy at work (which I manage to fit in somewhere between intensive blog reading sessions) so by the time dinner rolls around in the evening I’m in no mood to start getting creative in the kitchen. The freezer has become my best friend.

But on Saturday, horror, the freezer was empty. With my obsession showing no sign of waning I decided to have a major cooking session and fill it with enough dinners to last until at least Nov 5th.

I kept scribbled notes about the whole process, with timing, which I’ll have made sense of (between the many food splashes) by tomorrow and will post here. But in around three hours I managed to ‘bank’ over 2 dozen very varied dinner-sized dishes, several side dishes and a load of soup into the now very packed freezer. All for less than €60.

!’ve never really cooked in this guerrilla fashion before, but it’s great! Last night ‘cooking’ dinner required just a little light defrosting and reheating along with rustling up some veg. This is what we ate - stuffed courgette with mozzarella.

I of course ate mine in front of the computer, while reading about the election.

Tags: Cooking for the Freezer, US Elections
Posted in This Blog | 8 Comments »

For all the excellent speakers and interesting talks at Podcamp in Kilkenny, I think few would disagree that among the biggest hits of the day were Deborah’s Chocolate Brownies, a huge pile of which disappeared with indecent haste!

Though they definitely are not low carb, I ate one (oh ok, two!) and all I can say is yum, yum, yum.

It sent me back to a recipe that resulted from a task that absorbed me off and on for months: to make a successful low-carb brownie. Not a pale imitation of what a brownie should be, but the real deal -succulent, rich, deep and luxurious.

It took a little experimentation, and a couple of almost inedible results, but these ones totally hit the spot. And they contain absolutely no flour or sugar.

This is what you need:

• 100g ground almonds
• 100g Linwoods milled Flaxseed, Sunflower and Pumpkin seeds *
• 10g Splenda
• 20g unsweetened cocoa powder (Green & Black is best, Bournville will do)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bread soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 80 mls cream
• 40g dark chocolate (ie. 4 squares Lidl Ecuador or Fair Trade dark chocolate)
• 1/4 lb butter, cut into dice
• 3 eggs

* The milled seeds are essential - I tried several versions using just ground almonds as the ‘flour’ and they were not good. The seeds are available in most supermarkets but are usually cheaper if you buy them in a health food store.

Mix all the dry ingredients (down to the salt) together.

Put the cream into a bowl with the chcolate and warm in a microwave for about 20-30 seconds. The chocolate should then dissolve into the cream with a little stirring. Add the butter to this and stir until the butter is soft, it doesn’t need to be completely melted.

Beat the chocolate mix into the dry ingredients. Beat in the eggs one at a time. You’ll end up with a slightly granular mixture.

I use this octagonal silicon tray which is 9″ in diameter for these, but any baking tray of about that size will do - the bigger the tray the thinner the brownie. I like ‘em deep as the picture shows!

Bake at 180° for about 30 mins - the centre will set but yeilding to the touch when they’re done.

The icing is sort of optional, but to my mind if you are going to be self-indulgent, don’t half do it! For it you will need:

• 40g dark chocolate (as above)
• 2 tablespoons cream
• About half an ounce of butter
• 125g Mascarpone cheese
• 1 dessertspoon Splenda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence (or real vanilla)

Melt the chocolate into the cream in the microwave to the point where there are still a few lumps in it. Stir to melt these. Add the butter and stir to melt. Beat the chocolate mixture and the splenda and vanilla into the mascarpone. Spread over the brownies in the tray when they have reached the point of being just warm.

The icing will take an hour or two to set, so leave the brownies uncut in their tray for this time.

This makes about 16 large or about 20 smaller brownies, depending on how you cut them.

For those interested in such things, they come out at just a little more than 2g net carbs per brownie - not bad for such a luxury and well under 10%, perhaps as little as 5%, of what’s in a ‘normal’ brownie of the same size. You can get them down to 1.5g if you use Lindt or Green & Black 85% chocolate. There is a tremendous amount of fat in them as you can see, so if low fat is your concern, these are a big no-no.

They are however horrendously expensive to make, no getting away from it. Compared to using flour, almond and milled seeds cost a LOT. Getting the chocolate, mascarpone and cream in Lidl helps, but doesn’t make them a bargain by a long shot.

