Black Bean & Barley Chili

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Veggie Treat

I love a nice big bowl of vegetarian chili, it picks me up and comforts me. Winter is most definitely on the way out - so I may have to forget about dishes like these until Autumn - hurray! 
Black beans are great for you too, packed full of fiber and are also good at lowering cholesterol. I've been trying to cook with them for the last while, but haven't come up with anything with sharing until now. The colour that comes form the beans lends a really dark and 'meaty' tone to the dish.


Ingredients - Serves 4
1 tin of black beans
I large onion - finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary - finely chopped
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme - finely chopped
2 carrots - finely cubed
1 cup of pearl barley
1 tin of tomatoes
1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon of paprika
Dried or fresh chili to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil


To serve
Fresh lime juice to taste
Cream Cheese - I used Yeats County Cream Cheese 
Freshly chopped parsley


Method

1. Put the peel form the onion, outer layer and the gratings from the carrots in a pot - cover with a small amount of water and bring to a boil, simmer while you make the rest of the dish.
2. In a large high sided frying pan, gently sweat your onion in the olive oil. After a few minutes add the garlic. Once the onion is translucent, add in the fresh herbs (if you have fresh oregano all the better!) Cook for a further 2 minutes.
3. Then add in the paprika and chili and stir briefly. Next stir in the tomatoes, beans, vinegar, carrot and pearl barley. Add in the stock you made with the onion and carrot. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about 30 minutes until the barley is cooked. You might need to add a little more water so check on it every so often.
4. To serve top with a good dollop of yummy cream cheese, add a good squeeze of lime and a healthy sprinkle of parsley. I'm sure that cream cheese and barley aren't traditional ingredients in a chili - but I don't care this was so satisfying.

You can serve with some rice, in Quesadilla, with corn chips - or anything else that is vaguely Mexican. 

Valentines Dinner for Two

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Guest Chef No 4. Lamb Stew and Gratin Dauphinoise

Guest Chef Number 4 is David Delahunty (it’s his first official guest chef title but he’s been involved in lots of the previous posts!)

So Valentines Day was started in a most romantic of ways - waking up in the back of the van, after Chinese New Year. Then it was off to the Stilorgan shopping centre for a fry. Nothing says I love you more than eating sausage and beans in the finest example of mid-80’s retail architecture!

After a nice walk on Bull Island - it was home to the couch and the fire, and successfully releasing Stephen (the canary) for his first flight around the sitting room, after 30 mins he was hungry and just hoped back into his cage.

Then we whipped up this, and it cooked and bubbled away in the oven, while we got our fill of rom-coms on the TV!

Lamb Stew - made by my valentie

Ingredients 
2 lamb chops - cubed - or stewing lamb
1 red pepper
a large sprig of fresh rosemary
2 sticks of celery - finely sliced
3 large tomatoes - chopped
A glass of red wine
I red onion - cubed
Seasoning

Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan, and brown cook the onion and celery until the onion is translucent.. Then add in the lamb to brown a little. Then stir in the red pepper and tomatoes and rosemary and cook for another 3/4 minutes. Add a dash of wine - bring up to a simmer and then remove.

Place the meat mixture into separate dishes - or one large on and place on the centre shelf of the oven at gas mark 6 for one and a half hours.


For Gratin

2 large potatoes
1 cup of cream
1/2 cup of milk
2 cloves of garlic crushed
Seasoning

Slice the potatoes as thinly as you can. I have a small handheld mandolin, which makes this easy. Rinse them under the tap and then pat dry. Mix the remaining ingredients together. Layer the potatoes into your dish and pour the cream mixture - 3/4 of the way up the edge of your dish. 

Cover and bake also in the oven for one and a half hours at gas mark 6. Remove the lid for the last 10-15 minutes if you want to get the top a little browner (I didn’t and it still looks good)

Serve with a nice glass of red wine, and some Barry White. A special thank you goes out to Pamela Quinn for buying me these awesome dishes for my birthday - thanks Pam - my first Le Crueset - very brilliant present

Lamb Tagine

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Cinnamon girls

Never really having been a fan of cinnamon with meat/savory things, I had never cooked a Tagine. Now I see the error of my ways. Cinnamon and meat can be truly amazing as long as you are not too heavy handed with the spice rack. The balance of flavors in the spices in this recipe are just perfect. I found it on this great blog, and have altered it only ever so slightly.

Cook it for three hours and it becomes melty, savory, sweet and delicious. I really want to make this again soon, it was so the perfect supper for a cold Sunday. The kind of thing that makes me say 'MMmmmmmm' repeatedly and at an inappropriately loud level.

Ingredients
Serves 4

2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp plain flour

600g diced lamb shoulder

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp grated ginger

2 tbsp tomato puree

2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed

12 cherry tomatoes

12 dried apricots

2 tbsp sultanas

olive oil

salt and pepper

2 tbsps natural yogurt

Pre heat your oven to 160c. Mix together the flour and the turmeric, paprika and cayenne, then use this to coat your lamb chunks. In a large casserole (one that has a tight fitting lid) heat some olive oil and fry off the meat until it has browned. Remove from the casserole and set aside

In the same casserole, sweat the onions and garlic until they are soft and translucent. Then add the rest of the spices, and stir, followed by the rest of the ingredients and the browned meat.

