Post the Sixty-fourth (in which our heroine endures the post-Christmas slump)

Back to work.  Le sigh.  I've yet to decide which is the more depressing return to work - the post-Christmas or post-holiday one.  I think I'm going to plump for post-Christmas, mainly because everyone else is going through it at the same time so it becomes a kind of contagious meta-depression; a black cloud of despair hanging over every workplace in the country.  And it doesn't really matter how long you have off either, does it?  It'll still feel like you never left the bloody office in the first place.  I've had two full weeks off.  Felt like about two seconds.  So of course, today I'm partaking in the age-old return to work tradition of planning my next holiday.  Well, it's more fantasising about than planning, but you get the idea.

The other great January tradition in which everyone partakes is bringing your lunch to work with you.  I'm actually quite good at doing this all year round, so it's extra annoying when you can't get next or near the kitchen in work for the entire month, and all the lunch amateurs keep exploding their beans in the microwave or insist on putting filled sandwiches in the toaster, which then sets off the fire alarm.  They've actually taken our toaster off us in work for this very reason.  No joke.  Toaster access revoked indefinitely.  We got a sandwich maker instead, but if anyone has a successful method for toasting a bagel in one of those, I'm all ears.

I made a giant pot of soup yesterday for lunch for the week.  Unfortunately, displaying the lack of foresight that regular readers will recognise as having come to characterise this blog, I used a recipe I've already given you.  So you're getting a dinner recipe instead.  If, that is, you consider some melted cheese and salad a) a recipe and b) dinner.  I do, ergo I give you:

Baked Camembert - serves 4

1 whole camembert                             1 loaf ciabatta or other crusty bread
Bag of baby spinach leaves                 Sliced tomatoes & onions
Whole cornichons                               2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil
1 tbs balsamic vinegar                        1 tsp wholegrain mustard
Salt & pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.  Pop your camembert into a ceramic dish and cut a cross in the top.  Bake for 10 minutes, then carefully peel back the cut edges of the rind.  Return to the oven for another 15 minutes.

2. While the cheese is baking, mix together the oil, vinegar and mustard.  Season to taste, and whisk the bejaysis out of it to emulsify.  Assemble your salad and slice your bread.

3. Lay the whole lot out on the table and allow everyone to help themselves.  You could also add some parma ham or other deli meats if you're the kind of person who balks at the idea of a meatless dinner (we all know at least one).

I'll allow that this probably isn't the best meal idea if you're trying to kick-start a bit of New Year weight loss.  But screw it, January is miserable enough without adding foodie self-flagellation to the mix.

As an aside, the one bright part of my return to work this morning was the arrival in the post of some vouchers from the lovely people at Glenisk, so keep your mincers peeled for some dairy-inspired recipes over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, hang in there, folks.  Friday's coming.

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 Sixty-first (in which the world breathes a sigh of relief)

Let's admit it, we didn't all trust them to do the right thing.  We all, in our deepest, darkest heart of hearts feared that they'd elect Romney and his bible-bashing, gun-toting, get-thee-into-the-kitchen-woman-thinking ilk.  We despaired for female reproductive choice, gay rights and myriad other "liberal" causes (although quite frankly, I don't see what's liberal about basic human rights).  But the American people came through for us.  They did the right thing.  Well, just over half of them did, anyway, and the joys of democracy being what they are, that was enough.  The world is safe(ish) for four more years.

The "average" American (if there is such a thing) may well wonder what the hell the world's obsession with their presidential election is about.  I've noticed a certain "Mind your own business, y'all" mentality in certain conservative circles.  But the reason the world has a vested interest in what happened yesterday is that the foreign policy decided by POTUS has a direct knock-on effect on the rest of the globe, and pretty much nobody else in the entire rest of the world wanted a trigger-happy cowboy sitting in the Oval Office.  Not to mention one who was so backward-thinking in terms of equality, women's rights and pretty much everything else that he made Dubya look like a Nobel laureate.  I'm not sure where this race to the bottom in US conservative politics is stemming from, but it's very, very concerning to onlookers.

