Moroccan Lamb, Potato & Aubergine Stew

Although I've never been to Morocco, I adore Moroccan cuisine. My first taste of Morocco was in a small little family run restaurant in the heart of Paris; and I've been hooked ever since. I love slow cooked meats, and I love one pot wonders even more!!! This dish actually tastes better if made a day ahead of needing it. Moroccan dining is my way of eating, its about being social and sharing; lots of accompaniments and everyone just digging in. Super casual. it's not fussy nor posh.

I entered a Lamb Tagine recipe in a Kerrygold Recipe Book competition a few years back and my recipe was selected to be published in the recipe book. This Lamb, Potato and Aubergine stew is a twist on my traditional Tagine recipe Serena's Moroccan Lamb Tagine

This recipe is perfect to feed a crowd and can be easily doubled or trebled, and just supply more pittas and yogurt for scooping up the yummy sauce.

Ingredients

• 1 lbs diced lamb
• 2 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp of maldon sea salt
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground Cinnamon
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 1 diced onion
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 carrots thickly sliced on diagonal
• 3 potatoes,peeled and quartered
• 1 aubergine, diced
• 2 tbsp runny honey

Cous cous to Serve

• 100g cous cous
• 1 tsp of turmeric
• Generous handful chopped Coriander/flat leaf parsley
• 50g of flaked almonds
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 1 250g tub Greek yogurt (to serve)
• 4 mini pitta breads (to serve)

Method

1. Combine all the spices, garlic and onion and rub into the meat
2. Leave to marinate, preferably overnight, although an hour should be sufficient.
3. In a lidded oven proof casserole dish, add the olive oil on a medium heat. Brown the meat, in batches if necessary.

4. Add all the meat back into the casserole dish, adding the carrots, tinned tomatoes, potato & aubergine.
5. Bring up to the boil and put lid on the dish and put in a preheated oven for 1.5 hours at 180 degrees.
6. Meanwhile, put cous cous in a bowl, add the olive oil and the turmeric and mix well; season with salt and pepper and pour over 180mls of boiling water. Cover for ten mins.
7. Fluff with a fork, adding half the chopped coriander or flat leaf parsley.
8. Put the flaked almonds on a baking tray and toast in the oven, keeping an eye on them as they can burn in matter of seconds. Once toasted add to the cous cous.
10. Remove the casserole dish from the oven and add the runny honey.
11. Return the dish (uncovered) to the oven for a final 20 mins to brown.
12. Put the pittas in the oven to warm through.
13. Remove the dish from the oven and present to the table in the dish adding the chopped coriander/flat leaf parsley.
14. Put the cous cous, yogurt and pittas in bowls on the table and let your guests help themselves, Moroccan style! Enjoy.

Pistachio & White Chocolate Spread - The Indulgent Nutella Alternative

I first came across this spread whilst on holidays in Sicily. I mentioned before how we stayed in a Farmhouse B&B on our last night in Sicily. They made their own olive oil as well as growning pistachios. (http://www.ciucismanor.it/php/products.php). The breakfast was a real homely experience with everyone gathered around one big table with all the delicious baking and meats and spreads in the centre of the table, everyone helping themselves. I  must have eaten a whole bowl of the pistachio spread before asking our host, Ginevra, what exactly is was that I was eating. I thought to myself no wondering it tastes amazing.............Chocolate........White Chocolate!!!!

 When Ginevra explained that it was a type of chocolate spread made with pistachios and white chocolate, I was hooked. It tasted unreal and the vibrant green colour gives it a fantastic appearance.

My own tried and tested spread is simple to make, but I've found, very difficult to eat only a small portion at a time. I use coconut oil here, but you could use other oils,  like sunflower oil or groundnut oil.

Ingredients

• 300g of shelled pistachios
• 200g of good quality qhite chocolate
• 4 tbsp of coconut oil
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 tsp of table salt

Method

1. Place the pistachios in a food processor and blitz until a wet crumb forms, could take up to 3 minutes.
2. Melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water. Add the vanilla extract to the melted chocolate.
3. Allow the chocolate to cool.
4. Add the coconut oil, salt and melted chocolate to the pistachio crumb and blitz it again until to clumps together and ressembles a butter.
5. Store in an airtight container, in a cool dry place. (Not the fridge, otherwise it will loose it's spreadability).
6. It's delicious on toast, crusty bread, or on cupcakes, or as an alternative to cream in a victoria sponge perhaps.

Apple & Strawberry Turnovers - The Perfect Quickie Snack

I made these turnovers this morning for the Bed and Breakfast guests, and honestly they were made from start to finish in 20 minutes using only four ingredients. Now how's that for a quickie?!

Quick snacks do require short cut ingredients, so as always, I use premade shop bought ready rolled puff pastry, and I use a high quality strawberry conserve. There is nothing wrong with using short cut ingredients from time to time, as long as you buy the best quality you can afford. There really is such a difference.

