NO COOKING TODAY

Mr. Chops and I were in the mood for something bold but satisfying. So we went to Turkuaz, at 4 Cornmarket Row, Limerick city. Now I'm not a fan of doner kebabs, I'm not a fan of lamb but Mr. Chops says these are the best kebabs he has ever eaten. I spent 10 years or so listening to him going on about this place in Tralee being amazing; that was until a couple of months ago. A trip to Kerry Airport coincided with a trip to the Tralee kebabery place and poor auld Mr. Chops came home pretty much with his tail between his legs.

'Guess what?' He said to me, before even saying hello.
'Ya,' I said, 'what's up with you now?'
'Turkuaz is the best kebab I've ever had.' It seems the Tralee dream was finally over. He said it so sadly, it was like he'd found out about Santa.

But that was then and today we had Turkuaz. I had the Chicken Shish Kebab meal which comes with chargrilled chicken, usual salad, Turkish flat bread (not generic pitta), garlic sauce and hot chilli sauce; when I say hot I mean temperature hot as well as chilli hot. You also get chips which I have to say are probably some of the nicest chips in town. They are not too skinny but they are always freshly fried. The flat bread is cooked in house and if the blurb on the wall is anything to believe so are the meats and I believe they are. Mr. Chops says the doner meat is well...real meat!!!! I believe other kebab houses use those compressed lamb thingies that come off in long ribbons. What I can say is that the chicken is always juicy, has a lovely barbequed flavour and is completely delicious.

They serve the gamut of Turkish food. Kebabs, pides, lahmacuns (sp?), hummus, salads and pizzas. They even do various burgers. Personally, I'd stick to the kebabs. I had the Shepherd's salad one time and my God the feta in it was delicious. It was just a salad I know but there was loads of flat-leaf parsley in it and flat leaf is gorgeous with feta.

So yes, I can definitely recommend Turkuaz. Ignore the basic seating and the fact it does takeaway (which for some is a mark down), it is actually a little jewel in Limerick's culinary crown and the chicken shish kebab is actually really healthy so there!!!

Food hugs!

Stew again today. As I said Mr. Chops did the dindins yesterday and am I glad he did. I know its hardly the spirit of the blog to not cook but a girl is entitled to a couple of days off every now and then. Well maybe staying up watching the Emmys wasn't the best idea either. Mr. Chops is now very content with his nice feed and even Doggie Chops is chilling out. It was a flavour-filled mince stew. Homely and comforting to the last.

Mr. Chops fried off some mince, drained the excess fat off it, then added roughly chopped potatoes, carrots, onions, dried mixed herbs, a veg and a beef stock cube, Chef brown sauce, tomato sauce, lashings of salt & pepper and a enough water to just cover the meat. The mixture can be left to bubble quietly away on the hob for as long as you like and is better eaten the next day. Have it with a nice crusty roll or really fresh white sliced bread that's been generously buttered.

LUNCH TODAY

Monday has been a lazy day. I stayed up very very late watching the Emmys with a bottle of Rosé for company, therefore, a very late rise and a late lunch. I decided to take the lazy way out and just quickly fry up some Halloumi cheese sprinkled with chilli flakes. I toasted a large pitta bread from the freezer, cut up a plum tomato and a scallion and put the fried cheese on top. I gave it a couple of grinds of black pepper and I have to say as hangover cures go it was pretty good. Now if I could get Doggie Chops to stop barking at the neighbours dog it would be even better for my recovery. It doesn't look very appetising in the picture but appearances can be deceiving! Here's the pic:

MR. CHOPS MAKES DINNER

It was a super soccer Sunday yesterday and poor me, I had a little bit of a cold so Mr. Chops stepped up to the cooker and said he'd take the dinner in hand. Lovely it was too. He actually made today's dinner as well which is sitting in a big pot on the cooker but more of that later.

