Post the Sixty-sixth (in which our heroine ponders on her decision to go back to college)

As long-time readers and people who know me in real life are aware,  I "went back" to college in 2011 (the quotation marks are because I don't actually physically go to lectures, it's a distance degree).  That decision was motivated partly by boredom, partly by a nagging feeling that I was somehow "lesser" because I didn't have a degree, and partly by desire to prove something to myself.  What that something was, I'm not quite sure.  2.5 years later, I'm still slogging along and will be halfway through my degree this May.  The reason for the snail's pace of progress is that I'm only doing two modules a year, because a) I can't afford any more than that, and b) I'm doing two very wordy subjects, and would pretty much have to give up my job in order to do any extra modules, which would kind of defeat the purpose of doing a distance degree in the first place.

While I've never been the most diligent student, my motivation this year is at an all-time low, mostly due to the fact that I find the two modules I'm doing incredibly dull - Literatures of the 17th and 18th Centuries, and Land, Politics and Society in Ireland: 1800-1922.  Never have I been as tempted to drop out as I am at the moment.  I sit here marvelling at the stupidity of spending the guts of eleven grand on a poxy Arts degree.  When I tell people I'm doing a degree they always go "Oh, what are you planning to do with it?" and I'm forced to mumble "Erm, nothing, really."  Cause let's face it, there really isn't anything you *can* do with an Arts degree.  On its own, anyway.  So I have spent a lot of time since September wondering why the hell I'm putting myself through this, all for a big fat nothing.  I could keep my sponds and use the time I'm spending studying to do something else.  What else, I'm not sure, but you can be guaranteed it would be a lot more fun than slogging through Paradise Lost or trying to pinpoint the reasons for the rise of Fenianism in the 19th century.

So what's stopping me?  Stubbornness.  And fear.  Fear that if I don't see this through, I will forever be confirmed in my mind and the minds of my family as a person who is incapable of seeing anything through.  I admit that this perhaps isn't really the noblest of motivations for doing well in college, but dammit, it's all I have.  My steadfast refusal to give my family the opportunity to exchange sage glances and go "I knew she wouldn't stick it" to eachother.  That, and the feeling of supergalactic creamy oneness that will envelope me when I'm standing in DCU, receiving my degree, basking in the knowledge that I will never again have to lug those stupid folders around with me.

Anyway, enough of the academic navel-gazing.  I promised you the Lidl/Paul Flynn recipes for 7 Family Meals for €50, and recipes you shall have.  Today's is a perfect Friday night dinner, and should be a hit with both adults and kids.  I'm not going to lie, I was really tempted to replace the baked beans with kidney beans, but for the sake of experimentation I stuck to the recipe, and dammit if the end-result wasn't fookin' delish, man.  It's actually one of my two favourite recipes out of the seven.

Meatball & Bean Casserole - serves 4

2x 12 packs of meatballs*                                    Tin of baked beans
Tin of tomatoes                                                     1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed                                         2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp paprika                                                          Half a chicken stock cube
Salt & pepper

1. Heat your oil in a large ovenproof pan or casserole, and saute the garlic and onions until just beginning to soften.

2. Add the meatballs and allow to colour, turning every so often, until everything is a lovely golden-brown. 

3. Stir in the tomatoes, beans and paprika.  Crumble in the stock cube, then cover and pop into an oven preheated to 160C for half an hour.

4. Remove from the oven, stir, season, then serve with potato of your choice.  As you can see, I did little wedges, mostly because they could go into the oven with the casserole (hey, we are being frugal this week after all).

 

 

* As I mentioned in the shopping-list post, if you can get one pack of beef and one pack of pork meatballs, do that.

 

As these aren't my recipes, and the whole basis of the €50 week depends upon using the ingredients as listed, I'm not going to be making any adjustments to them in the writing.  I will, however, add some suggestions for tweaks/additions you could make, if you happened to have any of the extra bits handy.  But believe me, every recipe in the collection is perfectly lovely without any changes.  I just can't help myself sometimes.

 

Anyway, a pinch each of cumin, cayenne, cinnamon and ground coriander will add even more depth to this dish.

 

Let me know how yis get on, and if anyone with particularly fussy kids can report back with their seal of approval, I'm sure others would appreciate it.

 

We shall speak anon, dear readers.

Post the Sixty-third (in which our heroine attempts to resurrect the blog)

Behold, we shall have a Lazarus-style moment.  This blog, which many (your correspondent included) presumed dead in January of this year, shall walk again.  Having fallen victim to the fatal scourge of its author not doing enough cooking to maintain it, it is being resuscitated by virtue of the fact that I have finally moved out of my parents' house (two years after having moved back in) and am now back cooking on a nightly basis.

The good news is, this allows me to blog again.