Interestingly, had this been a global election, Obama would have been returned by a landslide.  Observe; Americans - the entire rest of the world can't be wrong.

When you think about it, it's rather amazing that the entire world can be more or less polarised by a contest between just two men, but that's what happens when you give a country with a population of 315-odd million a two-party political system.  It's absolute madness, but not a system I can see changing any time soon.

Anyway, in honour of the fact that all anyone is going to be talking about for the next few days is the good ole U.S. of A, here's a veh veh tasty American recipe (adapted from Jamie Oliver) for you to take a stab at.  It's actually native American - Navajo - cause that's just how I roll...

Navajo Lamb Stew - serves 6

800g lamb shoulder, diced                              2 onions, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, peeled & chopped                  2 sticks celery, trimmed & chopped
2 tsps cumin seed                                            Tin chopped tomatoes
2 beef stock cubes                                          2 sweet potatoes, peeled & diced
2 tsp chilli flakes                                             Tin kidney beans, drained & rinsed
Salt & pepper

1. Heat a little oil in a large pot or cast-iron casserole and brown your lamb all over.  Add the carrots, celery, onions and 1 tsp of the cumin seed and fry for about 15 minutes, til just about coloured.  Stir in the tomatoes and stock cubes, then add another two tins' worth of water.

2. Sprinkle over a teaspoon of chilli flakes, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer really gently for about an hour and a half to two hours.  Check on it every so often to make sure it's not drying out.

3. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 180.  Toss your sweet potatoes (the dice should be quite rough and large) in a drop of oil and rub in the other teaspoons of cumin seed and chilli flakes.  Pop into the oven and roast for about 20 minutes, or until they're just easily pierced with a knife.  Remove and set aside.

4. After about an hour and a half, test your stew.  Is the lamb falling apart?  Great.  Is the liquid consistency just right?  Is the seasoning perfect?  Great.  Bung in the sweet potato and the kidney beans, heat through, check the seasoning again and serve with flatbreads.

I actually think a little sumac would be great in this, but it can be very, very hard to get in Dublin.  If anyone comes across it on their travels, buy it and send it this way.

Post the Sixtieth (in which our heroine contracts bubonic plague)

Or possibly something worse than bubonic plague.  Captain Trips, maybe.  Or perhaps the worst affliction known to modern medicine - Manflu.  I've been absolutely floored with a dose since Tuesday (it's now Sunday), something which is very unlike me.  Normally three days, max, and I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed again.  Instead, we're on day seven of this dose and I would quite happily donate myself to the glue factory, if I could only leave the house.

It seems to be strep throat on top of a chest infection.  Which is great, cause it means I'm barking like a dog while barely being able to swallow.  Imagine someone has implanted a fish-hook in your throat, then given you a really chesty cough.  And every time you cough, they give the hook a good tug.  That's kind of what it feels like.  And the great news is that I get to share the wealth around the office cause I don't get paid for sick days and can't afford not to go in, yay!

So, most people are at least lucky enough to lose their appetite when they get sick.  Not the case here.  I could literally be at death's door and I'd still be wondering what to have for my next meal.  This dates back to when I got my tonsils out when I was 11.  Before that, I couldn't *look* at food when I was sick, just like any normal person.  But when they took the tonsils out, they apparently indavertently implanted the appetite of a 17-stone, MMA-practising rugby player who's in training for a pentathlon.  My dad has joked over the years that it would have been cheaper in the long run to have my tonsils put back in, cause I've been eating them out of house and home ever since.  At least, I think he was joking...

Anyway, the unwritten rule about foodstuffs for sick people seems to be that soup is yer only man.  I'm not entirely sure why this is, but far be it from me to fly in the face of convention.  Now, soupy soups do little or nothing for me - sore throat be damned, I still like texture and something to chew on in a soup.  And, come on, it wouldn't be me if I didn't lace my food with chillies...  So this soup is absolutely perfect for when you're feeling a bit poorly - it's pure comfort in a bowl, and the chillies will make you forget all about your cold/cough/bubonic plague for a good ten or fifteen minutes.