These turnovers are perfect for my guests who love a morning pastry, but they would work equally as well with a dollop of cream or custard for an elegant dinner party dessert. Either way, they are simply childs play to make and way too delicious not to make.

Here's how:

Ingredients

• 1 packet of ready rolled all butter puff pastry
• 1 jar of good quality strawberry conserve
• 2 tbsp of flaked almonds
• 1 apple, peeled and diced.

To Glaze:

• Some milk and brown sugar

To decorate:

• Some icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Roll out the puff pastry with the longest end neares you. Then cut it into 3. Then cut horizontal in half.
3. On each square place a teaspoon of strawberry conserve in the centre and top with a teaspoon of diced apple
4. Repeat with every remaining square.
5. Brush the edges of each pastry square with the milk and fold in half pressing down all the edges.
6. Use a fork to press down the pinched sides of the squares.
7. Brush the tops of the squares with the milk, top with a couple of flaked almonds and finish off with a sprinkle of brown sugar.
8. Place in the centre of the oven for 16-18 minutes to bake.
9. When beautifully risen and golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
10. When cooled dust liberally with icing sugar.

So easy, there's simply no excuse!!!

Refreshing and Tangy Lemon & Ginger Bars

With summer only a hop, skip and jump away, it's out with the comforting cakes and in with some zesty light but vibrant summer baking! These lemon and ginger bar are the perfect way to start the summer season. They are so simple to make , kids would be only too happy to help and they are absolutely awesome for picnics and lunchbox treats.

I find that they keep great for a couple of days in an airtight container.

Ingredients

• 90g of butter
• 250g of ginger nut biscuits.
• 200g of caster sugar
• 2 large free range eggs and 1 extra egg yolk, beaten
• 100ml of lemon juice
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 25g of plain flour.

Method

1. Line a swiss roll tin, 18cm x 23cm, with grease proof paper and preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Crush the biscuit in a zip-lock bag with a rolling pin (kids love this), and add to a bowl.
3. Melt the butter.
4. Pour the melted butter into the crushed biscuits and mix well so that the biscuits are well coated.
5. Press the buttery biscuits into the base of the baking tin and press down really well with a spoon.
6. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden.
7. In a clean bowl, add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine thoroughly.
8. Pour the mixture oven the golden base and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes, until completely set.
9. Allow to cool on a wire rack in the tin. Once cooled cut into bars.

Chocolate and Orange Blossom Marble Cake

I recently watched the Comic Relief Great British Bake Off and I was left in stitches at the celebrities attempts at baking, some highly skilled for amateur bakers, others clearly need to stick to their day jobs, mentioning no names - Jonathon Ross. It provided great entertainment nonetheless. The baking of the marble cake, left me with a hankering for some marble cake myself. So I set about googling marble cake. I came across a very easy recipe for the marble cake on the BBC Food website; so I used that recipe with a tweak or two from myself.

I find the BBC Food website is a fantastic outlet for cooking/baking ideas; and is great bedtime reading on the mobile version in bed.

Here's how I made my marble cake. Just in time for a weekend treat!

Ingredients

• 175g of soft butter
• 175g of caster sugar
• 3 free range eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 225g of self raising flour
• 2 tbsp of milk
• 1 tbsp of orange blossom
• Zest of an orange
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a loaf tin (or just use a silicone tin - they are all the rage now don't you know).
2. Cream the butter and the sugar with an electric whisk, until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time whilst continuing to whisk. 
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
5. Sift in the flour and gently fold into the beaten egg, sugar, & butter mixture.
6. Divide the batter into 2 equal parts.
7. Sift the cocoa powder into one mixture and stir the orange blossom and orange zest into the second mixture.
8. Add large spoons of each mixture into the loaf tin, alternating to give a marble effect. I used a skewer to swirl the mixture a little for a more marbled pattern.
9. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Bake until a skewer comes out clean.
10. Allow to cool completely in the tin before turning out.
11. Enjoy with a big cup of tea or coffee.

Oat & Apricot Cookies - Wholesome Healthy & Homemade!

With the Easter holidays fast approaching, here's a quick recipe for wholesome homemade cookies that gets all the family involved. Perfect for kids bored in the afternoon if the weather is bad. And lets face it the weather usually bites in Ireland in April at some point.

I made these cookies with diced apricots but you can easily substitute the apricots with chocolate chips, or another dried fruit. I added a small trickle of melted chocolate to these for extra ommmphh; but when my nieces came to visit they decorated theirs with pink icing.

Ingredients

• 225g rolled oats
• 225g plain flour
• 225g brown sugar
• 225g of butter
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 2 tbsp of golden syrup
• 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
• 120g of diced apricots
• 1 tsp of orange juice

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line two to three oven trays with baking paper.
   