Still, life isn’t ALL about bargains!

Tags: Brownies, Chocolate, Treats
Posted in Chocolate, Low carb, Recipes | 4 Comments »

A friend of mine was visiting relatives recently when he found himself sitting in front of TV with a distant cousin he had hardly seen since she was a child. She was watching a cookery programme, not sure which one, but she was spellbound, unavailable for conversation and completely absorbed.

When the programme ended he asked her if she enjoyed these kind of shows.

“I absolutely love them, I watch them all.”
“So, you must be a pretty good cook then?” he commented.
“Oh no, I hate cooking, I never cook at all” was her extraordinary reply.

I wonder how unusual she is? I know I am just as addicted to food on TV as she is - my current obsession is Masterchef, The Professionals and everyone knows not to even try speaking to me if Heston Blumenthal appears - but in truth I very rarely replicate precisely what I see on the screen.

I do pick up ideas though, and take away some tips, from these shows, but often adapt recipes to what’s readily available and also what’s low carb.

A few weeks ago on Saturday Kitchen on BBC, made Beef Koftas with Halloumi and Fig Salad, which looked just yum. So I had a go at something similar yesterday, but instead of fig (not low carb) and halloumi (couldn’t find it) tried an avocado and fried mozzarella salad instead. I also changed the beef recipe a bit.

So what I ended up with was Beef Koftas with Mozzarella and Avocado Salad and Cucumber Dressing - maybe not the same, but I’d never have made it if I hadn’t watched that programme.

There are quite a few potentially expensive ingredients making up this dish - but since the beef, avocado, mozzarella and yoghurt are all Lidl’s it ends up fairly frugal. In fact everything except the cumin and coriander came from Lidl.

First the Koftas. Here’s what I used to serve 2 people:

• 1/2 lb minced beef
• 2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
• 1/2 small onion, very finely chopped
• 1/2 red chili, very finely chopped
• Very generous pinch coriander powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• Salt and black pepper

Mix everything together well, divide into four and then form each portion into sort of sausages on skewers. I probably should have made them less fat than I did.

Fry these on a griddle pan or grill them under a hot grill.

Meanwhile make the dressing. This makes what looks like too much dressing, and I thought we’d have left overs. Not so, it was really tasty and we ate the lot:

• 1 tub Lidl Organic full fat yoghurt
• 5 inches of Cucumber
• 1/2 red chili
• 1 bulb Chinese garlic (this sort, which has a mild shallot-like garlic that is good raw)
• 1 scallion

Peel the cucumber and scrape out most of the seeds (they make the dressing too sloppy). Chop the cucumber into fine dice. Chop the scallion, garlic and chili finely, and everything with the yoghurt. Leave in the fridge to chill.

Make the salad at the last minute, because you want the mozzarella still hot:

• 1 pack Lidl (or any) Mozzarella, sliced
• 1 avocado
• Mixed leaves
• Lemon
• Olive oil

Peel and slice the avocado, squeeze over a little lemon juice and toss in a teaspoon of olive oil. Add a small amount of oil to a pan and heat until it starts to smoke. Add the mozzarella two or three slices at a time, don’t overcrowd the pan or it will cool down and the cheese will melt instead of frying. It cooks very quickly. Turn over after about 30 seconds. Repeat until all slices are cooked.

Toss the cheese and avocado together and serve on a bed of leaves alongside the Koftas with the cucumber dressing on the side.

Let me tell you now that the revelation here was the salad, which was wonderful, and I’ve never even thought of frying mozzarella before. It’s gorgeous, went very well with the Koftas and the hot mozzarella with the cool avocado and dressing was a great combination. I’ll be doing that again.

Tags: Avocado, Beef, Mozzarella, Recipes, TV food
Posted in Recipes, TV | 4 Comments »

Summer arrived briefly last week and stuck around for a day or two, and apparently is to return for another short stay next week. With it came a longing for Ice Cream, which is one of the few things I admit to missing since I started eating low carb. My tongue practically hangs out when I pass the ice cream fridges at Lidl. I particularly miss their premium vanilla which has real vanilla in it and is a total gem - you should try if you have not already done so.