Chicken Noodle Soup - serves 4-6

1.5 litres good quality chicken stock*                       3 chicken fillets, cut into strips
100g egg noodles                                                    2 red chillies, thinly sliced                                              6 spring onions, sliced                                             1 large red pepper, julienned                                       2" piece of ginger, peeled                                        2 fat garlic cloves, very thinly sliced                               4 tbs light soy sauce                                                Bunch fresh coriander, chopped

1. Bring your chicken stock to a high simmer in a large pot.  Add your chicken strips and cook for 5 minutes.

2. Prick your ginger all over with a fork, cut in half and add to the stock with the garlic.  Add the noodles, chilli & pepper and simmer for another 5 minutes.

3. Add the spring onion and soy sauce and simmer for 3 minutes.  Just before serving, stir in the coriander, taste and adjust the seasoning if needs be - see my note on stock below for my feelings on salting this soup.

4.  Enjoy!

*A Note On Stock
I've posted before on chicken stock and how, obviously, it's best to make your own.  We all know that that's not always possible, though, so I'm not going to judge anyone for buying stock.  What I will say, however, is that the quality of the stock you use does make a huge difference to the end result of this soup.  I was recently introduced to Pure Brazen stocks and they're pretty much the closest thing you're going to get to making your own.  If you can't get your hands on  PB, then spend an extra euro or so on an organic stock cube or bouillon.  Going back to whether or not you should salt this soup, it really depends on what stock you've used and also how salty your soy sauce is.  Obviously, if you've used a homemade stock, you'll know exactly how much salt was in it in the first place.  Pure Brazen don't add any salt to their stocks, so you may well need to add a little salt (or more soy sauce) to the soup before serving.  Cheapy stock cubes, on the other hand, are notoriously salty, and you may well need to actually add a little water to the soup if you've used one of them in conjunction with a very salty soy sauce.  Use your cop-on, obviously, and taste, taste, taste.  It's the only way you'll perfect your seasoning.

Post the Fifty-ninth (in which everyone is rather worried about the Heineken Cup)

It's a funny old game, rugby.  I've written before about how everyone kind of reacts weirdly to certain results.  Leinster are currently two from two in the Heineken Cup, having beaten Exeter at home and Scarlets away, but you'd swear we'd already sent the cup back to the ERC with a note on it saying "Sorry, couldn't be bothered this year," the way some people are going on.  Ok, so the Exeter game didn't exactly go according to plan.  They were Heineken Cup debutantes, we were three-time winners and current defending champions, playing them at home.  It was expected to be a rout.  Instead, the Exeter Chiefs very nearly claimed a famous scalp - we were extremely lucky to get away with a 9-6 win.  It was almost "Exeter stage left", to pinch a phrase off One F, who I was chatting to after the game (and who I know reads this blog - Hi Derek!).  But, a win is a win as far as I'm concerned.

Fast forward to yesterday, when we travelled to Llaneli to face the Scarlets, a team many thought could cause a potential upset this season.  The cardinal rule of Heineken Cup rugby is that you have to win your home games.  Apparently Simon Easterby never got that memo.  Leinster were ahead 11-0 at the break, and looking comfortable.  Maybe a bit too comfortable, as it turned out, because whatever Easterby Mk II put in the half-time oranges, it worked.  Scarlets came out like men possessed in the second half and Leinster found themselves having to dig extremely deep to keep them at bay.  However, our scrum emerged as the piece de resistance in the last quarter of the game and was just too much for the Scarlets pack.  Final result was 20-14, and we had an all-important away win in the bag.

So why the long faces and the prophecies of doom all round?  Two words  - ASM Clermont.  I posted about my dismay at being drawn in the same pool as them back when the original draw was done, and I'll reiterate why - having finally won the Bouclier de Brennus in 2010, ASM have made the Heineken Cup their focus - they won't be happy until they win it.  Unfortunately for them, Leinster have thrown a spanner in their works every year since, having put them out in the quarter final in 2010, not letting them out of the pool in 2011 and beating them in the semi final this year.  We're not too popular around Montferrand way, I can tell you.  There Will Be Blood.  They've been rampant in the pool stages so far, beating Scarlets 49-16 in round one and Exeter 46-12 this weekend.  Two wins and two bonus points put them ahead of us in pool 5.  And guess who we play next?  Yep, ASM, back to back, away first and then at home.  Break out every sporting cliche you have, because this really is going to be a clash of the titans.  Unless we can put them down hard and early in both matches, Leinster's only hopes of progressing to the knock-out stages of the competition are as one of the two best runners-up.  Not a prospect I relish.  It's going to be a very long couple of months...

