Scones...you wouldn't believe how simple they are!

I have always had a soft spot for scones, especially the ones my gran makes. I prefer them plain, and like them with either butter or jam and cream.
Up until very recently my enjoyment of scones has been limited to whenever my visiting my gran coincides with her having baked, but the last time I called in I decided to take the bull by the horns and do it myself!
It's so simple - I've made them twice and haven't messed up, and that's saying something!

What you need
1 lb self-raising flour
1/4 lb sugar
pinch of salt
level teaspoon or bit with of baking powder
1/4 lb marg
Milk

How to do it
Stir the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together in a big bowl. Rub in the marg (kind of sift it all through your fingers lightly, getting in as much air as possible). Add milk to make it into dough (a few dashes - you'll know yourself, you just need it to stick together). Knead (use a decent whack of flour), roll out (on a surface sprinkled with flour), then cut out into scones either with a knife or a scone cutter if you have one.
Bake on a flat tray sprinkled with flour for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees in a fan oven, then turn back to 160 degrees and bake for just over 5 minutes more.

Transfer scones to a wire cooling tray, and, em, enjoy!

Thank you

Thank you very much to Aoife's Friend Jill, for the barbecue sauce from the other side of the world. We'll try it soon, and add it to the growing chart of our demented obsession.

Quick things to learn to make posh food at home.

1) Butterflying meat/chicken breasts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot46Cueod4s

This isn't me, but that's how you do it. If you want to grill or bbq a chicken breast, this is the way to go. Other wise it won't cook evenly, and you'll end up with a disastrous grilled chicken sandwich.

2) Balancing food on top of other food. (presentation)

If you're cooking dinner for someone you want to sleep with, there is an easy way to make yourself appear to be a good cook. Balance the food up on top of itself. Plain white plates, food right in the centre, no sauce splatters. there's books and books of photographs of food. There's no need to spend too long reading up, it's just a question of making sure a) your food looks tidy and b) you've got a few different colours in there.

3) Making flowers out of food:
Tomato rose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AcwtD9MdCU

Radish rose:
(video with creepily big radishes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0O-tfKgwvg

And that orange thing you see in the butchers!
-Take an orange and a short, sharp knife. Stab the knife into the orange at the equator, at a 45 degree angle. Now do it again, and again, until you have a zig-zag line around the equator.

At this point, if you've been stabbing through to the centre, you should be able to pull the two halves of the orange apart. And you should be able to put one of these two halves in the middle of any huge bowl or platter of anything to make your dinner look like the 1970s. Extra bonus points for putting a glace cherry in the centre.


4) Add booze!

If you're making a sauce, throw in a glass of wine. If you're making chilli, throw in a shot of whiskey or tequila. If you're making a stew, throw in some beer. If you're doing stuff with pork, throw in some cider. Alcohol boils at around 80 degrees, so the alcohol is gone almost instantly, and you get delicious flavourful dinners!

Bread and jam

Nothing like it! Tastes nostalgic (brings you right back to the Ann and Barry days) and good! Use bread recipe posted earlier and bog standard jam. And a bit of butter. Delicious.

Radio

No recipe today, but...
Stay tuned for details of the Life of Miley Radio show - coming soon on Tallaght FM!

I have a few days off work at the moment, and this is doing wonders for examining the world of the daytime. Turns out there's more to the hours between 8 and 6 than computer screens and crumbs in my keyboard.

So time without much money, a slight cold (guinea pig flu)has not led to any new life of miley insight.
So i offer this...meal. I'm not calling it a recipe.

2 slices of toast
2 dessert spoons full of supermarket egg salad
that's it.


(for today's recipe - check out http://www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009/05/hasselback-potatoes.html) I haven't tried it, but it'll feature this weekend.

My newest favourite recipe

I've started to scribble a few easy yet scrumptious recipes down in my diary, so if for some reason a quick dinner is needed wherever I find myself I'll have some good options. All of the diary entries are dead easy to make, inexpensive and taste pretty good too.
My latest addition is risotto, and I'm in love with it! I made risotto for the first time in my life about two months ago, and now I'm almost an expert. The recipe I follow is infinitely easier than all of those other ones that require constant stirring and leave you with a mess as often as a delicious dinner. You can follow the recipe below (which serves four), but feel free to make a few changes and chuck in whatever's in the fridge either - I even made an Irish breakfast risotto recently!

