In spite of the best laid plans we never made it to Waterford and the Terra Madre events yesterday - sometimes life just happens. Oh well. But I am going to make it to Cork tonight for the Geek Girl Dinner, come hell or high water. Yeah!

My son thinks this is hilarious - that his Mum is actually happy to be called a ‘geek’. I haven’t explained to him that it’s really the ‘girl’ bit that is making me smile.

But I had planned to be away yesterday and so also planned to put something in the oven before we left that would be ready and waiting on our return. This chili can be happily left cooking slowly on a low heat for hours, in fact it’s almost a case of the longer the better.

It’s a hearty and warming dinner I’d normally consider most suitable for the depths of Winter, so that basically covers the months of September-August in Ireland.

1 lb round steak or stewing steak, cut into cubes
1/2 a Lidl Chorizo
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
2 chili peppers, as hot as you like ‘em!
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
A few basil leaves
1 parsnip
Piece of turnip about the size of an apple
Olive oil
1/2 pint Beef stock *

* If you don’t have homemade beef stock and cannot find either very low salt or, preferably, no salt stock cubes, leave this out and just use water instead. Otherwise, because of the chorizo, the chili will end up way too salty.

Put some olive oil into a large pan over a hot ring. Brown the beef in two batches, removing them to a deep ovenproof dish with a lid once they are done.

Peel the casing off the chorizo - which is a fiddly job, but nessessary. Cut into slices about 1/2-3/4 inches thick. Add some more oil to the pan and toss the chorizo and the chopped onion in this until the onion is soft. Towards the end add the chopped garlic and chopped chilis. Add to the beef.

Add the tomatoes, chili powder, coriander, cumin, chili powder and cocoa to the beef/chorizo and stir well. Chop the basil (I used about 10 leaves) and stir it in. Finely grate the parsnip and turnip and mix through. These may look strange, but they completely dissolve into the sauce with slow cooking and make it thick and unctuous and add a really nice mild sweetness.

Add the half pint of stock or water. Cover and put into an oven pre-heated to 180° C. Immediately reduce the oven temperature to 120° C. Leave it there for 4-5 hours. You can stir it now and then if you are around, but it’s not strictly necessary.

The result will be a dark chili, with meltingly tender meat and a rich sauce that has lots of heat and flavour. Perfect to come home to after a day away.

We had this with cheesy spinach and spicy roast turnip, with some grated cheese and sour cream on top of the chili.

Tags: Beef, Chorizo, Recipes
Posted in Low carb, Recipes | 5 Comments »

One of the downsides of eating low carb is that it’s quite difficult to satisfy the occasional longing for something crunchy.

Crisps, tortilla chips and the like are out, cheese crisps are a great option, but my favourite low carb crispy treat has to be Chorizo Crisps.

They have just the right amount of satisfying crunchiness, are quick and easy to make and everyone, not just low carb eaters, seems to enjoy them.

Although I’ve tagged this as a recipe, it’s really too simple to qualify as one. All you have to do is slice up the chorizo, zap it in the microwave and leave it to cool. That’s it!

This plate holds a little less than 6 inches of chorizo sliced up. The whole chorizo, which costs €2.99 in Lidl is a bit more than 24 inches long, so you’ll get more that 4 times this many crisps from one.

They may not be the cheapest snack in the world but when you want something crunchy you really want something crunchy!

They took exactly 2 minutes to cook, on high in an 800W microwave. Your’s may vary - they look sort of dry in the centre when they are done, though are not crisp till they cool.

The crisps are very good scattered over salad, as a garnish for sandwiches or in pretty much any situation where you’d use crispy bacon. Exactly the same thing works perfectly with all kinds of salami, so there are lots of different flavours of crisp to try.

I made these ones for the wine tasting this evening, where we are having tapas, primarily using the various goodies from the current Iberian promotion at Lidl. I’ll be reporting on what people thought of them as well as the wine.

One of the things from that range that I picked up yesterday was salted roasted almonds, which cost €3.99 for 250g. I opened the bag to taste a couple. Big mistake. They are totally addictive and I’ll have to go back later today to get more!

Tags: Chorizo, Crisps, Low carb
Posted in Best Buys, Recipes | 15 Comments »

I made a big four egg omelette this morning, with some chopped scallions though it, then got into my strop about being sick of this whole thing and wanting steak and didn’t eat any of it.

He ate the lot, which may mean that Gavin has a point about me starving him, though he says he’s fine with what’s going. Only 3 eggs left and 2 more breakfasts, will have a think about that later.

Then of course I was starving in the middle of the morning, but there was some chili left over from last night, so I reheated that. Fine, even tasty, but boring.

When I travel, say to Dublin, I’ll take one route there and a different one home, because I hate repeating myself. This week feels like there is too much repetition of flavour and I think that’s why I got so fed up. The food is fine, it’s tasty, it’s nourishing, there just isn’t all that much variety in spite of my efforts.

Breakfast Cost: Eggs 54c; Scallions 10c; Total: 64c

We both had lunch at home today, Potato and Chorizo Salad, with radish, scallion and a little bit of chopped chili on top.

In spite of my complaining this was actually very nice and cheered me up a bit. He had a couple of slices of crisp bread with it, I didn’t bother as the salad was enough. There is only a weensy bit of lettuce left now, but then lettuce is just crispy water and not a necessity.

Lunch Cost: 10″ chorizo €1.24; radishes 10c; scallion 10c; lettuce 15c; potato 10c; chili 9c; crisp bread 9c.
Total: €1.87

At this point I still couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. My options were:

a. something else with mince (NO!!)
b. something with turkey breast, which didn’t do it for me either, or
c. the frittata I’d planned to do one evening. But I would use chorizo in that and although there is some left I didn’t want it twice in a day.