The bad news is, I'm well on the way to gaining back the stone I lost when the Ex and I broke up.  Le sigh.

Anyway, the 25-odd of you who actually bothered to follow the blog can now breathe a huge sigh of relief that the giant blog-sized hole in your life has finally been filled.  Or something.

Now, normally this is the point in a blog where the author would fill you in on all the drama and happenings in their life during the eleven months they were missing.  I can't do that, because virtually nothing has happened to me during that time.  I continued dating (none of it went anywhere), I continued working (desk-jockeying) and I went from blonde to very dark brunette to blonde again (cause I didn't like it), and that's pretty much it.  Kind of depressing, when I see it (or rather, the lack of "it") written in black and white there, actually.

Another thing that hasn't changed in the past year is my love of and addiction to chillies.  So, it should come as absolutely no suprise to anyone that my first recipe back is a Mexican-inspired one.  It's a lot like a lasagna, only with Mexican-style ingredients, so I call it Mexican Lasagna.  Original, eh?

The filling for this, like all mince-based sauces, improves with age, so feel free to make the filling the day before.  Or you could just use leftover chilli, if you ever happen to find yourself with two pounds of chilli leftover...

Mexican Lasagna with blue cheese bechemel - serves 6

450g round mince                                                 2 large onions, diced
Tin tomatoes                                                         125ml beer
2 chillies, finely diced                                            2 - 3 large flour tortillas
2 tbs oregano                                                        Juice of 1 lime
Tin refried beans                                                   Salt & pepper
25g blue cheese butter*                                        25g flour
350ml milk                                                            75g grated sharp cheddar
Tsp each of cayenne, paprika, ground cumin, paprika, ground coriander, garlic granules

1. Brown the mince in a little oil, and drain off any excess grease.  Add the onion, chillies and beer, and simmer til the onions have softened.

2. Stir in all the dried spices, and have a little taste to see if it needs a bit more of any in particular.  Stir in the tomatoes, turn the heat down nice and low and leave to simmer for as long as possible.  Keep an eye on it and if it looks like it's drying out at any stage, add a splash more beer (if you haven't already .  Just before assembling the lasagna, stir in the refried beans and lime juice and season with salt & pepper to taste.

3. Melt the blue cheese butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour to make a roux.  Cook for a couple of minutes, then whisk in the milk a little at a time, until you have a lovely thick, smooth bechemel.  Season with salt & pepper.

4. Spread half the chilli mix on the bottom of a lasagna dish.  Cover with tortilla, tearing them to fit if you need to.  Add the other half of the chilli, add another layer of tortilla, then pour over the bechemel.  Scatter over the grated cheese, then bung into an oven preheated to 190C for 30 - 40 minutes, until golden brown and bubbling.  Allow to stand for a few minutes before cutting into six and serving with a spinach salad, and accompaniments of choice.

Being a bit of a guac fiend, and having tried many a guacamole recipe, I can safely say that Thomasina Miers' is the absolute best by far that I've come across.  Do yourself a favour and make it - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/7967816/Thomasina-Miers-recipe-Proper-guacamole.html

*Blue cheese butter is something that's always worth having in the fridge, because it makes for the most awesome steak sandwiches you have ever tasted in your life.  Simply mash real butter and crumbled blue cheese together in a roughly 2:1 ratio.  Shape into a log, wrap tightly in clingfilm and it'll keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks, as you just slice off what you need.  Seemples.

Post the Sixty-second (in which our heroine is on the business end of some Schadenfreude)

Serves me right, really.  It's not like a haven't indulged in it myself over the years.  Come on, we all have.  It's one of life's little pleasures.  This time around, I was on the receiving end of my boss's delight in my misfortune, which came in the form of Leinster being unceremoniously dumped out of the Heineken Cup at the weekend.  Only the second time ever that the reigning champions haven't made it out of the pool stages, ladies and gentlemen.  And, typically, it happened the year the final was in Dublin.  The bloody money I've spent going to finals the past few years, and we collapse like an over-beaten souffle the year it's on our doorstep. Le sigh.

Anyway, allow me to furnish you with a little background on your heroine's fall from grace.  My boss is a very proud Ulsterman, from the wilds of Co. Down.  Any rugby fans among you will remember that Leinster beat Ulster in the Heineken Cup final last year.  Your correspondant may have placed a small wager with her boss at the Christmas party that Leinster would go further than Ulster in the competition again this year.  Your correspondant may have also foolishly agreed when her boss suggested upping the ante in said bet from €20 to €50, and shaken on it in front of several witnesses, despite all the indications that Leinster weren't heading for a record-breaking season, even back in December.  As it happened, our season effectively ended the very next day after that very party, when we allowed Clermont to beat us in the Aviva.  Rule #1 of the Heineken Cup is that you have to win your home games.  We were beaten by ASM both home and away, and come the final pool game in Exeter last week, we had done almost enough to qualify for the quarter-finals as the second-best runner-up, *if* one of several other results went our way.  We needed Toulon to beat Montpellier or Racing Metro to beat Munster.  As it happpened, neither of those teams turned up on their days, and Munster went through on try difference.  Our early season had been absolutely riddled with injuries and we had just left ourselves with too much to do, too late.