But there are alternatives, and while this dessert is not really ice cream at all, it ticks all the same boxes and is very delicious in it’s own right. Plus it has the enormous advantage of being ready to eat about 2 minutes after you decide to make it - hard to beat that kind of instant gratification!

Simple as it is to make I’ve served this to people who were incredibly impressed and assumed it had taken ages. I love those kind of recipes.

This amount will serve 4 people, generously.

• 1 tub Lidl Mascarpone
• 2 dessert spoons Splenda (or sugar)
• Seeds from about 2 inches of fresh vanilla pod (or a teaspoon of vanilla essence)
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• 1/2 lb frozen berries (I used a mix of raspberry, strawberry and blackcurrant)

Put everything except the berries in the blender and mix until smooth. Add the berries and blend thoroughy.

That’s it. Serve and enjoy!

You need a good strong blender for this - frozen berries will be too big a challenge for a flimsy one.

It’s good value too. Mind you that’s because I have such a wonderful source of frozen berries, Purcell’s Farm in Dunmore, just outside Kilkenny, whose home grown raspberries and strawberries are available year round for €2.00 per lb, with blackcurrants just €1.50 per lb.

Tags: Berries, Farm Shop, Ice Cream, Mascarpone
Posted in Low carb, Recipes | 10 Comments »

One of my most used pieces of kitchen equipment is this Kenwood Chef mixer that must be at least 35 years old, possibly older, but is still in perfect nick and complete with its original bowl.

It belonged to my mother who also gave it heavy use, so whatever it originally cost it was certainly very cheap at the price and is a testament to good design.

She acquired over the years various additions to this workhorse, some successful, some less so - a robust blender that would grind stones is still in use but a potato peeler that turned out to be considerably more trouble than it was worth has long disappeared. One attachment I use infrequently is the mincer, mainly because cleaning it is such a tremendous pain, involving serious levels of dismantling and poking at little holes and grooves to get rid of the remnants of meat that cling to every part of its inner workings.

However sometimes it’s worth it, and one meat I use it for is turkey. For all it’s popularity and association with festivity, turkey is a pretty boring meat. It doesn’t have a whole lot of flavour and is can be dry as a bone, so it needs work to make it interesting. But Lidls Turkey breast is good value and so is a fairly regular buy.

Often I stir-fry strips of it or slice it, stuff it and wrap it in prosciutto, but these turkey sausages are probably my favourite way of cooking it. Though I did slightly overcook the ones below, they were still very tasty.

You can use ready minced turkey for these, but in my experience it’s less successful. Any that I’ve tried seems to be pumped with water and as a result the sausages shrink up and go a bit soggy when cooked. I think we’ll all agree that a shrunken soggy sausage is a truly sad thing.

Moving on. Here is what you’ll need to make 16 sausages:

• 1 lb raw turkey breast, finely minced
• 2 roast red peppers (from the Lidl jars of pepper)
• 1 red chili
• A small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Putza Spice mix
• 2 oz butter
• About 3 inches of tomato puree from a tube
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• Salt and black pepper

Finely chop the onion, chili and garlic. Melt the butter in a pan and gently fry the chopped veg - you don’t want it to brown. While it’s frying chop or mash the red peppers roughly. Add them to the pan and season the lot with putza (which is really good in this) - about a heaped teaspoon full, though I tend to just shake in what looks about right.

When this is done, scrape it all into a shallow bowl, making sure you get all of the butter, and put it into the fridge to cool. It should be completely cool before you mix it with the turkey - which takes about as long as it takes to mince the turkey and clean the mincer.

Once the cooked veg is cool just mix it thoroughly with the minced turkey, add the tomato puree, season with salt and pepper and then mix in the egg. Pound this about a bit while you mix it - you need it very well blended together and kind of mushy.

The result is a little sloppy, but with care you can form it into sausage shapes. These need to rest in the fridge for at least an hour before you cook them to firm up.

I cook them in a George Foreman Grill, but you can grill them in the normal way or even bake them.

The addition of butter is in my opinion essential - turkey breast has almost no fat and without some the sausages are just too dry. But if you are watching fat you could try it without or with less.

We had these last night with mushrooms and cheesy mashed cauliflower.

Every time I make them I think that I should maybe buy the sausage maker attachment for the Kenwood, but  it would probably just be creating more washing-up.

Tags: Kenwood, Sausages, Turkey
Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »