Low Carb Lamb Tagine

This is really just a recipe published by someone else, but I have made a few small changes to make it low carb and simplified it a bit.

Here it is on the taste.com.au website.

So I used lamb pieces from my butcher. 1.5 kg is a huge amount. I think I would use about 1 kg next time.
I did not add the honey or the butter. I don't have a problem with the butter from a diet perspective, but this dish was fatty enough as it was. The Taste recipe involves removing the meat from the sauce at the end and reducing the sauce with the butter. This seems like a nice thing to do, but I did not bother - it looked great as it was. Also I added everything at the start of cooking rather than in stages with the exception of the olives which I threw in at the end and allowed to heat through.

I served it with steamed vegetables and it was delicious. Will definitely be making this again.

Low carb diets gain traction (and Scrambled eggs for lunch)

According to this guy we should be cutting out the sugar and simple carbohydrates and eating more fat. Having watched a bunch of videos and discussed this with a few friends I am inclined to agree. Getting people to accept this notion en masse is going to be a struggle. Not just because it involves cutting out cakes, biscuits and most processed foods, but because of the powerful lobby groups who would like to keep things the way they are - only more so.

The idea however seems to be gaining momentum. There was an Irish Times article this week discussing the idea and Scientific American ran this story in September. The science behind this is compelling and people have been searching in increasing numbers for a solution to weight gain and more recently metabolic syndrome. This may be 'it'. Hopefully all this activity this signals a change.

If the idea does get widespread adoption supermarkets are going to have to change. There are whole swathes of them filled with sugar and simple carbs.

Although this is extremely simple, it tastes great. We only discovered it recently, so I thought it was worth sharing. So with low carbohydrate diets in mind here is a delicious weekend lunch for 1.

Smoked Salmon scrambled eggs

Ingredients:
3 eggs
About 4 slices of smoked salmon
A tablespoon of full fat cream
A large knob of butter for cooking
Pepper

Method:
Beat the eggs lightly in the bowl. Add pepper to your taste, but no salt. Smoked salmon is very salty already. Now tear up the smoked salmon into bite sized pieces. Melt the large knob of butter into a non stick pan on high heat. When the butter foams add the eggs and scrape the bottom of the pan continuously with a wooden spoon until the eggs are almost cooked. Add the smoked salmon and the cream. Mix the whole lot until cooked - don't over do them. Serve immediately as the eggs will keep cooking if you leave them hanging around. No bread to accompany, but it is filling enough in itself.

Ideas for no sugar/ low carb lunches

This is just a list of stuff that I pick from now that I am trying a low carb diet as espoused by Robert Lustig at UCSF.

Smoked mackerel
Smoked salmon
Sardines
Tinned mackerel
Pickled onions - unsugared
Kimchi
Brie
Cheddar
Olives
Ham slices
Peanut butter
Brazil nuts, pistachios, walnuts - all unsalted.
Raw carrot

I basically eat a bunch of this - whatever we have - until I think I have had enough. No bread or other flour in there. This fills me up fine and I might have a piece of fruit in the afternoon between lunch and dinner. I am finding I that after dinner (which I usually supplement with some nuts, smoked salmon or whatever I fancy from the above list) that I don't want to snack later on. This can only be a good thing.
I will add to this list as I find more foods that are suitable for this diet.

Low Carb Beef Stew

This dinner is one of our staples, but a recent change to low carb/no sugar requires a few changes.

Ingredients:

600g stewing beef
1 Tin of tomatoes
Half a celeriac
4 carrots
2 onions
1 beef stock cube - made up as per instructions
3 sticks celery
Handful of sage leaves chopped finely
Small handful of marjoram chopped finely (leave the stalks out)
Small glass of red wine

Method:

Peel and roughly chop all of the vegetables.
Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin) to a large casserole on high heat. Fry the onions and beef for a few minutes until the beef is well coloured. Add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to very low and leave it to cook for 2 to 3 hours. Exact time will depend on the cut of beef used.

Differences from 'Normal':

• No potatoes used 
• No tomato puree used - this usually has added sugar
• We just serve this on its own. It has enough veg without side dishes
• It contains more beef than we would normally use for this size of casserole
• Check all ingredients used for sugar
• The red wine might be a bit of a rule breaker, but we add it early so most of the alcohol is gone and besides, it really lifts this dish

No Sugar/Low Carb Lunch

I tend to eat some protein and some vegetables for lunch on this low carb diet. Yesterday I had half a packet of smoked mackerel fillets, some pickled onions, a raw carrot and come coconut. Not a very substantial lunch, but it was enough for me as I was snacking on the coconut during the day.

