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 Fifty-second (in which our heroine returns to the kitchen)

So, your sometime correspondent returned to the kitchen last night.  I genuinely can't remember the last time I cooked a meal, to my shame.  There was much jubilation in the Coffey household.  I even invited a special guest in the form of my friend A.  (But it was really only cause I knew she'd bring Prosecco...)  Your correspondent pondered muchly on just what she should cook.  In the end, she plumped for Mexican, which should surprise no-one who has been a regular peruser of this blog.  Ok, I lie; strictly speaking the recipe is from Arizona, or at least it's in the "Arizona" section of the Jamie Oliver cookbook from whence it came, but sue me, I'm listing it under Mexican as, quite frankly, I can't see myself having enough Arizonan (Arizonian?) recipes on this blog to make it worth my while creating a whole new set of tags. 

We've discussed in depth my love of Mexican flavours previously on this blog.  This recipe has pretty much all of them - chillies, lime, coriander.  But it's quite different too - the addition of mint and sage give it a zing and freshness that make it really dance on your tastebuds.  Plus, it's ridiculously easy to make, which is a plus in anyone's book, right?  Perfick Friday night grub with a few cold beers.  I'd imagine that, like most chillies, it would be even better the next day, but to be honest, I've made it twice now and on neither occasions have any leftovers made it through the night in order to test that theory.

Btw, your correspondent is also on the blocks next week in the Boards.ie Cooking Club and this is the recipe I'll be using, with the addition of Navajo Flatbreads, so if you'd like to know how to make them, have a shufti over there next Friday.

Jamie Oliver's Green Chilli - serves 4

800g lean pork mince                                            1 tsp dried sage
2 large onions, diced                                             2 green peppers, seeded & diced
6 small green chillies, roughly chopped                4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 large, ripe tomatoes, deseeded & chopped         Bunch coriander, chopped
Small bunch fresh mint, chopped                          Juice of 1 lime
1 Romaine lettuce                                                  Bunch spring onions                                            
Yoghurt & tortillas to serve

1. Heat a little oil in a large pan or pot and brown your mince until no pink remains.  Make sure you give it a good going over with a fork to really break it up.

2. Add your sage (use twice the amount of dried oregano if you can't get sage), onions, peppers, chillie and garlic and cook on a high heat for about 10 minutes, or until any water from the pork/veg has been driven off.

3. Stir in your tomaters and half a glass of water.  Season well with plenty of salt and fresh black pepper, turn the heat down slightly and let everything simmer away nicely for another ten minutes or so - this chilli is supposed to be quite dry, so again you want to let most of the moistsure cook off.

4. When the chilli is almost ready to serve, stir in the lime juice and the chopped coriander and mint.  Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed (it will likely need more salt), then turn the heat off but leave the pot on the warm ring.

5. Wash and dry your lettuce and spring onions, then roughly chop them.  heat a flour tortilla per person, fold it into quarters and pop it into a bowl.  Ladle over your chilli, then scatter over some chopped lettuce & spring onions.  Serve with yoghurt or sour cream on the side for the wimps at the table.

                                        

Post the Thirty-ninth (in which our heroine gets some very good news)

I'm going to be a paid blogger!  You may recall me posting that I was entering the Groupon.ie food blogging competition a while back.  Well, shock-horror and joy of joys, I won!  I will now be writing a food blog for Groupon.ie and getting paid for it, can you friggin believe it?  I'm still kind of in shock, to be honest.  I'm still waiting to be told the finer details, but fear not - you'll be the first to know when my first entry is published!

So, I'm going out for dinner with my sisters this evening to celebrate.  We'll also be taking advantage of the fact that Dine in Dublin is back - we're going to Bijou in Rathgar, which is offering three courses for the low-low price of €30.  You can't really argue with that.  If you fancy partaking, all the participating restaurants and their menus are listed on www.dineindublin.ie

If you don't have the good fortune to be located in (or within driving distance of) Dublin, don't despair - I'm about to give you a gorgeous recipe that's just as good as going out to a restaurant*

White chili is a staple in our house, but it's not a concept people are at all familiar with.  It's not rocket science, though - you simply replace the beef, tomato sauce, kidney beans and other red ingredients of "normal" chili with white ones - turkey mince, chicken stock and cannellini beans.  As you can see from the photo, the end result can run anywhere between beige and pink.  This batch turned out very dark, thanks to a particularly red tin of refried beans.  Next time I make this, I'm going to make my own refried beans using cannellini beans - I reckon that'll make for a truly pale chili.

Btw, I always get my turkey mince in Aldi.  You can sometimes get it in Tesco, but the Aldi version is much leaner - I reckon Tesco mince the skin and everything, because theirs is much fattier.

*May not actually be true.

