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Reader’s Recipe: Nicola’s Healthy Bruschetta and Baked Couscous

jean — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:00:57 +0000

Just replace the white bread with a wholegrain option, and bruschetta can be a healthy snack

Bruschetta is one of the most appealing things on the Italian menu, but the white bread makes it a little unhealthy. Our reader Nicola gave us a suggestion for a healthy bruschetta, and also shared a great recipe for baked couscous, another nutritious choice.

Bruschetta

6 vine tomatoes, chopped

Dressing:

1 clove garlic crushed
4 or 5 basil leaves roughly torn
1 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
black pepper

Method

Mix dressing ingredients together and toss through chopped tomatoes. Serve on Ryvita or wholegrain crispbread. The tomato mixture will keep for up to two days in the fridge.

Baked Couscous

Nicola made up this recipe herself and said ‘apologies for the roughness’ – we see no reason to apologise for such a delicious sounding recipe! The good thing about a ‘rough’ recipe is that you don’t really need to worry about getting quantities exactly right, and can use whatever amounts you have to hand.

Ingredients:

8 tomatoes, quartered
2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Any other veg suitable for roasting: peppers, butternut squash, sweet potato, red onion – all chopped into roughly the same size pieces
1 stock cube made up with 1 pint of boiling water
200g couscous

Method:

Roast veg and garlic in a shallow dish for 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the veg you are using).
Once veg is tender, add the couscous and stock and bake until all the stock is absorbed. You may need to add more boiling water to ensure all the couscous is covered.
You can also add some crumbled goats cheese or feta five minutes from the end for added protein.

I think this would also be delicious with a dollop of tzatziki, hummus or baba ganoush on the side, and a salad of fresh spinach. Thanks so much Nicola for sharing this!

Black Rice Recipes

jean — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:00:41 +0000

Have you ever tried black rice? It’s available in most Asian shops but it’s something I rarely see on menus. I first had it in a delicious salad, in an amazing vegetarian restaurant in New York (it was years ago and I have tragically forgotten its name) and have been cooking it at home ever since. Black rice is unmilled and comes with its husk intact, and is purportedly extremely nutritious. Its other natural advantage is that it has a rich and complex taste, and can be used as the centrepiece of a dish rather than just as the carbs on the side.

500g of black rice costs about €2.80 in Asian shops.

Grilled Salmon, Stir-Fried Veg and Black Rice with a Lime and Wasabi Dressing

I made up this recipe myself, with my very own brain. I’m a fiend for grilled salmon these days and it has the perfect colour and texture to contrast with the rich, nutty black rice.

Ingredients

2 salmon fillets
Tablespoon honey
Tablespoon soy sauce
Tablespoon sesame oil
Veg for stir-frying – I kept it simple with tenderstem broccoli and tiny cubes of sweet potato, but you could do any veg that you enjoy
Handful cashew nuts
1 mug of black rice
Juice of 1 lime
A squeeze of wasabi from a tube – an amount about the size of a pea should give a good flavour without blowing your head off.

Directions

The salmon: Combine the soy and honey in a small dish and brush or drizzle over the salmon fillets. Put under a hot grill for about 15-20 mins, until it has a charred crust and the salmon is cooked through. Check frequently as it won’t be as nice if it’s over-cooked.

The rice: At the same time, put the rice in a pan with lots of boiling water. Cover the pan (this is important as black rice is messy and will spatter everywhere) and simmer for about 20 mins, until the rice is tender.

The veg: When the rice and salmon have been on for ten minutes, add the veg to a hot wok with a tablespoon of sesame oil and throw in the cashew nuts. Stir fry on a medium high heat for 10 mins, until the veg are cooked (but still crispy/al dente).

The dressing: Put the lime juice and wasabi in a small bowl and whisk together.

Combining the lot: Drain the black rice. Put into a shallow bowl and mix the dressing in with a fork. Lay the veg at the side of the rice and the salmon on the top. I garnished mine with fresh coriander. It was very very very nice.

