Post the Seventy-fourth (in which our heroine despairs for the future of manners)

Manners, eh?  If your parents were anything like mine, you had it drilled into you early and often just how important manners are.  Please.  Thank you.  Excuse me.  After you.  Such small words, but with such a big impact.  And, as the cliche oft-observes, they cost nothing.  So why are they becoming more and more uncommon, if you'll allow me a small pun?  I'm running the risk of sounding really old and cantankerous here, but I've noticed a definite decline in the level of manners I see on a daily basis in the past few years, and it really, really irks me.  As I said, they cost nothing more than a nano-second of your day, so why do people treat them like a precious resource that there's only a finite amount of?

Upbringing is clearly a large factor in how unmannerly or otherwise a person is.  For years, I just assumed that everyone's parents were the same as mine and that no-one escaped the constant reminders of "Where's your manners?" that everyone in my family was subjected to.  Sadly, much observation has disabused me of this notion.  Sitting in my local pub yesterday afternoon, I watched as two young boys ran riot around the place - spilled plates of food, threw chips at eachother, mashed said chips into the floor and generally made life unpleasant for those around them.  Not once - literally, not one single time - did their parents (or, it has to be said, any of the large group of adults with them) look over from their own table to check on their offspring, let alone have a word with them to tell them to dial it the hell down.  Manners extend to more than just saying please and thank you; a concept that clearly hadn't occurred to these people.

There seems to be this idea now that manners are a strangely old-fashioned concept in today's vulgar, self-entitled "I'll behave however I damn well please" culture.  I actually don't think anyone is ill-mannered on purpose (or at least I hope not).  I think it's just that people have become so self-absorbed that it simply never occurs to them to consider whether and how their behaviour is affecting others.  People who won't avert their eyes from their phone for the two seconds it takes to place an order with wait staff generally aren't deliberately rude, they simply haven't stopped to consider that what they're doing is rude in the first place.  Same with holding doors open for people.  I do it without fail.  In fact, I'm probably guilty of doing it for people who are that little bit too far away, making it necessary for them to do that little half-run to the door cause they don't want to leave you waiting there too long.  But I've lost count of the number of women (and, sadly, it's nearly always women) who've let doors slam in my face when I'm walking in directly behind them.  Again, I highly doubt any of them are doing it in any kind of consciously bad-mannered way.  I'd guess that if you ran after them all and asked did they realise what they'd just done, 9 out of 10 of them would be mortified, but they still do it.  And I'd love to know why.  If I realise, and you realise, and any number of readers of this blog who are currently nodding along in agreement realise that some actions, or lack thereof, are inherently rude, why do these people not?  Were they never told in the first place, or have they just forgotten?

I'm not advocating a return to Emily Post levels of formality here.  Nothing of the sort.  But if people could be just a *leetle* more mindful of their behaviour, life would be unutterably more pleasant.  No?

So don't forget to thank me for this delicious recipe, for which I, in turn, must yet again thank Paul Flynn and Lidl.  We eat a lot of sweet potatoes in my house, but usually as an accompaniment, so I was only delirah when I spotted this recipe, which has them as the star of the show, in a main course.

Baked Sweet Potato with Feta - serves 2

2 sweet potatoes, scrubbed                          4 tbs olive oil
20g butter                                                     2 cloves garlic, crushed        
Good pinch hot chilli powder                      85g pumpkin seeds
200g rinsed spinach                                     200g feta cheese

1. Preheat your oven to 180C.  Cut your sweet potatoes in half lengthways.  Drizzle a baking tray with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper.  Lay your sweet spuds cut-side-down on the tray and roast for about 40 minutes, maybe a bit longer if they're particularly mahoosive.  Like all potatoes, they're done when you can easily slide a knife into them.

2. About ten minutes before they're done, melt the butter in a pan and add the garlic & chilli powder.  Add the pumpkin seeds and toast for about 5 minutes, making sure they don't burn.  Add the spinach, bung a lid on, lower the heat and allow to wilt for 2-3 minutes, tossing every so often.

3. Plate up the sweet potatoes and squeeze the insides out a bit.  Divide the spinach mix evenly amongst them and crumble over the feta.  Enjoy.

 

 

Depending on your appetite (and the size of the spuds, obviously), a half potato may actually be plenty even for a main course.  That was certainly the case for me.  The good news is, these reheat really well, so the leftovers are perfect for bringing in to work for lunch.

                                                    

Post the Seventy-third (in which our heroine wonders if her luck is changing)

Your heroine has oft-wondered if she was, perhaps, born under a bad sign.  To quote that great sage and philosopher, Homer Simpson, if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all.  My family stopped sharing tips on horses with me years ago, so legendary is my rotten luck.  You could have Arkle in a fixed race with seven pregnant mares and a lame gelding, and if I backed him, he'd fall.  I once missed out on my dream job due to a series of tiny-but-cumulative events that led to me arriving at the interview half an hour late, with an unreadable CV, to a hiring manager who thought I didn't know how to send an email.  I generally don't bother entering competitions cause the last thing I won was a pink plastic money box in the shape of a bear dressed as a policeman when I was in senior infants.

