Monday 19 November 2012

BLOG DAYS WERE OVER

Ok so we'd better add lazy to the list along with greedy and disgusting. Starting a blog and then neglecting it for 2 months. But hey, it's not like I ever claimed to be diligent and hardworking, and if anyone should get away with it it's a food blogger with a penchant for feeding frenzies.

So for the last few weeks I've been between jobs and have alot of time on my hands. I've been going out for dinner a lot more than usual and every time I do I say that its going on my next post. Of course that would require a modicum of effort, and the fact I have the attention span of a bored gnat at the moment, as well as the impetus of a wounded sloth, means it gets shelved till tomorrow along with the absurd "I think i'll go to the gym" sentiment. 

The fact that Monday night is now 'treat and movie night' in our house (basically just an excuse for me to make a meal containing fatty meat/butter/cheese/batter/all of the above, and him to eat peanut M&Ms, popcorn and anything else you might find at a cinema) means I now have a mission to complete. Something to get up for in the mornings if you will. Infact it's just officially been changed to Food Day as of right now. Tuesday will therefore become Blog Day. Essentially just so there is a means with which to discuss Food Day with others. From the comfort of my sofa. Without having to actually to talk to anyone.

In the meantime here's a picture of something I made in my new slow cooker which is fucking cool. I think it might actually warrant a whole post of its own soon. This is pulled pork rolls, BBQ sauce, sweet potato wedges and polenta chilli bread.


        




Wednesday 26 September 2012

RECIPE: FAT MAC N' CHEESE


There are many roads leading to the path of obesity, but perhaps none so definitive as via the Mac 'n' Cheese route. Pure, unadulterated gluttony at its finest.

So, here's my take on the Fat Person's Favourite:

INGREDIENTS:

Macaroni pasta (enough for 2/3 people)
1 chopped onion
1 tbsp flour
2 cups of milk
Slab of butter
Handful breadcrumbs
2 tbsp Philadelphia cream cheese
1/2 cup strong white Cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
1 tsp mustard powder
2 slices of very thick cut roast ham (not the slimy packet ham, I mean proper hunks cut from a carcass in the deli), chopped into chunks 
Salt and pepper
Olive oil


1. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the onions over a low heat for a few minutes until soft. Melt the butter in at the same time

2. In a separate pan cook pasta according to pack instructions, drain and put to one side 

3. In a cup using a fork, or in a bowl using a whisker, whisk the milk, flour, mustard powder together then add to the pan of onions and continue to whisk gently over a low heat for a minute or so. Bring to the boil slowly, continuing to stir, and add in the various assortment of cheeses and the ham chunks.

4. Add the sauce to the pasta and mix well, season with salt & pepper, then transfer to a baking dish. 

5. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top along with some more grated Cheddar and bake for 20 minutes.

6. Serve with garlic bread for mopping up the sauce.

Your heart attack will be delivered in 4-6 years.




Tuesday 25 September 2012

I'LL KEEP IT CRISP..


Tayto and King Cheese n' Onion flavour. It never fails to amaze me how much time Irish people spend pontificating over the merits of our country's two biggest crisp producers. As if we haven't spent long enough as a nation trying to evade the various potato related stereotypes. Granted it's mostly lorry driving muck-savages from Monaghan and the like who, lets face it are a walking cliche and deserve it,  but I've heard alot of coverage of this topic lately and personally I think they're both shit , so we're not going to talk about them here. It's my game, I make the rules.

Corn snacks on the other hand - now there's a grand genre of crisp. I'll tell you my favourites shall I...again, my game, my rules so I go first. Feel free to contribute however. One caveat - Burger Bites should be top of this list but I've excluded them because it worries me how much air time they've had on here already.

1. Storming into first place is the ultimate pickled onion flavour corn snack ring things. Remember these bad boys? They didn't get nearly enough credit when they were around. And I don't want to hear from any Meanies fans claiming superiority, you're not welcome here.



2. Ah the Chickatee. Many a Sunday afternoon would be spent together on the on the couch in the foetal position nursing a hangover. Out would come the multi-pack of Wheelies, Snax and Chickatees, and back into the goodie cupboard would go the Wheelies and the Snax. 