And so, to the schadenfreude.  I sent my boss a text on Sunday once we'd been knocked out saying I reckoned I could reasonably qualify for compassionate leave on Monday as I was in mourning for our cup dreams.  His reply?

"I'll show you the same compassion you showed to me last year..."

So yes, it may have been a slight mistake to leave the Heineken Cup on his desk the week after the final with a Post-It on it saying "Enjoy; it's the closest an Ulsterman will get to it :-)"

Touché, Boss. Touché.

And so, to the food.  This is one of those entries where I have absolutely no lead-in to the recipe whatsoever.  You'll just have to deal with it, I'm afraid.  These came about as a result of me drooling at something on Man V Food (a very regular occurrance), attempting to recreate it at home, and it actually turning out successfully (a not so regular occurrance).  So, avid readers, I give you...

Juicy Looseys - makes 4 burgers

750g round mince                                 3 cream crackers, crushed
1 clove garlic, crushed                          1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 tbs dried oregano                              1 egg yolk
200g cheese, cubed                              Salt & pepper

1. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the cheese.  Give it a good going-over, til everything is really well-combined.  Divide into eight equal balls, then press out into thin, wide burgers - think McDonalds rather than GBK here...

2. Place a few cubes of cheese into the centre of four of the patties.  You could slice the cheese instead if you wanted, but I find that using cubes makes it easier to be precise (did you ever think you'd hear that word in relation to my cooking?!) and makes for more even melting.  Here's a pic, just in case you genuinely don't have a clue where I'm going with this...

3. Flatten the edges of the patties, stick one on top of each of the cheesy ones, and crimp the edges tightly with a fork, and then your fingers.  You really don't want any leakage potential - it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. Stick back in the fridge for half an hour to firm up.

4.  Preheat your grill as hot as you can possibly get it.  Bung your burgers onto the grill tray and don't touch them at all until you're ready to flip them.  Turn them over, prick a few times with a fork or toothpick to allow the steam to escape, and brown the other side.  Serve, in a bun or nekkid, with whatever condiments y'all usually like on a burger.  I always have mine with sweet potato fries, but I confess myself too lazy to give you the method for them tonight, so sue me...

Post the Forty-second (in which our heroine plays catch-up a bit)

There's been a bit of a deafening silence around here lately.  Sorry about that.  I had last week off work and tried to get a set amount of college work done every day.  Unfortunately our crappy mobile broadband also decided to take the week off, so by the time I had my assignment quota done, my patience with t'interweb was pretty much spent.  Hopefully we'll be back to normal this week, though.

So, in my last post I was about to embark on a pot-pie making journey with the leeks and carrots we had harvested from the garden.  Kristin at Edible Ireland had a totally drool-tastic recipe that I had been dying to try, so all in all, I was terribly excited to give them a bash.

Now, before we start, I will happily admit to using shop-bought pastry.  And before you get all judgemental on me, have you ever actually seen what's involved in making puff pastry?  Go and Google it there.  Now, tell me who in God's name has a) the time, or b) the inclination to do that?  Just buy it.  You're keeping someone in a job.  Good for you.

Oh, and Kristin, not only did I copy your recipe, I also stole your presentation idea of writing on the pies.  Please don't sue me.  It was just too cute.  Even though my crappy photo is actually just embarrassing.

Beef, Stout & Blue Cheese Pot Pies - makes 4 individual pies

2 carrots, peeled and chopped                     2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped                          1 leek, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
3 garlic cloves, chopped                              1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 kg stewing beef, diced                              2 tablespoons flour
500ml stout                                                 150g crumbled blue cheese
2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry                  1 large egg, beaten

1) In a large oven-proof casserole dish, heat a good splash of olive oil. Add the carrots, celery, onion and leek along with a pinch of salt so the onions don’t brown. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft. Add the garlic, thyme and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper and cook for 1 or 2 minutes more. Stir in the beef, then add in the flour. Stir well to coat the beef and vegetables with the flour and cook for 2 or 3 minutes. Pour in the stout, give everything a stir and bring to a boil.

2) Cover the pot with a lid and place in an 180C for 2 1/2 hours, giving it a stir now and then, until the meat is tender.  When the beef is cooked and the stew has a nice, thick, silky consistency, stir in the blue cheese, taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.