White Chili - serves 6

450g turkey mince                             1 large onion, diced
2 green or organge chilies, diced        4 fat cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbs cumin seed                                250ml chicken stock
1 tsb ground cumin                             2 tbs dried oregano
1 tsp ground coriander                       1 tsp cayenne pepper
Half tsp ground ginger                        1 can refried beans                           
1 can cannellini beans                         Juice of half a lemon

1) In a large pot or wok, heat a small splash of oil, then add your turkey mince and cook til no pink remains.  You'll need to really work this with a fork as it cooks, otherwise you'll be left with one big slab of mince, which isn't cool.

2) Add the onion, garlic, chilies & cumin seed and cook until the onion is soft, but not coloured.  Add the chicken stock and the rest of the spices.  Give everything a good stir and allow to simmer until the stock has reduced by about a quarter.

3) Stir in the refried beans, making sure they're well incorporated.  Add the drained & rinsed cannellini beans and the lemon juice.  Check the seasoning, correct it if needs be, then allow to simmer for another 15 minutes.  Serve in deep bowls with a swirl of natural yoghurt.

Like all chilies, this one improves with age, so feel free to make it early in the day, or the day before, and reheat it when you're ready to eat.  If you find it's dried out a bit, just add a bit more chicken stock to loosen it up again.

I mentioned before that I always serve my chili with tortilla chips that I bake at home myself.  By doing this, you'll save yourself roughly a kajillion calories on the store-bought kind.  They're dead easy too, so it's a win-win situation.

I use the Aldi garlic & herb tortillas, and three of them makes enough chips for Emmet and I.  Simply cut the tortillas into halves, then quarters, then eighths, giving you nice, even "slices" of tortilla.  To make the chips, layer a few slices on top of eachother.  Cut the bottom piece off to give you a triangle.  Cut the remaining piece into three more triangles - good spatial ability comes in handy here.  Repeat till all the tortillas are used up.  Spread them on a metal baking tray in a single layer - you may need to use two sheets or do them in two batches.  Bake in an oven preheated to 220C until just turning nice and golden.  They burn incredibly easily, so keep your mincers on them.  Serve in a warmed dish.

Post the Thirty-eighth (in which our heroine has Blogger's Block)

It's awful.  I can't think of anything to write about.  I was going to blog about Halloween and why I'm not joining in the festivities this year, but I only got about 30 words into that.  Then I was going to have a moan about how long my textbooks are taking to arrive from the Book Depository, but I wasn't really quite annoyed enough to get a whole post out of it.  I considered and discarded other moan topics in quick succession.  X Factor? Don't care enough.  The APA referencing guidelines we were initially told to use in our History assignment?  Didn't even want to think about that.  The weather?  Been there, done that.  I'm just feeling terribly apathetic altogether.  Methinks a ridiculously spicy dinner is in order this evening; it might shake me up a bit.

Anyway, continuing my love affair with all things Mexican, today's recipe is for three bean enchiladas.  The more eagle-eyed among you will notice that this is a vegetarian recipe.  You may also notice that there have been a few such recipes scattered over the blog.  The reason for this is that I have some kind of half-formed notion that it's good to go meat-free once a week.  Don't ask me whether this is for health, ethical or financial reasons, cause I really haven't thought about it that much, but the upshot is that you will find the odd vegetarian recipe popping up.  All of these recipes have (so far) been given the Hungry Man Seal of Approval (i.e. Emmet eats them), so why not give one a go?

Three-Bean Enchiladas - makes 5*

1 litre passata                             Tin each of chickpeas, kidney beans & cannelini beans
1 large onion, diced                    1 large chili, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed              1 tbsp paprika
2 tsp ground cumin                     1 tsp cayenne pepper
Half tsp ground ginger                Half tsp ground coriander
150g grated cheddar                  Bunch fresh coriander, chopped
5 large soft tortillas                    Salt, pepper & a pinch of sugar

1. Heat the passata in a large pot.  Add the paprika, a teaspoon of the cumin, the cayenne, ginger, ground coriander & sugar.  Give everything a good stir and allow to simmer very gently for 10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper, then remove and reserve half of it.

2. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a separate pan and cook the onion, chili and garlic until nice and soft.  Add the other teaspoon of cumin and mix well.  Add the onion mix to the pot with the passata in it and stir in the three tins of beans (drained & rinsed, obviously).  Check the seasoning and correct if necessary.

3. Oil an ovenproof dish that's big enough to take all your enchiladas in a single layer.  Take one tortilla at a time (heating them for 10 or 15 seconds first makes them more pliable, btw) and spread about two dessertspoons of the bean mix along the middle of it.  Roll up exactly as you would a fajita and place in the dish.  Repeat with all five tortillas - they should be nice and snug in the dish.  Pour your reserved passata over the top, spreading to make sure everything is evenly covered, then scatter with the grated cheese and bake at 210C for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and bubbling.  Serve with a big green salad and plenty of sour cream or yoghurt.

*  Five enchiladas?  What kind of crazy-ass quantity is that?