I have been on this diet for a full week now. No slip ups yet, including the weekend when we went out for lunch. Feel very good.

Weighed myself last weekend and I was just over 11.5 stone. Will weigh in again at the weekend to see if there is any change.

Still not getting much exercise, but this is because I don't want to confound the results of the diet. I can get back to exercising when I have demonstrated that this works.

I watched the end of one of the Robert Lustig videos last night. You can find details on him here. If you are interested in trying this diet out it is well worth your while taking an hour or 2 to watch some of his stuff.

No sugar breakfast

This has been one of the easiest things about cutting out sugar. Breakfast. I have always liked porridge, I just had to have it without sugar. This sounded like it would be rough, but it ended up being very nice. It keeps me full until lunchtime most days. If I am peckish at mid morning I have a banana.

On this type of diet many people eat bacon, eggs, sardines. I like those foods, but don't think they would work early in the morning. So I am sticking with my porridge.

Finding specific consistent information on what to eat while trying to cut out sugar is not easy, so I am taking some liberty with what I have. The diet is not exactly paleo - it includes some grains. Not exactly Atkins - we eat beans and legumes. It's more of our own take on this. The only solid rule is no added sugar. I reckon I have lost some weight in the first week, which is something of a miracle considering how much meat, fish, eggs and nuts I have been eating. Today is day 7, so not even a full week yet. I reckon this will get easier as I get used to making different food choices.

Update, April 13th 2014

The results of this diet have been better than anything i have tried before. My weight dropped from 12 to 11 stone in about a month. And has stayed there. We arent following the low carb diet rigorously,  but mid week we stick to it pretty closely. 
It is not hard to do once you decide on some meal options. We plan on sticking to this in the long term.

Cutting out the sugar

Having watched a bunch of you tube videos on the subject I have decided to cut sugar out of my diet. I am not sure how long this will last, but I suppose that depends on how I feel on the diet. I have been at it for almost a week so far. Not too difficult up to now, but the weekend is a bit more challenging. I suppose we eat more treat type food at the weekend.
Anyway, what has this got to do with a cooking blog? Well I won't stop being interested in cooking just because I am cutting out the sugar. In fact the restriction might just help conjure up some recipes that are a bit different.
To start with a recipe that is not mine at all. Well just a link really. The Hairy Bikers did a series recently where they tried to lose weight while still loving food. One of the things they were doing was cutting down on carbs - the entire focus of my current diet. This is their recipe for Cassoulet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/our_special_cassoulet_05208

I made it today and it smells great. Going to have plenty of steamed veggies on the side to make it a balanced meal, but based on the smell this one seems like a winner.

Superquinn name change - what about the bread?

I read today that SuperValue will finally drop the Superquinn name and rebrand the stores. This was a while in the works I reckon, but is still a bit of a worry. The crown jewels for SQ has always been the bread. Some people go on about the sausages, but they are not the best thing about SQ for me.

I never understood why someone else could not make a good sausage. All the butchers in the country could not beat a supermarket. Bizarre.

Bread on the other hand is a big deal. Irish bread has traditionally been white sliced rubbish. A variety of brands selling the same muck under different names. SQ was different. They had an attitude to bread that made it seem like it mattered. I have tried to find good bread in Dublin before. And have had a hard time of it. There is a bakery near my house, but the bread is no good. I don't know why they bother other than that the shop is already rented. So if you like good bread make sure to buy some in SuperQuinn. We are probably safe though - Musgraves are not going to lower the quality on this without turning a lot of their customers away.

The bottom end of the market is getting crowded in Ireland so the only place for a retailer to go is up.

Artificial Meat

Today the first artificial meat was eaten by humans. The project was paid for by Sergei Brin of Google fame. The idea is to find an alternative to 'naturally' produced meat that avoids the cruelty of factory farming. This seems like a long distance and expense to go when greater strides can be made by reducing the amount of meat that most people consume. This video I think is right on the money. Find ways for most people to eat less meat. This involves teaching people how to cook better vegetarian food - leaving the meat off a plate of meat, veg and starch does not do the job. I also think it is a lot easier to ask people to have a few meat free days per week rather than convince a few to give up meat altogether. Ideology aside the goal should be to reduce the total amount of meat produced and consumed in the world. Doing that by culturing stem cells from a cow seems to way overshoot into the realms of technology rather than plain old home economics.
I have been trying to eat less meat over the last few years and it has gone pretty well. As you can see from these blog entries though I do still eat meat. Quite a bit of it, but a lot less than most Irish people. I think I will stick with this path for now rather than try to 'go veg' completely.