I'd like to think there's a glimmer of change on the horizon, though.  Last Friday, I randomly texted into a radio station I don't even normally listen to register for a competition.  Within ten minutes, they'd called me asking if I wanted to play.  "Sure!" says I, understandably reluctant to admit to them that I had no idea what it was I was actually going to be playing.  Anyway, the upshot is, I won €140, which will make a handy dent in the Paris trip.  Ok, so I could have won 5 grand if I'd known Barack Obama's middle name (it's Hussein) and which Aussie golfer won the Open last year (Adam Scott), but still, it's a start, right?  Then, yesterday evening, my sisters and I won €50 on a scratchcard.  We're not exactly going to be retiring on it, but it's the price of a few drinks and you wouldn't step over it if you saw it lying in the street, like.

So, I've taken these two very small windfalls as veritable proof that Good Things Are Going to Happen to Me.  End of.  Being an unrelenting cynic and skeptic hasn't exactly availed me of much, so I'm trying on positivity for a while.  It feels a bit weird and doesn't necessarily fit very well, but I'll soldier on regardless.  Might as well get myself some crow's feet to go with the frown lines I already have, eh?

Anyway, on with the food.  Small windfalls notwithstanding, your heroine is still pretty much perma-broke, so the economic recipes shall continue for the foreseeable.  This dish is cheap-as-chips to make and is one of those great ones that you can make a massive pot of and eat for a couple of days, as the flavour just keeps on improving.  The quinoa also makes a great work lunch, with a spinach salad on the side.

Moroccan Chicken Stew - serves 4

4 chicken fillets, cut into strips                            2 onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed                                        1 red & 1 yellow pepper, sliced
1 sweet potato, peeled & cut into 1" chunks        Tin of chickpeas
Tin of tomatoes                                                     1 tbsp Ras el Hanout*
Tsp each cumin, paprika & harissa paste              1/2 tsp each cinnamon & turmeric
Handful of cashew nuts

1. Heat a splash of oil in a large pot and saute the garlic and onion until just beginning to colour.  Add the chicken, sweet potato, peppers and all the spices except the harissa paste. Give everything agood stir and cook for five minutes.

2. Add the tomatoes and harissa, turn down the heat and allow everything to simmer away for a good hour, stirring every so often.  This should be quite a thick stew, but if it looks like it's getting a bit too dry, throw in a bit of chicken stock.

3. After an hour, add the chickpeas & cashew nuts, and taste to see if it needs more of any of the spices.  Simmer for another ten minutes, then season and serve with the quinoa below.


Chilli-lime Quinoa - serves 4

160g quinoa                                      300ml chicken stock
1 red chilli, finely diced                    2 fat cloves garlic, crushed
Zest & juice of 1 lime                       Knob of butter

1. Give your quinoa a really aggressive rinse in loads of cold water, then strain in a sieve.

2. Melt the butter in a large-ish pot, add the chilli, garlic, lime juice & zest.  Bring to a high simmer and allow to reduce to an almost paste-like consistency.

3. Add the quinoa to the paste, stir well and toast for three minutes.  Add the stock, cover and lower the heat to a bare bubble, and cook until the quinoa has absorbed all the stock.  This can take anywhere between ten and twenty minutes.  Don't stir the quinoa while it's cooking.  When the stock has absorbed, remove from the heat but allow to rest with the lid still on for another ten minutes, then fluff with a fork, and serve.

*What the frig is Ras el Hanout?
It's a Moroccan spice blend that literally translates as "Top of the Shop", as different spicemongers all had their own recipes for it, and basically the more fancy ingredients there were in it, the flasher you were.  You can buy it in good delis, but it's ridiculously easy to make, and it's dead handy to have in the press as it can be added to loads of dishes.  You can totally make this stew without it, but it won't have quite the same depth of flavour.  There are as many "recipes" for Ras el Hanout as there are spices that can go in it, but if you fancy having a bash at making your own, here's the combo I came up with:

4 tsp coriander seeds                          3 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds                               1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp cardamom seeds                        2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp ground cinnamon                       1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper                          Pinch salt

1. Stick all the seeds and the peppercorns into a dry pan and toast over a high heat until they're just beginning to "pop".  This will happen incredibly fast, so don't even attempt to leave the room or you'll burn the arse out of your pan and all your lovely spices.

2.  Tip into a pestle & mortar and grind to powder.  Add the powdered spices and the salt and mix well.  Store in a clean glass jar in a cool, dry place, and it'll keep for a good three months before it starts to lose its potency.