Nigella Lawson’s Vietnamese Black Rice Salad

This recipe is from Nigella’s book ‘Forever Summer‘, which is full of gems and a cookbook I go back to very frequently. This one is a particular favourite – the raw ginger, lime, chilli and garlic give it an amazing fresh kick. You can use ripe avocado instead of or alongside the prawn, and Nigella says that the dressing can be used as a dipping sauce to be served with chicken, or steamed broccoli or pak choi.

Ingredients (serves two)

for the dressing:

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 fresh red chillies, chopped
Piece fresh ginger (about 4cm in size), minced
4 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
4 tbsp water
2 tbsp caster sugar

for the salad:

250g black rice
500g tiger prawns

Directions

To make the dressing, just combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.
Cook the rice by following the instructions on the packet – I find it usually takes about 20 mins. Cover the pan – as above, it’s messy and gets black splatters everywhere.
Cook the prawns in boiling salted water for about 5 mins until they are just cooked through. You can check this by cutting a prawn in half: they should be opaque in their centre.
Rinse the prawns and rice in cold water to cool them down. Put the rice in bowls, pour the dressing over and mix in with a fork. Scatter prawns on top.

M&S Dine in for Two, 26-31 Jan 2012

jean — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:34:31 +0000

Our favourite supermarket offer is back on in Marks & Spencer shops till Tuesday, and it’s perfect for this hibernating time of year. They have a couple of healthy-ish options on the list this time, such as the whole chicken, the salmon fillets or the ‘lightly dusted lemon sole’. (I wish they’d say what it’s dusted with though. Dust?).

The full menu is available on the M&S website.

Reader’s Recipe: Becky’s Lighter Falafel

jean — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:10 +0000

Image from sxc.hu

Mmmmmm falafel. There are few things tastier than those little deep-fried balls of crunchiness, and the flavours of the salads and sauces that they come with are pretty special as well. Our reader Becky has helpfully given us a recipe for falafel that avoids deep-frying, and makes it a healthier choice. It’s also an easy and quick recipe as you can feck everything in the blender.

Ingredients:

1 400g tin of chickpeas- rinsed
1 small onion roughly chopped
1 clove garlic
half lemon juiced – lime also works
1tsp each of cumin and coriander powder
1 chilli chopped, or 1 tsp of chilli flakes (adjust to your own heat preferences)
1 tsp harrissa paste – can be left out but so lovely if you can find it. I usually get it in Tesco
Small bunch of chopped fresh coriander
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional – handful of toasted sunflower seeds

Method

Put all ingredients in a bowl and blitz with a hand blender or food processor until fairly smooth. If you’re using sunflower seeds leave half un-blitzed and stir in at the end for texture.
Shape into patties (the mixture should make 6-8), lightly oil and cook on a griddle pan or frying pan for a few minutes each side. They also cook nicely in the oven but will be a little drier.
Serve in a pitta or a wrap, with salad and yoghurt dressing and a little harrissa paste if you have it. YUM!

Thanks so much Becky! These sound fantastic and I’m going to try them as soon as I’ve soaked me chickpeas.

You could also add finely chopped red onion, fresh coriander and hummus to the pitta, or serve the falafel as part of a mezze dinner. Harissa paste is usually available in Halal shops; I got a handy tube for only a euro recently, in the Mediterranean Food Market on Thomas St.

Game: Restaurant Smartphone Chicken

jean — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:00:23 +0000

Those of you who are enraged by excessive phone use might enjoy proposing a fiendish new game to your friends. A Californian blogger, sick of his friends spending meals engrossed in their phones, came up with this challenge: when a group sits down to eat, everyone has to place their mobile in a stack on the table. The first person to reach for their phone pays for the entire meal. If everyone gets through the meal without touching their phone, everyone just pays for themselves as standard.

Can you see your friends agreeing to take on this challenge? And does smartphone fiddling during meals get on your nerves? I don’t mind it too much, but hate when people take long calls when they’re in the company of others. However I have been reprimanded on occasion for my Twittering, so I don’t have a leg to stand on. What do you think?