Butler's Coffee in the Swords Pavillion Shopping Centre

Its just a cup of coffee and a chocolate, but considering how many coffee shops mess this up its worth pointing out someone who is getting it right. The walnut ganache chocolate - which is one of the ones that you can pick with your coffee is delicious. Creamy and sweet with plenty of walnut flavour. It is also a big sweet. Plenty for elevenses with a nice cup of coffee. Butlers have been doing this for years and they just keep getting better. Managed to resist putting an outlet on every corner during the boom and are still here - for the long run we hope.

A Burger at GBK in Temple Bar, Dublin

GBK has been in Dublin for a few years now. When they opened first the food was very good. When the economy collapsed people's appetite for pricey burgers, albeit very nice ones, dropped. GBK responded by dropping their prices, but the quality seemed to suffer. Now thankfully they seem to have found a compromise. The burgers were excellent. Big tall constructions that had to be squashed by hand to get them into your mouth. That only cost about a tenner each.

We both had the same thing - cheese and bacon burger in the traditional size - large. Didn't bother with chips and just had tap water. 10 quid each can't be beaten and we will be back soon.

Avoca at Malahide Castle, Dublin

This is not open long, but we had heard good things. I had the idea that this would be shoehorned into a corner of the castle, but its a new build in the grounds. A beautiful building that seems to be getting a lot of use. We had eaten at Avoca Rathcoole a lot before - we used to live out in that direction and it was always excellent. Malahide is no different in that respect. There is a nice shop with plenty of pretty things for the ladies who lunch to buy - not my thing really, but a nice way to get to the restaurant. Like Rathcoole it is a self service style restaurant. There are plenty of staff, so the queues move quickly. The boards with the menus displayed are large and clearly printed on the wall behind the serving area. It's child friendly, so even with a buggy and a three year old in tow we were able to pick up our food and pay in a few minutes. No problem finding a table either even though this was probably one of their busier times - lunch time during the summer holidays.

I had ham and spinach quiche with 3 salads. I rarely deviate from this as it is always so good. The quiche was not overcooked - which would be very easy to do sitting under lights. It is served with a small ramekin of chutney which is really delicious. I had to go back to ask for this as they forgot to give it to me, but that is just me looking for something negative to say. The salads were broccoli and feta with hazelnuts, potato salad with mint and bulgar wheat salad. They were all delicious. 

My wife had salmon en croute with cream cheese and spinach. It was gorgeous too and again not overcooked. 

Our 3 year old had spaghetti bolognese, a child's smoothie and some ice create to finish. 

The bill for the whole lot came to 35 euro. Great value for such high quality food. We are looking forward to going back again.

Beetroot Risotto

The beetroot in the garden is coming along great at the moment. The current batch are about the size of a bunched fist. They cook in about 25 minutes in the pressure cooker and make a great accompaniment to lots of different foods.

I found this list of beetroot recipes on the Guardian website the other day and decided to give the Beetroot Risotto a go. I was not really sure what to expect, but it was superb. 

Here is a photo of my effort. I also fried up the leaves of the beetroot (trimmed of stems) and some chard leaves. The whole lot was served with smoked mackerel. 

Usually I just roast beetroot, but this makes a nice alternative.

Beetroot and Corned Beef hash

I am a big fan of corned beef hash and have made Delia Smith's recipe a few times. I read about adding beetroot and a few other things from The Cooking Thesaurus and so decided to make this.

Ingredients:

Once large beetroot cooked and peeled (I used a pressure cooker, only took 25 minutes) and cubed
A handful of cooked potatoes peeled and roughly chopped
A good bunch of shallots trimmed and chopped finely
1 egg
A couple of gherkins sliced up
Some pickled cabbage
About 200g of chopped corned beef - the tinned stuff is best as it has plenty of fat

Method:

Heat some oil in a large pan. Fry the shallots until they take some colour. Add the potatoes, beetroot and corned beef and fry for a few minutes. Don't mix it more than you have to as it can go a bit mushy.
In another pan fry the egg the way you like it.
Dish the hash into a big bowl and lay the fried egg on top. Place the rest of the ingredients around the plate.