So sue me, but five is exactly what fits in my dish and it works out perfectly for us - one for me and two for Emmet for dinner, then one each for lunch the next day.  Deal with it.

Post the Thirty-second (in which our heroine once more rhapsodises about Mexican Food)

So, we've discussed my love-affair with chilies already on this blog.  They really are conical little bundles of joy.  Big ones, small ones, pointy ones, round ones, green, orange, reds so purple they're almost black - I love them all.  I even got a very phallic-looking one recently.  That one's hanging up to dry at the moment, and it makes me giggle every time I see it.  And, of course, you run the gamut between sweet and innocent to Scotch Bonnets so hot they make you sneeze.  I have a very scientific way of testing the heat of chilies that aren't readily identifiable - I chop the top off and give the cut side a big lick.  This has led to me executing some very amusing dance moves around the kitchen.  There is also the extremely happy news that eating chilies has been scientifically proven to raise your metabolism, as anyone who has ever had a particularly hot one can testify (I'm thinking specifically of some unfortunate dinner guests of my sister, to whom she once served raw habaneros in a salad, thinking they were just baby peppers.)

Of course, there's more to Mexican food than just chilies, and it's a common misconception that it's all blow-your-head-off hot.  There's limes, coriander, cumin, chocolate, avocado - so many amazing, gorgeous flavours.  Unfortunately, in Ireland it can be a bit tricky sourcing the more esoteric ingredients - tomatilloes, cactus, etc., but you can still do a fair bit of experimenting with what we do have.

The single easiest place to start is with fajitas.  Everyone loves them, and they're a lovely, communal way to eat - bung everything into big dishes in the middle of the table, and allow everyone to help themselves.  Now, most people only ever make fajitas out of those powdery packet things, but it's ridiculously easy to make your own fajita mix from scratch, and it's waaaaaay nicer than the packet stuff.  Perfect Friday night grub, if you ask me.

Chicken Fajitas - makes enough to fill 4 large tortillas

2 large chicken fillets, diced                  2 heaped tsp paprika
1 heaped tsp smoked paprika               2 tsp chili powder
Half tsp ground ginger                           Half tsp ground coriander
Half tsp ground cumin                           Half tsp sugar
Juice & zest of 1 lime                           2 fat cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium chili, finely diced                   Bunch fresh coriander, chopped
Salt & pepper                                      Sunflower oil
1 large onion, sliced                             1 red & 1 green pepper, sliced

1. In a non-metallic bowl, mix all your dry spices with the lime juice - you'll have a very thick paste.  Add enough oil to loosen the mix so it will coat the chicken, and stir in your chili, garlic, fresh coriander and lime zest.  Season with the salt & pepper, stir in the chicken pieces, cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 5 hours.

2. Heat a wok or large pan over a medium-high heat - don't add any oil, there's enough in your fajita mix.  Plonk the chicken into the pan, making sure you get all the lovely, tasty oil-paste in.  Fry the chicken until sealed, then add the peppers & onion and cook briskly for another 5 to 8 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

As I said, I like to serve everything in the middle of the table.  So, have a dish nice and hot for your fajita mix, and heat a plate to hold your warmed tortillas (cover them with a clean tea-towel) and a plate for each person.  I also serve with a big bowl of salad leaves, grated cheese, sour cream, sliced jalapenos and these:

Lime-pickled Onions - makes 1 medium bowl (which you can just spy in the pic above)

1 large onion, finely sliced               Juice of 1 lime
Pinch of sugar                                Salt & pepper

1. This is really complicated - toss all the ingredients together in a non-metallic bowl and leave in the fridge for a few hours for the flavours to develop, stirring every so often.

2. Eat.

A Treatise on How to Build the Perfect Tortilla:

*First and foremost*  You need a decent-sized tortilla - no point using those stupid saucer-sized ones they insist on giving you in restaurants.  I use the Aldi garlic & herb ones.

Step 1: Spread a good dollop of sour cream on the bottom of your tortilla.  Place a handful of salad leaves and some of the lime-pickled onions on top.

Step 2: Top with a couple of spoonfuls of the chicken & veg mix.  Do NOT overload, or you haven't a hope of rolling it up.

Step 3: Scatter with plenty of grated cheese and a few sliced jalapenos.

Step 4: Roll up the bottom of the fajita, then roll in the two sides.  Leaving the bottom open, as they do in the ads, will simply result in the carefully-contructed contents of your fajita falling out onto your plate as soon as you take a bite.

Step 5: Commence nomming.  One fajita of this size does me, with extra salad and maybe a bit of garlic bread.  Emmet, on the other hand, usually eats three.  The one time in my life that I ate three, I had to be put to bed afterwards.  The moral of this story is not to try and compete with a fit and hungry man in the fajita-eating stakes.

I'm very happy to announce that I'm submitting this post to the Groupon.ie blogging competition, so wish me luck, and get yourself over to www.groupon.ie to see if you can save yourself a few shekels in these extremely straitened times.