3. .Banshee bones. Salt n' vinegar melt in the mouth type affair. Like many other corn snacks they deteriorated in later years and became full of air holes but they had a good run and I reflect with fondness on them, securing them third place in my league table.



4. While technically not a corn snack they're close enough - Rancheros are the ultimate bacon flavour crisp. On a negative note, the smell stays on your hands for ages and is not so delicious after the feeding frenzy.



5. I don't know what these are made of, corn or otherwise, but I don't care they're going on my list. Scampi Fries. Only sold these days in pubs down the country that double up as the local shop with a shelf behind the bar stocking baked beans, nappies, Emerald sweets, phone cards and Bic biros.




Thursday 6 September 2012

RECIPE: Easy Peasy Sausage Pasta

This is a variation on a Jamie Oliver pasta dish he calls 'Proper Blokes Sausage Fusilli.' Irritating twat. It's really easy, really delicious, and really fattening. The only caveat I'll add is that your arm can get a bit sore with the violent pummelling of the sausage meat, but it's a small price to pay.

Also, I would not recommend refrigerating the leftovers for reheating the following day, as once you do this all the fat solidifies like a lard around it and you are filled with immediate regret for looking and ruining last night's meal, whereas when it's all fresh and new the fat is melted and invisible and so doesn't count.

Takes about 25 mins in total.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 heaped teaspoons fennel seeds
  • 2 red chillies, dried or fresh, doesn't really matter
  • packet of good-quality sausages (highly recommend 'The Pure Pork Company,' honestly have never had better sausages that work perfectly in every dish you put them in. I could write a whole sausage blog alone. On second thought, that might end up in wrong search category)
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, or garlic paste if you're lazy like me. Actually the paste works better anyway
  • glass of white wine
  • 500g fusilli (if you want to make a token effort at making this dish slightly healthier use brown pasta)
  • sea salt (if you don't yet know about Maldon salt and you like to cook....you're welcome) and freshly ground black pepper. 
  • knob of butter (or not, again you can leave it out if want)
  • some grated Parmesan cheese
  • juice and zest of a lemon if you want to freshen it up, not necessary though
  • parsley leaves if cooking for others and want to make it more aesthetically pleasing


Crush the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar. If you're using dried chillies put them in too, otherwise if fresh just chop them up separately.
   
Heat some olive oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Squeeze the meat out of the gross sausage skins (euckh, what are those things anyway? I've heard rumours but sincerely hope they're not true) throw said skins/casings away, and put the meat into the pan. Make sure you break it up using a fork or spoon into what should eventually look like coarse mince. Keep breaking it up as it's frying, it's a continuous process I'm afraid. This is where your arm can start to hurt and you begin to wish you hadn't bothered - bear with it though, 5 more minutes and you're on the home straight. Add the crushed fennel seeds, garlic/paste and chillies, and cook on a medium heat for around 10 minutes until the meat becomes crisp and browned. Don't overdo it though, you still want some pink in there.

Stir in the oregano, then pour in the white wine and allow it to reduce by half. Add the lemon zest and juice at this point if including, but bear in mind it does strongly flavour the dish to, well, lemon obviously, and can be a bit overpowering. I'd recommend using half a lemon only.

Turn the heat down to low, then cook the fusilli in a large pan of salted boiling water according to the packet instructions. When the pasta has cooked al dente, drain it in a colander, reserving some of the cooking water, and toss it in the pan with your sausagemeat. Coat the pasta in all the pan stuff and at this point add the butter if including, the Parmesan, and a few spoonfuls of the reserved cooking water to moisten things up. You're left with a coating over the pasta as opposed to a sauce. Add more salt and pepper if you wish, and sprinkle with some parsley leaves for decoration cause we all know that's all it's good for.


This is what you should get. 











Friday 31 August 2012

FARMER'S MARKET DAY!

Remember the Simpson's with the Ribwich? Where Krusty Burger releases the new rib sandwich and Homer gets addicted and joins all the groupies on a Ribwich tour across the country? "Oh this is amazing! I could follow the Ribwich from town to town!"



Meet my Ribwich.



For the last year and a half I've been having this for lunch every Tuesday and Friday, the days the farmer's market comes to town. Ok well sometimes on a Wednesday too when the market is across town. It's only a 40 minute drive away. And back again. And they give you a nice little plastic fork so you can eat it from your lap at the traffic lights.