Drying Bananas in the Car

On the Tray

We are enjoying the hottest summer in years in Ireland at the moment and so we get to make some interesting stuff that would not have been possible before. Like drying fruit in your car.
Take a ripe banana and use an egg slicer to slice it thinly and evenly. Lay the slices on a sheet of grease proof paper and put this on a baking tray.
Place the whole lot of the back shelf or dashboard of your car in the sun.
After about 4 hours in hot sun I peeled the bananas off the sheet and turned them over. I left them until the middle of the next day until they had the consistency I wanted. Nice and chewey.

In the Car Drying

Good Bread on the Northside of Dublin

There is no end of choice if you want to eat rubbish bread in Dublin. Tesco have a large range a brutal bread that all tastes the same. Aldi is even worse. Lidl have recently introduced in store bakeries to some of their outlets. These have a good range of tasty and unusual breads. Their prepackaged stuff is still terrible.

Superquinn - Finglas Village for me - is still a winner. The Musgraves  takeover does not appear to have hit quality in their bakery. They have the best French sticks I can find and walking through the bread and cakes there is always a pleasure.

There is a Polish shop across from Aldi in Finglas and it has a wide range of bread. Polish people are serious about their bread. The loaf of multi grain I got was made in Balbriggan and tasted delicious. It was stale the next day which is always a good sign.

Basa Fish from Dunnes Stores

We decided to try out some Basa Fish fillet from Dunnes Stores today. They were farmed in Vietnam and were frozen. They were cheap and so we got these over hake which we had yesterday anyway.
Here is some info about Basa Fish or Panga from wikipedia.
The farming of it does not look like it is the most environmentally friendly, but other than that it is not the worst. It is not endangered in any way.
We cooked the fish in foil parcels to keep it moist. 200 degrees C for 20 minutes did the trick. The fish looked translucent when cooked and although very fresh (well as much as frozen fish can be) it tasted so eggy as to be like eating a piece of omelette. Not great overall then despite the cheap price.
Will give this a wide berth next time and try something else.

Asian Style Salmon with Noodle Soup and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

After a bit of chopping and prep, this was ready in less than 10 minutes. Delicious and not too heavy.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 Salmon fillet, washed
2 Spring onions, sliced finely
1 Red chilli - seeds in, chopped
3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled
1 tsp of freshly grated ginger
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 1\2 tsp of Miso Paste
1 tsp fish sauce
Juice of one lime
Portion of egg noodles
Handful of sugar snap peas, washed

Line a steamer with tin foil. This stops the cooking juices being lost. They are added to the soup at the end.
Put the salmon into the foil lined one.
In a mortar and pestle crush the garlic, together with the chilli and ginger until you have a rough paste.
Pile this paste on top of the salmon and press it down so it does not fall off during cooking.
Sprinkle the spring onions over the top and pour over the soy and lime juice. Put this on to steam.
After about 3 minutes put the sugar snap peas on to steam.
Then start cooking the noodles in plenty of boiling water. Make up the miso soup in a big mug. I added some dried wakame seaweed at this stage. Test it for saltiness and add the fish sauce if you need to.
After 10 minutes the salmon and sugar snaps will be cooked. Drain the noodles and put them in the serving bowl. Pour over the miso soup. Gently lift the salmon out of the steamer and place it on top of the noodles. Pour the cooking liquids from the steamer (soy, lime etc.) into the soup. Make sure you get all the spring onions out of the steamer and pile them on to the salmon.

Preserved Lemons in Ireland

I was making a Jamie Oliver recipe for White fish tagine recently and it needed preserved lemons. I looked around for these a bit, but could not find any. I hunted down a recipe on the web and gave it a try myself.
I was sceptical at first. Where was the bitter taste going to go with a bit of added salt and time? Would it really be nice to eat the skin of a lemon in a savoury dish?

I used a bunch of lemons - there are about 6 in the jar preserved, but I used the same again for extra juice.

Method:

Wash the lemons. Unwaxed are best, but I could not get any, so I gave the waxed ones a good scrub.
Cut them into about 8 segments each. Drop these into a layer in the bottom of something like a kilner jar. Sprinkle plenty of salt on top of them. Repeat in layers until all the lemons for preserving are gone, or you run out of jar. Then juice the rest of the lemons - or as many as you need to roughly cover the lemons in the jar. Squish the whole lot down to get them as submerged as possible. Close the jar and wait a month. Leave it at room temperature for this period. Now and again give it a shake to distribute the salty juice. Take a peek whenever you like, they smell great from the start with the lemony tang reducing over time.