I wanted something tasty, something not in a bowl, something… well, I wanted steak.

But since steak is out, I took my meagre budget to the nearest shop (Eurospar) and bought what I know to be the best bargain there, 2 chicken legs for €1 each. These really are quite large and meaty and are cheaper than either the chicken thighs or drumsticks in Lidl, which is surprising because Eurospar is normally quite expensive.

We had Roast Chicken Legs with Roast Vegetables, preceded by a bowl of yesterday’s soup.

The chicken was just dusted with Puszta Spice Mix and put into a hot oven (200 C) for 45 mins, each one sat on top of a little bulb of garlic.

The turnip was parboiled for about 20 minutes, mixed with a sliced onion and half a red pepper, then tossed with a good dessert spoon of Balsamic vinegar. I didn’t use any oil because this went in beside the chicken for the last 20 mins to roast in the chicken fat.

The courgette is sliced, salted and left to drain for 20 minutes or so, then squeezed dry with kitchen paper, tossed it in a little olive oil and seasoned generously with black pepper. I roasted them separately from the chicken, as courgettes are very absorbant and they would be soggy and greasy if roast in the chicken fat. They take about 20 minutes in the oven.

Before serving, I split the roast garlic and squeezed the soft flesh over the roast turnip.

This was a simple dinner to prepare, had good robust flavours and tasted nothing like anything we’ve had already this week, which considerably improved my mood.

Dinner Cost: chicken €2; courgette: 83c; turnip 25c; pepper 25c; onion 10c; garlic 16c.
Total: €3.49

Which brings the day’s total to exactly €6.00.

It’s Friday night! A couple of drinks tonight were in the budget from the get go and I’m mightily glad they were, because if I couldn’t have some kind of treat I’d be really stroppy. Though in fact by the time dinner was over I’d got my head back into a good place and I’m absolutely ready for the last 2 days of this.

Bring it on!

Tags: Chicken, Chorizo, Roast vegetables, €50 Challenge
Posted in €50 Challenge | 1 Comment »

Well, so far so good! Our total bill for food today was a modest €6.01, we ate very well indeed and there are leftovers.

Breakfast was boiled egg with sunflower bread toast - one slice for him, a half slice for me, but they are large and filling slices.

Lunch was a salad, made with one third of the Chorizo (about 4 inches each), radishes, a slice of red pepper and of onion, one third of the cos lettuce and a tomato each, plus a slice of seseme crispbread. We had a handful of peanuts each to follow, which I actually ate as a snack in the afternoon.

Dinner was beef stuffed cabbage rolls with tomato sauce, accompanied by stir fried sugar snap peas.

This was both delicious and very filling, so filling that there are two little parcels left over and I’ll be very happy to have them for lunch tomorrow.

It’s a bit time consuming to prepare, not in the making as much as in the cooking, as most of the time it’s just sitting in the oven. Here’s how it’s made.

4 large savoy cabbage leaves (the outside ones most people discard)
1 portion of precooked beef mix, thawed
1 cup precooked tomato soup, thawed
1 raw egg, lightly beaten
2 baby new potatoes
3/4 onion
I teaspoon Worcester sauce (optional)
1/2 pack mozzarella
1.5 oz mature cheddar
A little olive oil
Seasoning of your choice

Sugar Snap Peas
1/4 Onion
A few sesame seeds, if you have them

1. Blanch the Cabbage
Drop the cabbage leaves into a saucepan of boiling salted water and boil for 3-4 minutes. Remove and immediately plunge into a bowl of cold water, then drain.

2. Prepare the Filling

Cut off 1/4 of the onion and leave aside for later, then finely chop the rest. Peel and chop the potato into small dice. Put some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the onion and potato dice until the potato is just begining to soften.

Meanwhile, put the beef mix into a bowl, season with salt, pepper and whatever else you like, I used paprika and a little garlic powder, then mix though the egg. When the onion and potato are done, allow them to cool a little then mix into the beef.

3. Stuff the Cabbage
Place the cabbage leaves flat. I ended up with 6 pieces of cabbage because two of the leaves were truly huge, so I split them.

Divide the beef mix between the leaves, then roll the leaves up so that they fully, and fairly tightly, contain their stuffing. Secure each roll with a toothpick if they are inclined to unravel, but mine didn’t.

Aside: I got a present of the wooden board in the picture on the left, which has a depression just the right size for sitting the cabbage leaves in while stuffing them - which made me ridiculously happy in a cook-loves-gadgets kind of a way.

4. Cook the Rolls
Pour the thawed tomato soup and the Worcester sauce, if you are using it, into an oven proof dish just big enough to fit all the cabbage rolls.

Arrange the rolls in the dish in a single layer. If your dish has a lid, put it on, otherwise cover the dish with tinfoil. Place in a moderate oven (175 C) for 40 mins. Then remove the lid/tinfoil and return to the oven uncovered for another 15 mins.

While the cabbage rolls are finishing, break up the mozzarella roughly and grate the cheddar. Sprinkle the cheese both over the top of the cabbage rolls and return to the oven for about 5 mins, or until the cheese is bubbling.

5. Serve and Eat
The last five minutes is time enough to prepare the veg. I sliced the sugar-snap peas lengthways and stir-fried them with the remaining 1/4 onion, very thinly sliced. They only need about 2-3 mins of cooking, you want them still crisp. If you have some sesame seeds, throw them in for the last minute or so. I completely forgot to photograph these - we were hungry!

Cost: Mince mix €1.26; tomato soup 25c; egg 14c; onion 10c; potatoes 5c; peas 83c; cabbage: 33c; mozzarella: 37c; cheddar: 38c
Total: €3.71

Tags: Beef, Cabbage, Chorizo, Recipes, €50 Challenge
Posted in Recipes, €50 Challenge | 6 Comments »