2. Melt the butter, sugar, and golden syrup in a saucepan. Once melted add the vanilla extract and orange juice.
3. In a large bowl add the flour, oats, baking powder and apricots. Mix well to combine.
4. Pour the melted ingredients into the dry  ingredients and stir extremely well to combine.
5. Using an icecream scoop or a large serving spoon, scoop spoonfuls of cookie mixture on the trays, spacing 2cm apart as they spread quite significantly when baked.
6. Baked in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
7. Allow to cool on the trays for 10 minutes once fully cooked, before removing them and cooling them completely on a wire rack.
8. Then either decorate with icing or melted chocolate if desired.
9. These will keep very well in an airtight container for several days.

Banh Mi Style Burger

When anyone asks me where else in the world would I consider living, my answer is always immediately Vietnam. I ADORED Vietnam! Every inch of it, the people, the landscape, the culture, the food......!!!!!!!! I have pretty much seen a big chunk of the world in my backpacking days and Vietnam beats every country, no questions asked, especially when it comes to the food!! Spectacular is an understatement!!

We loved Vietnam so much that when we were reaching the maximum stay in the country of 30 days, we panicked and immediately when to a travel agents to pay a crazy amount of money for an extension to our visa to stay longer. Even one or two bad experiences during the 5-6 week stay in Vietnam wouldn't deter us (a brief mugging;  stranded in a train on side of a cliff during a typhoon for 3 days; extreme mosquito mauling - all of which was character building).

The food is sublime, the street food, the Pho, the Bia Hoi (fresh beer), and my ultimate favourite the spring rolls (both deep fried and fresh alike). One of the most popular street food in Vietnam is Banh Mi. This is basically a spicy marinated pork (think ginger, chilli, garlic, Lemongrass) lime, fresh herbs, vegetable pickle, and a punchy dipping sauce; all enveloped in crusty baguette the Vietnamese are now as famous as France for. These are for sale on most street corners in Vietnam from food hawkers. On our journeys on the road  with the Easy Riders (look them up) we saw a few stationed in long stretches of highways also. They always drew a crowd.

(Me and Jung, my Easy Rider, in Dalat, Vietnam, Oct 2007)

Here is a quick Friday Night Burger Night homage to the humble Banh Mi! The burst of freshness cannot be replicated in any other nations' burgers! You need to try it to see what I mean!

Ingredients

Burgers

• 500g of Irish Quality Assured Pork Mince
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp of freshly grated ginger
• 1 tbsp of chopped and deseeded red chili
• 1 tbsp of chopped lemongrass
• 1 egg
• Zest of a lime
• Juice of 1/4 of lime
• 3 tbsp of chopped fresh coriander
• 1 tsp of fish sauce
• 1 tbsp of brown sugar
• 1 grated onion

Carrot Pickle

• 1 grated carrot
• 1 tbsp of white vinegar
• 1 tbsp of caster sugar

Chili Mayo

• 2 tbsp of chili sauce
• 5 tbsp of mayo

Homemade French Fries

• 2 rooster potatoes, cut into thin chips
• 1 tbsp of oil
• 1 tbsp of Chinese 5 spice powder

To Serve

• Burger Buns (I'm using Slimbos to keep the Carbs low)
• Extra lime wedges
• Extra fresh coriander and some fresh mint leaves.

Method

1. Combine all the burger ingredients in a non metallic bowl and stir very well to ensure mixed through.
2. Line a baking tray with parchment.
3. Wet your hands and shape 5-6 burger patties into your hands and lay them on the tray.
4. Put in the fridge to firm up for at least 30 minutes.
5. To make the carrot pickle, simply combine the 3 ingredients in a bowl and set aside. 
6. Likewise with the chili mayo, stir both ingredients together and set aside.
7. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Add the potato chips, the oil,and 5-spice to a bowl. Stir thoroughly.
8. Lay the chips out on a single layer in a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes.
9. Preheat a griddle pan and gently fry the burgers for 7 minutes a side. I usually finish them off in the oven for 3-4 minutes at the end. I also add the burger buns to toast in the oven at this stage too.
10. So the burgers won't be too wet, I drain the carrot pickle of liquid by putting it in the middle of 2 sheets of kitchen paper and squeezing out the excess liquid over a sink.
11. To plate up, spread some of the mayo on the burger bun, top with the burger, followed by the fresh herbs and carrot pickle. Finally top with the other burger bun spread generously with chili mayo. The only problem is trying to eat with dignity. NAPKINS OBLIGATORY!
12. Serve with chips and extra lime wedges.

This is my ultimate burger and if you try it you will see why. It's the most flavorsome burger out there whilst staying relatively healthy in comparison to it's burger counterparts.

Tip: Wrap the leftover uncooked burgers in parchment paper and then place in a freezer bag. Will keep well in the freezer for 2 months