They, that is the evil geniuses at SayFish, make it using their own seaweed seasoning. I mean look at it! Us fatties just don't stand a chance.



Wednesday 29 August 2012

Confessions of a Dangerous Pig...

Ok so we've all get them - our less than finer moments in life which we'd rather forget about but which our friends do so love to remind us of. 

So in order to stop them beating me to it here it is - my list of the most savage, voracious acts of piggery to date. And please, do add your own confessions to the list. No seriously, PLEASE..

1. Once I cooked a whole belly of pork as a snack, just so I could eat the skin. Ok that's a lie.... I did it more than once. Ok fine, I do it regularly.

2. After a particularly heavy night out, followed by the mother-ship of all hangovers, experience taught me that the the only way I was gonna make it was through a continuous stream of food. I call this an 'eating day.' Cue greasy spoon for breakfast (still pissed), "I'll have the Full English AND the French toast thing with the bacon and syrup," Eddie Rockets for lunch (delivered to self in bed), pizza for late afternoon bridge between lunch and dinner (delivered to self in bed) and curry for evening meal (delivered to self on sofa - thought it best, turmeric is very stainy and serves only as a judgemental reminder..). 
Note: If alone when delivery man arrives shout upstairs to fictitious friend/partner/housemate that the food has arrived. This serves to account for the volume of food he is delivering.

3. McDonalds: "What can I get you?" 
Me: "Big Mac Meal - large.  Coke, and a cheeseburger chaser."
McDonalds: "Anything else?"
Me: "Six chicken nuggets and a caramel sundae." (hangs head in shame)

4. Sunday lunch in fancy restaurant, I ate a T-bone steak the size of a teenager's head. Picked it right down to the bone, no survivors. Then went home and had 6 packets of Burger Bites in a row. Because apparently there's no such thing as TOO much beef. And they weren't the Fun Size ones. 

5. I put garlic butter on pizza. Huuuuuuuuuuuu......




Tuesday 28 August 2012

RECIPE: Leon's Riga Lamb

Oh man this is gooooooooood. My first recipe suggestion had to be of an outstanding caliber so I chose this champion of meals. You know when you want to feel all rustic and Jamie Olivery by serving up the food you cooked in the oven tray you cooked it in? so you can be all like "Bam! yeah I just made this bad boy, check me out I do this shit all the time..."


So here it is - I must add that this is not the actual picture of my Riga's lamb - that features a little further down the page. I yoinked this one from my sister's blog cause she did it first... and to be fair it was prettier than mine.

Feeds: 2 if one of them is me
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 3 hours

1 leg of lamb, on the bone
5 cloves of garlic
a small bunch of fresh mint
2 onions
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
75ml extra virgin olive oil
300g risoni, kritharaki or small macaroni
2 tablespoons dried mint
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300ºF/gas mark 2.

2. With the tip of a sharp knife, make 6 or 7 quite deep holes on both sides of the meat. Stuff these with small pieces of garlic, followed by an equal amount of salt and black pepper mixed together. Plug the holes with a couple of leaves of fresh
mint, and season the meat with a little more salt and pepper.

3. Finely chop the onions or cut into rings, and put them into a large roasting dish. Add the tomatoes and oil and stir well. Put the meat on top, and place in the oven.

4. Cook for 3 and a half hours. Keep adding water to the sauce to prevent it from drying out. If you like, you can baste the lamb with spoonfuls of the sauce so that it forms a crust of caramelized onions on the meat.

5. When 20 minutes of cooking time is left, add a cup of water to the sauce and stir in the risoni or macaroni.

6. Season, sprinkle well with dried mint and put back into the oven until the pasta is tender. 

The macaroni will expand and absorb the liquid sauce, which in turn will have absorbed all the juices from the meat. Keep adding water and stirring every 5 - 10 minutes if you need to so that the pasta stays moist and doesn't stick.






From Leon Book 2 - Available on Amazon


Ok so now here's my actual one. I appreciate it looks like the remnants of a murder scene but that's cause I'd already eaten half of it before taking the photo. And that's garlic in the middle, not maggots.