You will need:
25g butter
an onion
150g chicken
200g risotto rice
a teaspoon of fennel seeds
900ml of chicken stock
75g frozen peas
juice and grated rink of about half a lemon
2 tablespoons of double cream (or maybe a little bit more)
50g or so of grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons of chopped mint
salt and pepper

To cook:
Boil the kettle and pre-heat the oven to about 200 degrees. Chuck the butter into a pan. Throw in the chopped onion and the chicken and fry for a couple of minutes. Make up the chicken stock. Add the risotto rice and fennel seeds to the pan of chicken, butter and onion and stir it all about for a minute or so. Add the stock and the peas.
Put that mixture into a casserole dish, put the lid on and cook it for about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it though - the goal is for the rice to be tender and all the liquid absorbed. When you get to that point you're almost there.
All that's left is to stir in the lemon juice and rind, cream and Parmesan, and add a bit of salt and pepper. Cover it up and leave it sitting for about two minutes, and stir in the mint just before serving. If you're watching what you're eating you might want to add only half of the Parmesan and put the rest on the table so more can be added if needed.

Let me know what other ingredients work for you in this risotto.

Enjoy!

Food Failure

Cooking is all about personal taste and experimentation. Keep trying, and fine tuning, and picking up tricks, and the food you cook will get better. You'll also save money by being happy to cobble together dinners out of seemingly nothing.

However.

Along the way, it's certain that you'll make one or two dishes that will threaten to put you off food for life. Here are some things I put together that would be perhaps best avoided.

Fried Cheese (made when I was 14)
I like cheese. I like fried things. It doesn't take a genius to stick a slice of cheddar ona hot pan, wait for it to turn into black oozing death, and then spoon it up.

Pasta Gaseous
To make Carbonara, mix pasta with raw egg, tiny bit of milk and parmesan.
Put in too much milk to early, and you'll cool down the pasta, and you won't cook the egg, and you'll end up with pasta and raw egg. I farted. A lot.

Underpants Stirfry
To give your stirfry the taste of sweaty underpants, drench in Nam Pla (Fish Sauce) and add some dry sherry. And some vinegar. You can sell this from Japanese vending machines, I hear.

Veal Shank Schnitzel
I used to work in a fairly dodgy restaurant - my Boss was big on cost cutting. He brought in some veal shanks for an attempt at fancy meals. Of course no one was eating veal shanks, so it sat in the walk-in for far longer then was strictly safe. Then, together (and I will take blame here) we stripped off the fatty meat, breaded it, pan fried it, tried some, and nearly vomited. (he still flogged one or two)

Egg and Cheese cake.
I was young. My mam asked me to make lunch for my brothers. I had visions of delicious cheesy omelettes - but thought I'd invent a new way. I took a pyrex pie dish. Filled it with grated cheddar cheese, pushed four holes in it, and broke eggs into the holes. Then I put it in the oven until i had a hard, greasy bright orange disk. yummy.

Duck for six.
The first time i cooked a whole duck, I took it out of the freezer - it looked the same size as a chicken I'd use to feed six people. Into the oven, and it evaporated into a giant puddle of fat. There was no hilarious taste experience, just a learning experience.

Barbecue, the continuing obsession

Honestly, there are some things i can do confidently and well. They are few and far between. I can play blackbird by the beatles on the guitar, i can navigate around MS excel like i'm in the olympics, and i can cook barbecue.

I learnt my trade from my dad, in the back garden, then from an early age, i sought more barbecue knowledge. I travelled the world, and spent some time in the darkest recesses of Queensland, plying my trade as a bbquer professionally. And now i returned to the rainiest country in the world, with the ability to cook summer food!



Ok, so, couple of quick caveats before we get onto the recipe:

1) This is for a gas barbecue. I'm fully aware that charcoal/wood/smokebox/etc bbqs offer a more authentic flavour, but let's please be realistic. We live in an apartment in Dublin. It's not a serious option. (also, the philosopy of this blog is 'good food, cheap')

2) I'm not going to tell you how to make bbq sauce. There's hundreds of recipes, and we've a list below of all the store-bought ones we've use.

BBQ Chicken Wings - Cheap, Cheerful, Awesome!