Add in hot water until you have nearly but not quite covered the meat. Stir everything around to get all the meat juices and flour at the bottom of the pan to dissolve into the water.

Cover the casserole with the lid (or some tin foil if you have no lid) and bake in the oven for 2 hours and 30 mins (or longer if you like).

Check the Tagine, give it a stir and if its too liquid, place back in the oven with the lid off for about 20 mins. Taste and add salt and pepper to season if necessary. Stir in the yogurt before serving to give it a bit of extra richness and a lovely creamy texture

Delicious served with cous cous or bulghar wheat

Lancashire Hotpot

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Its Snowing!

This was one of the first dishes I ever learned how to cook when I was a kid. My mother used to make it all the time and I loved to do the layering bit as a wee-un. Anyway, my mum is not from Lancashire, in fact she is from the south of England, but Im sure she knew what she was doing.

So in the midst of the recent snowy weekend after coming home wet and cold from making a snowman in the Phoenix park (pictured below!) I decided this would be perfect dinner for a sunday night in in front of the fire. It was.

Ingredients

2 potatoes per person

2 lamb chops per person

1 onion

1/2 litre water per person

1 tsp worcester sauce per person

1 tbsp flour per person

Thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

First, heat a tablespoon of oil in a casserole and brown the lamb chops off until they have a good brown crust. Se them aside. Chop the onion. In the same pan, saute the onion, put the lid on and cook for about 10 mins until the onion is soft. Add the flour to the pan and stir for a minute until all absorbed. Then slowly add the water, stirring all the time. The sauce should thicken a bit, but not too much. Pour it into a jug or some other vessel temporarily.

Slice the potatoes finely, leaving the skins on. Place one single layer of the potatoes on the bottom of the pot you used to make the sauce, then put a layer of meat and season, then another layer of spuds. repeat until it is all used up. Pour the sauce over the whole lot.

Cover the pot with a lid and place in the oven at 180c. Cook for about an hour or until the top is crisp and bubbly.

Serve.

Tasty Filling Barley Stew

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Come share with me your pearls of wisdom, and give us some of your soup while your at it

I have loved pearl barley ever since I was a kid and my mum would put it into Irish stew. I wanted to make a nice barley filled chunky soup, this soup however got so thick it turned into a stew!

Ingredients
2 onions finely diced
2 cloves of garlic
3 carrots diced
3 sticks of celery finely sliced
3 small potatoes cubed
1 cup of pearl barley
1.5 pints of stock
6 leaves of sage shopped (can use dried if you like)
Sprig of rosemary - chopped
Salt and pepper
Oil of choice

Fry up your onion for 1 minute in your oil over a medium heat, then add in your garlic, rosemary and sage- cook until soft and translucent. Stir in your barley and fill up with stock, bring to a gentle boil. You can now use this time to prepare your vegetables. After about 20 mins of simmering pop in your veg and potatoes. Leave to simmer for another 20 mins until the barley is soft with a little bite and the potatoes are cooked. Serve!

Of you want a more soupy consistency - just add more stock

Andouille Catastrophe (Tripe Sausage Bad)

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FAIL!

We bought tripe sausage from the most well concealed shop in the Loire Valley.

It's very hard to find anywhere open to buy food on Sundays in France, I'd venture to say nearly impossible, so it was getting late on the Saturday and we were getting very worried that we may starve the following day. When we spotted a shop in a small town, given away only by a small crate of melons outside the door, and alone cat mewing....... I tried to make a kind of stew I did not work out well The End Enjoy the pictures!

Hopeful Doubtful Yuck-ful

Sarah’s Stew

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A hug in a bowl

This is also slightly French due to the amount of wine we added! Make lots of this as it tastes even better the next day.

Enough stewing beef for 4 people

2 tbsps flour

2 onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

4 parsnips

6 carrots

about 20 small new potatoes with skins left on

1 bottle red plonk

1 pint beef stock

1 desert spoon worcester sauce

salt and pepper

1 desert spoon balsamic vinager

dried herbs

1 bay leaf

Toss the beef pieces in the flour and brown off in a large, deep pan, stiring vigourously to prevent the flour from sticking. Remove the browned meat from the pan, and add the onions and garlic. Cover and allow to sweat for 5 mins. While this is happening, chop the vegetables into similar sized pieces. Add all the veg and the meat back into the pan with the onions and garlic. Pour in the botte of red wine and the stock. If it looks like it needs more liquid, add some water. The liquid should almost cover all the other ingredients. Add a few grinds of pepper, the worcester sauce, vinegar and a few pinched of whatever dried herbs you have handy. Or you could add a bouquet garni of fresh herbs, left on the sprigs and tied together with string. This can then be removed once the stew is cooked. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 mins. Then cover and place in a hot oven for about 3 hours, or a cooler oven for 4 hours. More than enough time to go out for a nice walk/pint.

When you come back the house will smell amazing.