Post the Seventieth (in which our heroine goes to work sans foundation)

And no-one drops dead of shock.  Or asks if I'm sick.  Or even seems to notice at all.  See, I was standing in the bathroom on Monday morning about to put my foundation on and I really looked at my skin for a moment or two and went "Your skin is in great nick, why are you bothering?"  So I took a giant leap and forewent the foundation.  And have done so every day since.  I'm rocking a bit of bronzer, mascara, lip gloss, and, of course, my eyebrows.  I can't go out without my eyebrows or I look like Luann van Houten when Kirk hustled her out of the house before she was quite ready.  Years of over-zealous plucking in my teens and early twenties have left me with two tiny inverted commas over my eyes.  Which is ironic, really, considering I looked like Eugene Levy until I was about 13.

Anyway, the ditching of the foundation is not some kind of grand feminist gesture.  Nor is it borne out of some half-formed idea that my skin needs to "breathe".  I've always found it amusing the way some women (usually the ones who don't really wear make-up) think that foundation is some kind of impermeable mask that nothing can penetrate.  Nope, it's half laziness and half out of a desire to save money.  Obviously, not wearing foundation on a daily basis will make a bottle last that much longer.  It's a sad fact, dear readers, that more than two years after the inception of this blog, I'm still perpetually broke.  Obviously, this cavalier attitude to make-up will last only until I get my next whopper spot, but for the time being, I'm enjoying it.

In other news, Leinster made it out of the pool stages of the Heineken Cup, and have Toulon away in our quarter final on the weekend of April 5th.  The fixture is yet to be confirmed, but given that Toulon are the reigning champions, I'd be amazed if we didn't get the plum Saturday evening slot.  And even though they are the current cup-holders, I'm quietly confident that we can beat them.  They're a big, heavy-hitting team whose entire game plan rests on bludgeoning their opponents into the ground and getting as many penalties as possible for Johnny Wilkinson to convert.  If we can break their gainline and keep our discipline, particularly in the first half, I think our superior fitness will be the key difference in the second.  Unfortunately, I won't be there.  I'm going to Paris for the Six Nations in March, so unless an unexpected windfall comes my way, I won't have the money to do both.  The good news is, if we win in the Mayol, we have a home semi final, so at least there's no away trip to worry about there.  Cardiff I'll worry about if and when the time comes...

Jeez, make-up and rugby in the same post.  I wouldn't think there's too many blogs out there mixing the two.

Anyway, apologies for the extremely drawn out nature of the "Feed Your Family for Fifty Quid" series.  I've been in assignment hell since the 6th of Jan and, unfortunately, that tends to eat into my free time significantly, as I'm sure you can imagine.  Today's recipe is by far my favourite of the entire collection, and I've made it loads of times since I first discovered the booklet.  Just please, please, please don't be tempted to use chicken fillets instead of the thighs - they'll be dry and boring and just meh.  Irish people are remarkably weird about using "other" parts of the chicken, I'm not sure why.  Thighs are by far my favourite piece of chicken; they're about eleventy million times tastier than fillets, they never really dry out no matter how long you cook them for and they're cheap as chips.  I suspect a lot of peoples' aversion to them stems from the fact that many folk (my mother being a prime example) don't like meat that actually looks like it was once an animal, so anything with skin or bones is an automatic no-go.  Well, I have news for you people - if you can't hack the fact that your meat used to be a living, breathing, sentient animal, complete with a face and eyes and everything, then you've no business eating meat at all.  It's as simple as that.  If you're going to be a carnivore, the least you can do is accept and respect the fact that something died in order for you to eat it.

Okay, less rant, more recipe:

Chicken & Sweet Potato Traybake - serves 4

8 chicken thighs                                1 large sweet potato
3 red onions                                      1 red pepper
1 bulb garlic                                      2cm piece of ginger
1 tbsp curry powder                          Olive oil

1. Scrub your sweet spud, but leave the skin on.  Slice down the middle lengthways, then chop into 2cm chunks.  Peel & quarter your onions, deseed your pepper & cut into 8, and peel your ginger and cut into matchstick-sized pieces.  Separate the garlic cloves, but leave the paper on.  If there's a lot of excess skin on your chicken thighs, then trim them a bit.

2. Lob everything into a large metal baking tray, drizzle over about a tablespoon of oil, then sprinkle over your curry powder (you can use a bit more than a tablespoon if you want).  Season with salt & pepper, then get right into everything with your hands to make sure it's all really evenly coated, especially the chicken.  Don't be tempted to add too much oil, as the chicken skins will render quite a good bit more during cooking.  Make sure the chicken thighs are skin-side-down on the bottom of the tray, then pop into an oven pre-heated to 180C for 15 minutes.

3. After the 15 minutes, turn the chicken over and toss the veg around a bit, then return to the oven for another 25 minutes until everything is golden and sticky and gorgeous, and serve immediately.

This is fine served on its own, but as you can see, I love it with a massive pile of baby spinach and some crumbled feta.  Also fab to drizzle over is natural yoghurt loosened with a little water and seasoned with a pinch each of cumin and cayenne pepper, and a tiny grind of salt.  Just writing this post has made me very glad I'm having this for dinner again tonight!