So, in one of the clumsy segues at which our heroine excels, some of you are probably aware that ASM were founded by and are still funded in a big way by Michelin tyre money.  Michelin are, of course, the same people who bring us the extremely prestigious Michelin star system for restaurants and who publish the Michelin Guide, the dining bible of places to eat in a given country.  This week, I attended the launch of a restaurant which has definite Michelin Guide potential - Samphire @ the Waterside.  Located in the Waterside House Hotel in Donabate, Samphire was the brain-child of Executive Head Chef Tom Walsh, who saw the need for more diverse dining options in the North Dublin area.  I was invited along by the lovely Jessica Collins, whose family run the hotel; so off myself and my own Mater Familias trotted on an extremely stormy Wednesday evening.

The menu we were treated to (and it really was a treat) was a ten-course tasting selection designed to showcase everything on the a la carte menu.  Tom has really outdone himself here, using local, seasonal produce cooked with exquisite attention to detail to create a dining experience that is really far superior to anything you'd expect to find in a hotel restaurant.  I enjoyed every morsel of:

Seared King Scallop, Potato & Garlic Soup, Parsnip Crisp, Marsh Samphire

This was one of my two personal favourite dishes of the evening - the scallop was cooked to perfection and the soup was of the most perfect, velvety consistency.  The samphire added just the right note of saltiness to the whole thing - perfect.

Parfait of Goat's Cheese, Roasted Hazelnuts & Tarragon, Beetroot Three Ways

This was nutty, cheesy gorgeousness all whipped up into a light mousse that melted in the mouth.  Perfect juxtaposed with the vinegary sweetness of the beetroot.

House Marinated Salmon Gravalax, Caper Berry Dressing, Garden Radish

Erm, I may have forgotten to take a photo of this.  It was a deliciously fresh piece of salmon, slightly thicker cut than you'd expect for lax, but I actually preferred this as I think it improves the mouth-feel.  I'm not a huge fan of smoked salmon, mostly due to the texture, but the thicker slices made for a far more pleasing texture to me.

Cucumber Sorbet & Compressed Melon, Yoghurt Dressing

This was the palate cleanser and it was fab, fab, fab.  The sorbet was so light that it literally started melting the second you cut into it with the spoon.  The watermelon was the ideal accompaniment, as, imo, they have very similar tastes anyway.

Breast of Wood Pigeon, Garlic Puree, Crispy Salsify

I do love a gamey bird... What can I say about this other than it was perfection on a plate.  I love pigeon anyway, and this was exquisite - gamey, earthy, succulent - and the salsify was absolutely gorgeous with it.  More, please!

Peppered Rare Tuna, Tomato Fondue, Basil Puree, Pepper Confit

I have to say, I absolutely LOVED the presentation of this - a perfectly seared rondelle of tuna with a little syringe of oil to inject right into the heart of the fish.  I'm very happy to report that the taste more than lived up to the visual.

Rump of Lamb, Sweet Potato Fondant, Celeriac Puree

Oh, lord, is there anything more beautiful than a perfectly cooked, rare piece of Irish lamb?  Just look at it!

Lemon Posset, Lime & Ginger Air

So this was the second highlight of a meal that had no lowlights at all - high praise indeed.  The lime & ginger air hit the palate with a massive whack of flavour, which one was not expecting from such a light texture.  The posset itself was mellow, creamy, and incredibly moreish.  I'm not going to lie, I would have happily eaten about three of these...