3) Place one large ovenproof pie dish or individual gratin dishes on a baking tray just in case any filling bubbles up and over the sides, then spoon the stew into the dish(es). Cut the ready-rolled sheet of pastry to fit the top of the pie dish (or individual dishes), rolling it out a little on a lightly floured countertop with a rolling pin if you need to in order for it to cover your dish. Brush the edges of the dish(es) with some of the beaten egg to help the pastry stick in place, then carefully place the pastry lid on top. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg, then bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the pastry has risen and is golden. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

I really can't thank Kristin enough for this recipe; it is really, really good.  Go on and give it a try - you know you want to.  Beef, cheese and booze - what's not to like?

Post the Thirty-third (in which our heroine takes stock)

Beef and chicken stock, to be exact.  Soup-season is practically upon us, and it should go without saying that the key to a good soup is a good stock.  Most shop-bought stock cubes are packed with salt and can taste really, really synthetic.  You can buy much better quality concentrated stocks or bouillons, but they tend to be mad money.  So, the obvious solution is to make your own.  Buy a huge pot, set aside a day to make it, then freeze in 500ml portions and you're set for weeks, if not months at a time.

Now, seeing as the whole point of making your own stock (apart from it tasting lovely) is to try and save a few bob, there's not much point in going out and buying a sackful of ingredients specifically for it.  Instead, use yer noggin and make it when you know you're going to have pretty much everything on-hand anyway - after a roast dinner, say.  I'm talking specifically for chicken here, by the way.  It's not so much of an issue for beef stock, as your butcher will give you the bones for free anyway.  If you only use a whole chicken once in a blue-moon and couldn't be bothered making a third or a half quantity of the stock, just freeze your chicken carcasses until you do have enough to make it worthwhile.

This chicken stock recipe is from the doyenne of Irish cookery, Darina Allen, and it really is excellent.

Chicken Stock - makes about 3.5 litres

2 or 3 cooked chicken carcasses                   1 onion, sliced
1 leek, split in two                                          1 celery stick, quartered
1 carrot, roughly chopped                              Sprig of thyme
6 peppercorns                                               1 small bay leaf

1. Chop up your carcasses a bit.  Stick all the ingredients into a large stock pot, cover with 3.5 litres of cold water and bring to the boil.  Skim any fat off the top with a spoon.  Lower the heat and simmer for 2 or 3 hours.  Strain, allow to cool, skim off any remaining fat, then freeze in 500ml portions (I just use sandwich bags).

By the way, Darina prefers not to use bay leaf in her stock as she finds the flavour overpowering, but I don't know what kind of bionic bay leaves she has, because I find it adds only the tiniest hint of flavour.  'Tis up to you, though.

Also by the way, if you don't have a stock pot or only have a small freezer, it's perfectly fine to make a 1/3 quantity of this stock with one chicken carcass.  Just use smaller onions, leeks etc., rather than trying to cut exactly a third off of each...

So, now to the beef.  Beef stock is a slightly more involved process but it really is so, so worth it.  And it's not like you've to spend the entire time standing over it; you can blithely ignore it for large swathes of the day, which is exactly the kind of "recipe" that appeals to me.

When you're asking your butcher for the bones, tell him it's for stock - if he rocks, like my butcher, he'll make sure you get plenty of meat on them, and he'll more than likely cut them up for you too.  Give him an oul watery wink, if you think that might help.

Beef Stock - makes about 2.5 litres

2.5kg beef bones                            3 onions, peeled & halved
5 cloves garlic, peeled but whole     Few large sprigs of thyme & sage
2 leeks, halved                                2 large carrots, cut into rough chunks
1 stalk celery, roughly chopped       1 tbsp peppercorns

1. Preheat your oven to 200C.  Pop the bones, onions, carrots & garlic onto a large baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and give everything a bit of a toss to coat.  Bung the tray into the oven and roast for an hour, until everything is nice and browned.  Marvel at the awesomeness of the smell of the bones as they roast.

2. Remove the veg & bones from the tray and put them into your stock pot with all the remaining ingredients.  Deglaze the roasting pan with a little bit of boiling water to get all the lovely burnt-y bits off the bottom.  Add this liquid to the stock pot, then top up with 4.5 litres of cold water.  Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and allow to simmer for 4-6 hours.

3. Strain the stock, then return it to the pot, turn the heat back up and reduce by half - this will take around an hour, so be patient.  Allow to cool, skim off any fat from the top, then freeze in 500ml portions.

A note on salting your stock:  I don't tend to salt my chicken stock, but if you want to add some, do it at the end of the cooking and taste very carefully.  Same applies to the beef stock, but only add the salt after you've reduced the stock.