Anyway, he made great use of some chicken breasts! He wrapped them in back bacon rashers with lashings of pepper. With the roasted breasts, which took just under 40mins at 170C fan, he served roast potatoes (par-boiled roosters just basted in olive oil, salt & pepper just under an hour to cook), peas and green beans and gravy. Now we cheated with the gravy it was made with Bisto but what's wrong with that? We like Bisto ok! This is what our gorgeous dinner looked like:

MR CHOPS HAS A HANKERING FOR BACON

Most Saturday nights we tend to treat ourselves to a nice home cooked dinner, and last night was no exception...except for the fact we didn't want the whole hog (pardon the pun I'm sorry). Mr. Chops had great idea as earlier in the day I'd made brown bread so the idea was to incorporate the bread into the bacon dinner. Now when you say bacon in Ireland you don't mean strips of bacon or rashers as we call them. You mean a slab or loin of back bacon, unsmoked of course as Mr. Chops hates anything smoked. The local butcher was doing an offer so we availed.

Having grown up in the countryside it was impressed on me at a young age how to cook a piece of bacon. No matter that the butcher tells you its not salty it often is. If you can soak the bacon overnight in cold water, start this process early in the evening so you can change the water a couple of times before you go to bed. If you haven't time to do it overnight then a couple of changes of cold water over a few hours will be enough. Then comes the cooking process. I always add a roughly chopped carrot, bay leaf, a large onion cut into eights and a good sprinkling of black peppercorns. This is what I suppose you'd call a brine. Make sure it completely covers the meat. It looks like this:

Bring it very slowly to the boil and let it bubble gently for 20mins or so. Then carefully remove the bacon to a plate and empty the contents of the pan into a colander getting rid of the water. Put everything back into the pan and replace with hot water from the kettle just making sure again that the meat is fully covered. Again bring slowly to the boil and repeat the process of changing the water. During the last boil you can make up your mustard glaze. Oh did I not mention you finish off the cooking in the oven with a delicious mustard and honey glaze. Now its up to you but I use 3 different mustards with my honey, which should be clear and runny. Here they are:

I mix a couple of large teaspoons of each of wholegrain, English and Dijon mustard with a couple of teaspoons of clear honey. Give it a stir to bring it altogether. Its not precise, I tend to make more than I need but I always use it up on the bacon, the thicker the layer of mix the crustier it gets and yummy!!!

Preheat the oven to roughly 160C fan/170C. Probably the best tip I can give you is to double line your oven dish with tin foil, it saves on the washing up afterwards which is very important for a Saturday night. Once the bacon has bubbled for another 20mins take it out and let it dry slightly, you can also dab it all over with kitchen paper. Pierce the meat with a long skewer but try not to go all the way through you want the mustard mix to seep through and it also keeps the meat moist in the oven. Remove any excess fat and skin from the meat, sit it fat side down on the tray and lather it all over with the mustard mix. You want to smother it really. It should look like this:

Give it about 30-40mins in the oven, cover it with foil if you think its getting burned - honey does tend to caramelise. Once cooked either serve it with the usual suspects of boiled potatoes & cabbage or do what we did: fresh brown bread generously buttered, slices of large plum tomatoes and chopped scallions. Absolutely delish and very satisfying indeed!

What this blog is hopefully going to be about

Well Mr. Chops (the OH) and I have decided to change the way we eat and our choice of foods. We've been stuck in a rut food-wise. So now is the time to make a difference to our bellies and make some nice meals that aren't boring but are very satisfying. This all coincides with Mr. Chops starting a photography course, therefore, the pics of our dinners should be good, at least that's what I'm hoping!!!

The Photos

I promise the pics will get better once the new camera arrives from a certain internet based auction site ;)

Tonight's dinner

Well it was made last night by the Mr. Chops but the overnight resting did it nothing but favours. It was a delicious, heartwarming beef stew. It basically consisted of:


Stewing beef - Onions - Large chunks of carrots - Baby new potatoes - Couple of tsps Dried mixed herbs (Goodalls brand) - Couple tsps Dried parsley - Vegetable stock, to cover meat - Dashes of balsamic & Worcestershire sauce - Tomato sauce - Chef's brown sauce - Bay leaves - Salt & Pepper - Pinch of nutmeg

All cooked slowly for about 3 hours until the meat is breaking apart and the veg are lovely and soft.

We made proper gluttons of ourselves and had some stoneground brown bread with lashings of butter on top. I couldn't finish it all and I'm stuffed now so I'm only slowing making my way through some rosé.

First post

Long way to go before this is set up properly. Going to start keeping online diary of new recipes and foods tried as my other half and I are trying to change the way we eat. He's getting a high falootin camera soon so we'll be able to upload some cool pics of some hopefully delicious dinners, lunches, etc etc