Recipe: Sicilian Fish Stew

jean — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:00:05 +0000

Sicilian Fish Stew, with wholegrain bread and a glass of white wine. Good!

I’ve been trawling through the very excellent BBC Good Food website in order to learn some new healthy dishes and avoid dying of boredom while eating healthily. I found many lovely recipes including a great one for Sicilian Fish Stew.

I tried it out, made a few tweaks, used a generous hand with the lemon juice, garlic and chilli, and was very happy with the results. Leftovers the next day were very good, and best of all, it’s a one-pot dish.

Sicilian Fish Stew

Ingredients

Serves 2

1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 anchovy
400g tin plum tomatoes
125ml white wine
400ml fish, chicken or vegetable stock
100g couscous (wholemeal if possible)
250g white fish fillets
Juice and zest of half a lemon
Pinch chilli flakes (or more to taste)
Black pepper

Directions

Warm a little olive oil in a large saucepan. Sweat the onion, garlic and chilli until soft.
Add in the tomatoes, anchovy, wine and chilli (I used about half a teaspoon). Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer the tomatoes for about 10-15 minutes until they break down.
Add the stock, fish and couscous. Cook gently for about 5-10 minutes until the fish is cooked through and the couscous is tender.
Squeeze in the lemon juice and decorate each helping with some lemon zest and a sprig of parsley (if, like me, you hate parsley, coriander goes well).

These quantities will make you a lovely loose, almost soup-like stew which you can eat with a spoon and mop up with bread. If you’d prefer something a bit thicker, you could leave out the stock, simmer the tomatoes for a bit longer and cook the couscous separately.

By the way, did you know that an incredibly delicious Mediterranean fish stew is currently served in the basement of Fallon & Byrne’s on Exchequer St in Dublin? It’s stupendously good and costs under €10. The last time we ate there, I told Peter not to touch my bowl of stew while I went to the bathroom. He assured me that he was too full to touch it, but then when I came back he was merrily tucking in. Fallon & Byrne is going into receivership because of unpaid tax, let’s hope they sort out their financial issues as they are a consistently good place to eat.

Healthy Eating: voices of sense

jean — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:00:15 +0000

Looking for sensible, unbiased, well-researched advice about eating is a tricky business. Food and nutrition are two of the most fad-ridden areas imaginable, and snake oil salesmen are everywhere. Quacks like Patrick Holford and Gillian McKeith are depressingly ubiquitous, but there are also writers out there who are operating from a more qualified and less dubious position.

Keeping in mind that no-one is right all the time, all these writers have their critics and there are many schools of thought – I’ve gathered together a short list of some of the writers that I’ve found to be quite sound on the subject, and I hope you’ll share your favourites too.

‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’ These famous words of advice came from Michael Pollan,a New York Times food journalist and activist. I’ve been looking through his website recently and there’s a wealth of interesting reading on healthy eating and food production. This piece where Pollan answers questions on food from readers of the New York Times contained some insights and tips that I found particularly interesting. Michael Pollan’s books are available online, and there’s a lot of articles archived at the site above.

Jeffrey Steingarten, who writes for American Vogue, is particularly interesting on the subject of food fads. His book The Man Who Ate Everything is a great read.
The weekly Skeptoid podcast casts a critical eye over various phenomena, including consumer frauds and bogus medicine. Its podcasts on the detoxification myth, basic principles of diet and digestion, organic food, raw food and much more are well worth a listen, or a read of the transcripts. Its author Brian Dunning is not just about attacking ‘alternative’ medicine (before anyone starts shouting at me); this podcast debunks the claims made by the movie Super Size Me.
The clever and dreamy Ben Goldacre of the Guardian is one of the best and best-known writers on pseudoscience and fads. His Saturday column in the Guardian is always eye-opening and his book Bad Science is an absolute pleasure to read. His website contains a free archive of his work – the nutritionist category is a good place to start.

Who are your favourite food writers? We’re looking for people who write about food culture and health rather than cookbooks – we’d love to hear your tips.

The rudest customers in the world

peter — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:57:15 +0000

Thumbs down to the incredibly rude table (Photo: sxc.hu)

A terrible person did a terrible thing in a lovely restaurant, and I want to know what our lovely readers think about it.