Post the Twenty-second (in which our heroine turns up for her new job a week early)

Yes, I am a muppet. I spent the whole week thinking (and telling everyone) I was starting my new job on Monday (which was yesterday), despite having heard my recruitment agency lady say the 19th perfectly clearly.  Now, you would think, given the 9/11 overload on tv all last week, that I would have copped fairly quickly that yesterday was, in fact, the 12th, but no.  It was only on the way home from Dublin on Sunday evening that I realised.  I had seen a sign for the Castledermot Vintage Day, which is taking place this year on Sunday the 25th of September.  "That's this day week", says I to myself.

*imaginary "Does Not Compute" message flashing in brain*

But how can this day week be the 25th if today is only the 11th?

And so on and so forth.  By the time we got home, I had myself totally confused.  And, of course, I had no way of getting in touch with MRAL (my recruitment agency lady) to double-check.  So, I resigned myself to getting ready and heading to Dublin in the morning, and just keep trying to reach her in the meantime.  In the end, I was literally around the corner from the new job when I got the orders to stand down.  Ah well.  We all make mistakes, right?

On the plus side, the fact that I was all fired up and ready to go to work from yesterday makes it feel like I've been gifted a bonus week off.

Anyway, I ended up going out for a late lunch with my mum yesterday, so I wanted a pretty light dinner.  This was absolutely perfect.

Two-Way Coriander Beef - serves two

350g round mince                          2 medium onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled                   2" piece of ginger, peeled & cut into rough dice
2 chilies, finely diced                     Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbs curry powder                       2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp cumin                                   50g cashew nuts
Soy sauce, to taste                       3 tbs fresh coriander, chopped

1. Heat a wok over a medium heat and brown your mince.  Put your garlic and ginger through a garlic crusher and add it to the mince with the onion & chili.  Cook until the onion is soft.  Drain any excess, grease, but, to be honest, with round mince, there shouldn't be any.  Add the cumin, ground coriander, curry powder & lemon juice and simmer for 15 minutes.

2. Add your preferred quantity of soy sauce and the cashew nuts, stir and simmer for another 5 minutes.  Season, check the spice level & adjust if necessary, then remove from the heat and stir in the fresh coriander.

3.  Serve with rice/naan/wraps/whatever you prefer.  I had mine wrapped in iceberg lettuce, like yuk sung, which was absolute perfection, and I would recommend this method above all others.

Today's Top Tip: Save a fortune on laundry bills - give your dirty shirts to Oxfam. They will wash and iron them and you can buy them back for fifty pence.

Post the Twenty-first (in which everyone feels like Ireland lost)

So, Ireland kicked off their world cup campaign yesterday.  The match kicked-off at 7am Irish time, so I'd say most people missed the first ten minutes or so out of bleary eyed-ness.  It's really a terribly uncivilised time to be getting up at of a Sunday.

The bad news is, those who slept through it were the lucky ones.  It was a really, really bad match.  We were playing the USA, in case you didn't know.  The USA wouldn't be known as a rugby powerhouse, also in case you didn't know.  We were expected to hockey them comfortably; shite form during the summer series notwithstanding.  That didn't happen.  We won 22-10, which sounds like a great result on paper, but which is really quite alarming from a team who were ranked third in the world less than a year ago, against a team whose highest world ranking ever was 14th.  On the day, the US looked like the hungrier team and Ireland just couldn't seem to make any cohesive play.  It says a lot about the match that, out of three tries, two were scored by a guy who couldn't touch the ball without knocking it on for the first half an hour and the other by a hooker who "retired" years ago.  And, in the dying minutes of the game, after 10 minutes of play where it looked like we actually might have snatched the bonus point out of nowhere, what did our one player who'd had a decent summer series do?  He kicked away possession.  Game over, ball burst, as Emmet would say.  Only it wasn't even game over - out of nowhere, Paul Emerick intercepted a BOD pass and was gonzo, as we Coffeys are wont to say - over the line, for a try that would be converted, making an even bigger dent in our tries for/against stats.  It made for a very morose post-match analysis, both at home and in the RTE studio.  As I've said, you'd swear we'd lost the game.  We might as well have; if we play like that against the Wallabies next week, we might as well cede from the (rugby) union.  I do, however, have faith in the lads, if not in Declan Kidney.  If he gets the right people on the pitch, we're still in there.  Anyone who has a Kidders voodoo doll, get working on it now.

However, the bitter taste left by our under-par performance was soon erased by the yummy breakfast provided by my eldest sis, Clo.  I was tempted to Dublin with the promise of Hueveos Rancheros, but got Huevos á la Flamenca instead.  I forgave her, just about - she did ply me with ample quantities of mimosa.  There's a certain frisson to being drunk before 10am.

Anyhoo, Emmet and I had come to Dublin the night before, to save ourselves having to get up at a completely offensive hour.  We briefly toyed with the idea of going out to eat, but I decided that I wasn't arsed putting on make-up, so I said I'd make...