Carageen Pudding, Caramelised Brown Bread & Raspberry

Unfortunately, another dish I forgot to take a photo of.  This was my least favourite dish of the evening.  I just don't have a sweet tooth anyway and I found that the caramelised brown bread and raspberry compote were a little too sweet for me, and just didn't work with the brackish flavour of the carageen (a type of sea moss, for those of you who unfamiliar with it).  Everyone else at the table polished it off, though.

So, all in all, this was an excellent meal and I really admire what Tom Walsh and the Waterside are trying to do here.  They've certainly elevated the level of dining available in the North Dublin area and they deserve to do really well.  If ever you find yourself in that area, or, indeed, feeling like a drive with some amazing food at the end of it, take yourself out there - they're open seven days and you won't be disappointed.

Samphire @ The Waterside

The Waterside House Hotel

Donabate on the Beach

Co. Dublin

Ph: +353 (0) 1 843 6153

www.samphire.ie

Post the Fifty-eighth (in which our heroine is feeling rather autumnal)

So, it's that time of year again.  The evenings are drawing in, the mercury is dropping and, depending on whereabouts you live, the bangers are already going off, even though it's still weeks to Halloween.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, winter is nearly upon us.  I've noticed a slightly crazed aspect to several of my aquaintances at the thought of facing into almost four months of rubbish weather and minimal daylight, but I have to be honest, I absolutely love winter.  The crunch of fallen leaves underfoot, the smell of wood or turf fires burning, the absolute crispness of the air on a frosty morning.  Plus, you get to wrap up in layers and layers of snuggly clothing and light candles at 6pm.  And then there's the food.  Soups, stews, casseroles, bourgignons - what's not to love?

The only issue I really have with the transition from autumn to winter is bloody Daylight Savings Time.  Someone is definitely having a giant laugh at our expense there.  It's already been getting darker in the mornings for weeks now; you're just getting used to the bloody fact, and then they go and put the clocks back so it's bright again when you're getting up, but only for about three or four weeks - just enough time to get used to bright mornings again, before winter proper hits and it's still pitch black at 8am and your circadian rhythms are officially all over the place.  No wonder so many Irish people suffer from SAD, our body clocks are all going "Ah jaysis, will you just make your feckin' mind up already?"

So, before we get into the winter cooking repertoire of comfort food, here's what will more than likely be the last of my more summery dishes.  Like my last recipe, this has a lot of Moroccan-inspired flavours - I was obviously feeling under a Moorish influence recently.  Actually, Moroccan/North African flavours can be a great warming choice for winter - I just tend not to want to eat as many salads and the like as accompaniments once the weather turns that bit cooler.

Harissa Chicken Flatbreads with Coriander-Lemon CousCous - serves 4

4 chicken fillets                             2 tbs harissa
Juice & zest of 1 lemon                 2 tbs olive oil
400g couscous                               Bunch fresh coriander, chopped
4 flour tortillas                               Salt & pepper

1. In a non-metallic bowl whisk together your harissa, lemon juice and olive oil.  Butterfly your chicken fillets and add them to the marinade, tossing to coat thoroughly.  Cover and pop into the fridge for at least an hour, but the longer the better.  Turn them every so often to make sure they're marinating evenly.

2. Heat a heavy pan (or better again, a griddle) and cook your fillets on a high heat for 5 minutes on each side so that you get a nice, blackened crust.  Turn the heat down and cook through, turning once more.  Cut or shred each fillet into four or five rough pieces and rest on a warm plate.

3. While the chicken is cooking, prepare the couscous - pour boiling water over the couscous in a large bowl to cover by a depth of about an inch.  Cover with clingfilm and leave aside for the water to absorb.  After about 5 minutes, fluff up with a fork.  If there's still a bit of water in it, recover and give it another few minutes.  Once all the water is absorbed, fluff again, stir in the lemon zest and coriander and season to taste with salt and black pepper.

4. Heat your tortillas and scatter over the chicken.  As you can see, I've added spinach & onions and the cottage cheese dressing from my steak recipe here.  It would also work very well with feta cheese or even just yoghurt.

5. Serve with the couscous, extra salad and maybe some extra lemon wedges for squeezing.