We’re in Runiccini, a gem of an Italian restaurant in Kilkenny (full review to follow). The service is impeccable and professional: white tablecloths, waiting staff in black and white uniforms. The restaurant is busy and buzzing.

Across from us, a large party are gathered for their post-Christmas office party. The mains are finished. And then, amidst the chatter, a noise brings an abrupt end to all conversation in the building.

Somebody actually whistled to get the attention of the waiting staff. Then, immediately after, another member of the same party shouts loudly: “Oi! Dessert menus here please.”

The waitress is as shocked as the rest of the dumbfounded restaurant. To her credit, she doesn’t refuse service and ask the entire party to leave, which would be a fair and measured response to this obnoxious behaviour. It would be slightly less heinous – although still very, very heinous – if the service had been anything less than attentive and wonderful.

Through gritted, professional teeth, with all the other customers watching in open-mouthed, silent shock, she calmly takes their orders. But the happy, chatty atmosphere of a minute ago is now gone; this is a different place now, and it takes a good ten minutes before people feel comfortable enough to talk again. All except, of course, the obnoxious table, who seem to be having a great evening altogether.

What do you think should have happened to this party? And what’s the most obnoxious behaviour you’ve ever seen from a customer in a restaurant?

Special offers in supermarkets, January 19

peter — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:14:52 +0000

Special offers at Aldi

Special offers at Lidl

Special offers at SuperValu

Special offers at Dunnes

Special offers at Superquinn

Special offers at Centra

Special offers at Londis

Special offers at Mace

Special offers at Spar

Special offers at Tesco

Review: Eastwood & Mays, Stephen St, Dublin

jean — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Rebecca Flynn, a friend and food lover, is the author of today’s guest post review, about a new cafe on Dublin’s Stephen Street.

Photo from the Eastwood and Mays website

Myself and my cousins had our inaugural cousins’ Christmas get-together this year. We wanted to make it special and had heard good things about Eastwood & Mays, a new cafe and deli on Stephen Street Upper.

Eleven of us arrived in, chilly and hungry, on a blustery December’s eve. We had arranged to order from their set Christmas menu, with a glass of Prosecco on arrival as part of the deal; a good start to any evening. We enjoyed our bubbly and mulled over the menu, one of our party was late to the table, but we never felt under pressure to place our order. We ordered a couple of bottles of the far too quaffable Le Maestrelle to start with, priced at €21, it was really reasonable.

The Christmas menu, while slightly limited, offered really good value. Most of our family of carnivores ordered the same thing, it would have been madness not to: at €30 a head, prawns to start and steaks for mains is a great deal.

The starter of Pan-Fried Prawns with Chilli, Shallot, Garlic, Parsley and Lemon was very tasty; luscious, piquant tiger prawns and a large slice of home-made brown bread to mop up the juices.

Our main course of Ribeye with Mash, Green Beans and Tarragon, Wholegrain Mustard and Garlic Butter was fantastic. How one chef (so we were informed) managed to cook ten perfect steaks to our individual specifications is beyond me. If he had come out to the table we would have given him a round of applause. The steak was really good quality meat and the butter was the perfect accompaniment. My cousins’ wife had the Butternut Squash Risotto Cake with Bellingham Blue Cheese, Pomegranate and Pumpkin Seed Vinaigrette and she was equally as delighted.

Despite being fed and watered to the point of bursting we all had desserts, included in the set menu price. Choices were Mint Chocolate Brownie and Vanilla Ice Cream or Rice Pudding and Poached Pears with Pistachio Biscotti. Both were tasty and unusual takes on everyday sweets.

We had a lovely evening, great food, wine, atmosphere and service. I would definitely recommend a visit to this lovely little spot.

So, a hearty endorsement from our buddy Rebecca. I see from the Eastwood & May’s website that they have a January offer – a ‘secret’ main course and a glass of wine for €12.95, which definitely sounds like it warrants further investigation by me and my mouth. Thanks Rebecca!