Beer Chili - serves 4 (generously)

500g stewing steak, very finely diced*
250g pork mince                         100g bacon lardons
330ml beer                                  2 beef stock cubes                                
2 onions, diced                            4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 stick celery, diced                     2 chilies, diced (skin & membrane left in)
1 red pepper, chopped                1 tin tomatoes
2 tbs tomato purée                       2 tbs chili powder
4 tbs Frank's Red Hot Sauce
1 tbs oregano                               1 tbs cumin
1 tbs dried basil                           1 tbs ground coriander
1 tbs paprika                               1 tbs mustard
1 tsp brown sugar                        Juice of 1 lime
Bunch of fresh coriander, chopped

Before we start: I may have mentioned before that I'm totally addicted to chilies.  However, even if you don't like hot food, you should totally try this recipe - it is A-MAZ-ING.  Just cut down on the fresh chilies a bit.  And it's so easy to make; you just go as far as step 3, before the lime & coriander, and then leave it all to simmer for as long as you like - the longer, the better. Eat it the next day, and it'll be better again.  Just add the last two ingredients before you dish up.  The recipe I've given you here is actually halved from the original - but feel free to double everything, make the monster pot, and freeze in individual portions for lunches/weekday dinners.  It's all good.

*Stewing steak - do not attempt to make this chili with mince.  Buy stewing steak, which should already be in strips, and dice it nice and small.  Yes, this is a bit of a pain, but it's worth it.  Chili made with chunky beef is, quite frankly, the only way to eat chili at all.

Anyway, onwards and (hopefully) upwards:

1. Heat a (very) large pot over medium heat.  Add your diced beef & pork mince and brown, breaking up any clumps with a fork.  Drain off any excess fat.

2.  Add the onions, celery, garlic and chilies.  Cook briskly for 5 minutes, stirring, then add the beer, bring back to a simmer, and cook for another 5 minutes.

3. Add all the remaining ingredients except the lime juice & coriander.  Stir, lower the heat, then leave to mellow at a very low simmer for as long as you have.  Just before serving, stir in the lime juice & coriander, check the seasoning, then serve in warm bowls with cheese, tortilla chips (see below) and lots of lovely cold beer.

A note on tortilla chips: I don't eat rice and, to me, chili should be eaten with tortilla chips anyway.  However, with one eye always cocked towards the rag on a stick, I try to avoid the shop-bought tortilla chips.  I am aware that that's what's in the photo above, but that's just cause Emmet misread the shopping list - I usually make my own.  I'll tell you how to make these some time this week, I promise, but tonight, I'm just too tired -  too tired, even, for a Top Tip.  I'm off to Bedfordshire, folks - g'night...

Post the Thirteenth (in which Ireland lose to France for the second week in a row)

Pre-season friendlies.  Everyone pretends they don't really give a fiddler's about them, but it'd still be nice to win them.  We've a world cup to go to next month, like.  Unfortunately, the IRFU seem to have enjoyed the 2007 debacle so much that they've decided to try and recreate it exactly and have started by renewing Kidders' contract before the world cup.  Somewhere, someone is hearing the ghost of RockSteady Eddie howling "Noooooooo...".  Not that Eddie O'Sullivan is dead, mind.  I'm just using my artistic licence.

Ireland has a hooker crisis (insert dodgy joke about legalising prostituion here).  Rory Best should just go away somewhere and never come back.  Gerry Flannery must have the body of a calcium-deficient, arthritis-ridden nonagenarian woman, he's so prone to injury.   Richardt Strauss will be Irish-qualified next year, but will probably be roundly ignored by Kidney & Co., who have shown themselves to be rather, erm, set in their ways in the past (Mick O'Driscoll, anyone?).

So, it's England next week.  We have a bit of a history of pulling a performance out of the bag against the chariot-lovers, but as satisfying and all as that might be, it's not enough.  Here's hoping the lads can pull themselves together by September 9th. 

In related news, Emmet and I are no longer allowed to watch rugby together.  It does not make for marital bliss, let's just leave it at that.

Anyway, there has once again been a woejus lack of cooking going on, for which I must apologise profusely.  I've only spent two nights at home in the past fortnight, almost, so my routine is all over the place.  The last thing I cooked was steak, which I know is a very subjective thing for people, but for what it's worth, here's my favourite way to serve it.

Steak with Cottage Cheese, Parcel Potatoes & Spinach Salad - serves 4

4x 8oz fillet steaks                            400g low-fat cottage cheese
Juice of 1 lemon                               Bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked
Olive oil                                           Salt & pepper
Aromat                                            Garlic granules
1kg baby potatoes                           2 large onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced              Large bag baby spinach leaves, washed & drained

1)  Take the steaks out of the fridge AT LEAST an hour before you plan to cook them.  I really can't stress enough how important this is.  Oil each steak and season each side with equal parts black pepper, garlic granules and aromat (no salt, the aromat is salty enough).  Press the seasonings into the steaks, cover with clingfilm and leave to sit at room temperature for the hour.