The lemons are ready. Take out what you need rinse well and make sure you get any seeds out. I leave teh pulp in, but some people throw that away. They go great in Moroccan style food. The bitterness is gone and they smell and taste great. They are also a talking point for people who come into your kitchen. Making this sort of stuff is way weirder than just cooking :)

Kidney Bean and Salchichón stew

I had a big chunk of salchichon left over in the fridge from a Christmas hamper that I was given. I found this recipe and it was delicious. Even though I was trying to get rid of the sausage when I tasted the end result I was thinking about what sausage to buy next to make this again. Very cowboy.

Ingredients

Ingredients:

1 tin of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 medium, or one large potato, peeled and chopped into bite sized chunks
Tin of tomatoes
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp sweet paprika
4 inch piece of salchichon sausage chopped into bite sized chunks
1 tbsp oil
1 litre of chicken stock

Method:

Heat the oil in a large thick based saucepan. A cast iron pot is ideal if you have one. Cook the sausage for about 10 minutes over a medium heat until it is crispy. Try a bit to make sure it is not still rubbery. Add the spices and fry them for a minute until they release their fragrance. Add the potato, tin of tomatoes and tin of kidney beans and the stock. Give it all a good stir. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer for about 30 minutes.

This is the finished article. Would go well with some crusty bread and a green salad.

How to make kimchi

I decided to make some kimchi having read a bit about it. The Koreans credit is with the revival of their nation. Tall order for a food, but worth a try I thought.

Recipe

4 tablespoons of salt
1 litre of water
1 Chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage), sliced into rough 1cm discs
5 radishes, thinly sliced
3 chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
5 cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated

Add the salt to the water and mix until dissolved.
Submerge the cabbage, carrots and radishes in the brine and hold down with a plate. Leave this over night.
Next strain the vegetables, but reserve the brine for later.

Make up a sauce. There is a lot of variation between different kimchi recipes, but I prefer the combination of chillies, garlic and ginger given in the list above. Mix them into the drained vegetables.

Put the vegetables into a sealable glass jar. I use a Kilner, but anything with a reasonable seal is fine. The reason for the seal is that you don't want the brine to evaporate. If it does the cabbage rots with nasty consequences for your kitchen. A hard smell to get rid of. You only make this mistake once.

Press the veg down into the jar, flattening out the surface. Pour enough of the brine back in to cover the whole lot. Next you need to weigh down the veg to stop them surfacing. For this I use a jam jar with no lid. Make sure that everything is good and clean first. Lower the jar onto the surface of the vegetables and gently press to rise the brine level up. Seal the jar and leave it on a counter top in your kitchen for about a week until it sours. Once it is sour transfer it to the fridge and eat it at your leisure. It should keep for a good while at this stage, but mine never makes it beyond a week :)

When you are waiting for the kimchi to sour make sure to check it every day. My 'checking' involves taking a good big forkful out to have with my lunch. Kimchi is great as an alternative slaw. Very healthy too. Once you do this check press the rest of the kimchi back into place and replace the jar. Always make sure to use clean hands and utensils when touching the kimchi.

My first effort at this stank the house out. The second was lovely until it soured, then it was really good. My third go is nice (not soured yet), but I added finely chopped onions at the sauce stage and they have made it into a bit of a mess. Bit like brewing, so practice makes perfect.

How to make beef stock from scratch

I have wanted to do this for a while, but could not get my hands on the right beef bones - most butchers make excuses about them being all gone already. Not my butcher in Finglas though. Glad to help and chopped them up nice and small to go in the pot. So here goes.

Get about 2 kg of beef bones - large marrow bones are the ones to get. Place them on a roasting tray along with a couple of halved onions (don't peel them, just take off any dirt) and a bulb of garlic sliced across the middle to expose the flesh of all of the cloves. (Here is a post showing a picture of what I mean about the garlic) and put in a 200 degree C oven for about an hour until well and truly roasted - maybe even a bit burned at the edges.

Scrape all of this off the tray into a large pot (your biggest) and cover with water. Add in some roughly chopped carrots, a leek halved lengthways, a tablespoon of peppercorns - don't crush them and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the whole lot to the boil and let simmer for about 4 hours. Strain it while still hot and throw away all of the solid bits. Let the liquid cool overnight and then skim it. Mine had about 3 mm of hard fat on it at that stage. Then you can reduce the stock by simmering it with the lid off for an hour or 2. Split into batches and freeze until you need it.

There is quite a bit of work in this, but the end result smells quite good (if a little bit weird). I have not tried it in anything yet, but will make a beef stew soon to see how it tastes. This uses a lot of cooker time and is probably one to do if you have a lot to do in the kitchen anyway. Better still if you were using the oven anyway and just slid the bones in beside the other stuff for 'free' roasting.