2) Mix the cottage cheese, lemon juice, thyme leaves and a swirl of olive oil in a medium bowl.  Cover and stick back in the fridge until you're dishing up.  Make the salad by mixing the spinach leaves with one of the onions in a large bowl and pop that into the fridge too. (I usually cut another lemon into wedges too, for extra squazzing.)

3)  Preheat the oven to 210C.  Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook your potatoes (cut any bigger ones in half) until they're just tender.  Drain and bung into a large bowl with the other sliced onion, the sliced garlic, lots of salt & pepper and a good few glugs of olive oil.  Toss together.  Take a sheet of tinfoil, big enough to hold all your potatoes, then double it.  Put the potatoes onto the foil, fold over and double-fold the edges together to make a good seal.  Pop into the oven and bake for approx. half an hour.

4)  Get a large frying-pan onto a high heat - as high as your ring will go.  Don't oil it, as you've already oiled the steaks.  Get your pan really, really hot.  When you think it's hot enough, leave it for another 5 minutes.  You need to be thinking "Holy shit, this thing is going to go on fire any minute now".  That's when it's ready to cook on.  Have your plates warming in the oven.  Now, I eat my steak blue, so I literally cook it for about 90 seconds each side.  I've been told, however, that not everyone appreciates steak that's still cool in the middle.  Weirdos.  For rare, give them 3 minutes on each side, for medium-rare, more like 5 or 6.  And that's where I'm out of my comfort zone with steak.  If you want it more cooked than that, you shouldn't really be wasting your money on steak in the first place.  But if you insist on ruining it, give it 10 minutes per side in the pan, then move it to a baking tray, cover with foil and let it continue to cook in the oven.

5)  Once your steaks are cooked, move them to the warm plates and allow to rest for 5 minutes.  I like to just plate the steaks up and serve everything else in big bowls on the table, but it's up to you.  The most important part is to make sure everyone has a big dollop of the cottage cheese on their steak.  The contrast of the hot, peppery steak with the cool, creamy cheese is just amazing.  Use another dollop to dress your salad, along with another squeeze of lemon.  Heaven on a plate.

A note on buying steak:  I have a fantastic butcher at home and I buy all my meat from him.  With the exception of steak.  I finally had to accept that Aldi's Specially Selected Irish Angus steaks are far better (and cheaper) than anything I was getting from the butcher.  He just wasn't hanging his beef for long enough, unfortunately. 

Today's Top Tip:  Nissan Micra drivers - attach a lit sparkler to your radio arial.  You drive the things like bumper cars, so they may as well look the part.

Post the Fifth (in which our heroine has her first hangover of the blog)

Bleurgh.  Gak.  Fnghhh.  These are all approximations of my current physical state.  I blame the sisters.  They came, they made me go to the pub, they brought wine.  The upshot is that I forgot to take a photo of the finished dinner.  If you have an issue with that, take it up with them.  Thank God I had the foresight to do most of the cooking before they arrived.

My hangovers are sly bastards.  I usually wake up feeling pretty ok, spring out of bed (kind of), make breakfast and generally think I got away with it, only to find myself on a steep decline into headachey, twitchy, moany horribleness.  While Emmet, who gets one hangover a year, gives me smug "hate to be you" looks.  Unfortunately, I'm also one of those people whose hangovers demand to be fed.  I'd love to be one of those "Oh Gawd, I can't even *look* at food when I'm hanging" people, but no.  I spend the day trekking from the couch to the kitchen and dreaming about Tribeca chicken wings.  This morning I made huevos rancheros for breakfast, had two mugs of tea and three glasses of blackcurrant cordial in mineral water, and was starving again an hour later.  At which time I finished off the baguettes I made yesterday, with real butter, cheese and a packet of chipsticks.  I'm still hungry, though.

In other news, rugby is back!!!  Ok, it's only friendlies, but still.  There has been a giant, rugby-shaped hole in my life since the end of May.  We're six minutes into Ireland V Scotland as I write, and I shall make the following observations:

- the new Scotland strip is very Leinster-esque

- Tony Buckley is shite.  (That's a general observation, and not just specific to this match.)

- Ireland are scrummaging well so far.  I don't have a whole lot of faith in Tomas O Leary, though.

Anyway, last night's dinner was nice, from what I remember.  It's adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe, but his meatballs are literally just bits of sausage, which I thought sounded a bit crap.  I let the sauce reduce too much, though, so there wasn't quite enough of it.  The demon drink strikes again.

Pasta & Meatballs (or Amazeballs, as Sinead called them) - serves 4

1lb round mince                                       10 cocktail sausages
5 cloves garlic                                          3 tbsp oregano
Salt & pepper                                          1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tins tomatoes                                         Bunch of basil
400g pasta                                               3 large sage leaves, or a good bunch of thyme, leaves picked.

1) Snip the skin of the sausages and squeeze the meat into a bowl.  Add the mince, 2 cloves of garlic (crushed), 2 tbsp of the oregano, salt, pepper and the red wine vinegar.  Mix really, really well and shape into little meatballs - think two-thirds the size of a golfball.  Pop into the fridge to firm back up for at least half an hour.

2)  Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan.  Slice your other 3 cloves of garlic as finely as you can, and chop the stalks of the basil.  Add to the oil and allow to soften.  Chiffonade the basil leaves while you're waiting.

3)  Add the tomatoes to the pan, chuck in the basil, season to taste.  Bring to a low simmer.

4)  Heat another bit of oil in another pan.  Brown your meatballs lightly on all sides.  Add your chopped sage or picked thyme leaves for the last 30 seconds.

5)  Add the meatballs to the tomato sauce along with any juices from the pan.  Mix well, add the remaining tablespoon of oregano and check the seasoning.  Allow to simmer until the meatballs are cooked through and your sauce reaches a nice thick consistency.  Cook your pasta, top with pasta & meatballs, add a few parmesan shavings and enjoy.  I also served homemade garlic bread, and was planning to do a salad too, but forgot all about it in my drunken state.

It's 25 minutes into the match now, and still no score.  I blame Tony Buckley.

Post the Fourth (in which our heroine ponders the free time paradox)

That sounds far more scientific than it really is.  What I am, in fact, pondering is the difference in how free time feels depending on how much money you have.  To wit; I've been out of work for a couple of weeks now, and am pretty much crawling the walls already.  Compare this to two years ago, when I was off work for three and a half months, and never wanted to go back.  The difference?  Fourteen grand in the bank.  The last time I was out of work, I had a nice, fat redundancy payment in the bank and basically lived the life of the proverbial Reilly for the few months.  This time, I'm pretty much destitute, and it turns out having absolutely shitloads of free time isn't half as much fun when you can't afford to do anything with it.  Who'da thunk it?

I didn't get the shitty money temp job in Tallaght either.  They said I was too experienced.  I'm not exactly sobbing my heart out, to be honest.  My lovely recruitment agency lady has, however, submitted me for a much better job, which I would very much like to get, so I'm currently waiting to see if I get called for an interview.  Fingers crossed, wha?

Anyway, onto more important things - food!  Last night's dinner was a Beef Calcutta Curry.  Yes, yes, I know cows are sacred in India, but they're not sacred to me, so I'll damn well have beef in a curry if it pleases me.  Here's a pretty photo of the spices that went into it:

I'm an artist, I'm telling you.

Anyway, this is a really, really mellow curry that really tastes far too good for the measly amount of effort that goes into it.  It's also a great stick-it-on-and-go-and-have-a-bath dish, and to be honest, those are my favourite ones.  If you fancy giving it a go, here's how:

Beef Calcutta Curry - serves 4

1 tsp salt                               1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground coriander          1 tsp ground black pepper
1.5 tsp turmeric                    1 tsp ground cumin
1 litre milk                            7.5cm piece ginger, peeled & crushed
1kg stewing steak, cubed     50g ghee or butter
2 large onions, thinly sliced   5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 tsp garam masala

1)  Put the salt, chili powder, coriander, pepper, turmeric & cumin into a large bowl and mix in just enough of the milk to make a thick paste.  Gradually whisk in the remainder of the milk, add the beef, cover and set aside for a few hours.  (How vague is that?  As long as you have, really.  Even overnight, if you're super-organised.)

2) Melt the butter or ghee (snigger) in a heavy-based frying pan or wok, add the ginger, garlic & onions and cook over a medium heat until soft.  Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

3) Whack up the heat, remove the beef from the milk, add to the pan and brown.  Do it in batches if you have to.  Add the milk & onion mix back in, bring to the boil, then lower the heat right down, cover and simmer very gently for about 2 hours (go and have your bath here) until the beef is tender and the sauce reduced.

4) Just before serving, add the garam masala, increase the heat and boil off any excess liquid to leave a very thick, almost pasty sauce.  Serve immediately with rice/naan/whatever tickles your fancy.

I made flatbreads with it, but I confess myself too lazy to write out another whole recipe, so you'll just have to make do with something else until I get around to posting it.  Must dash, my sisters are on their way down to me and I'm like a knacker.  To the shower!

Oh yeah, almost forgot - here's a pic of the finished product.  And one of the flatbreads, cause I'm a bit mean like that...