Buy your chicken wings from the butcher, they're the cheapest cut of chicken, so you'll get a good deal. (I paid 3 euro for 10 wings- makes 20 chicken pieces)

The wing will come in one piece, with 2 joints. Cut the wings at each joint, and throw away the wingtips. (If you're making stock, hang onto them, but i'll go into that another time)

Put the wings in a mixing bowl with a good dose of Olive oil, and salt and pepper. (You can throw other spices in at this point, but it's up to you - i normally add a tiny bit of cajun seasoning)

Mix them up until all the wings are oiled and seasoned. Put in oven at 160 degrees for 30-40 mins. At this point, they will be cooked through, and will be a light golden colour.

Take them out of the oven, and leave to cool for a little while. put them in the mixing bowl with a good dollop of bbq sauce. Again, mix around until they are nicely coated with the sauce.

Leave to marinate for as long as you have.

put these on the grill until the sauce on the outside browns, and blackens in spots.

You now have awesome bbq wings!

Safety Note
Cooking chicken on a barbecue is great, but you need to be conscious of the risks. Raw chicken can carry bacteria that causes food poisoning, so it is important that the raw chicken does not come into contact with anything that will be eaten uncooked.

Not too big a deal - use seperate plates for raw and cooked meat, wash all implements immediately after handling raw chicken, do make sure to wash your hands immediately after touching raw meat. It's obvious stuff.

Not the Wurst

Is anyone else a little frightened of Lidl? I don't understand the meat, and i'm mostly afraid to try the frozen food. (I once bought some frozen paella that tasted sort of like the food a german serial killer eats while stalking his victims)

The veg is excellent, and the brand name beer is grand. But i'm sort of frightened, because i mostly end up spending loads on mysterious, non-standard tools.

This dinner feeds a multitude for only a few euro. Brought to you by the side effects of the celtic Tiger (ie Lidl)

Chorizo Casserole!

1 Lidl Chorizo
2 Tins Tomatoes
1 Tin Kidney beans
1 Tin Chickpeas
1 Tin Sweetcorn
1 Onion
1 Clove Garlic (Optional)
1 Dessert Spoon of Tomato Puree
1 Splash Balsamic vinegar
1 splash of olive oil

Chop the onion finely, and slice/mash the garlic.
Heat the oil at the bottom of a big saucepan, and soften the onion and the garlic till the onion is translucent.
Pour in the tins of tomatoes.
Pour in 1/2 tin of water.

Rinse off and strain the sweetcorn, Beans and chickpeas, add to the pan.
Chop the Chorizo into 1/2 inch chunks, add to the pan.
Add the tomato Puree and the balsamic vinegar.
Bring to the boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour.

To thicken, either add a cornflour and water mix, or a clarified butter and flour.
Season to taste.

Optional Extras - add the following for different effects

-Splash of whiskey
-Add red wine to the onions and garlic
-Add paprika and cumin to the onions. (leave out the garlic)


Serve with Rice/bread.

Make your own....brown bread!

I was at home for a few days recently to make sure my dad and brother didn't fall asunder along with the house while my mam recuperated after a hip op. Normally a 'don't iron unless absolutely necessary' girl, I threw myself into the role with gusto and soon had a dishcloth ever at the ready and did a spot of hoovering what felt like every hour.

My mam for years has made brown bread every second day or so, and there is always some of the healthy brown stuff in the kitchen. Not wanting to fall short in any way, I undertook to do the same under her instructions. And it's remarkably easy!

Since then I've resolved to bake bread weekly as a healthy and cheap alternative to bought bread (although I still totally respect Andy's Brennan's sandwiches idea posted earlier).

Here's how:

Pre-heat a fan oven to 190 degrees. Using kitchen towel, grease two loaf tins with margarine and put them to one side. Put 550g of coarse wholemeal flour in a big mixing bowl. Add 350g plain flour to it. Put in a pinch of salt, and sieve in two teaspoons of bread soda. Mix that all up with a wooden spoon. Pour a generous layer of wheatgerm (you'll find it in the breakfast cereal aisle in the supermarket) over the top, and mix again. Make a hole in the middle and add 1.5l of buttermilk/soured milk. Mix like a good thing until it's all mixed together evenly then divide the mixture between the two loaf tins. Turn back the oven to 190 degrees and put the bread in on the middle shelf for 25 mins. After 25 mins have a gander at it, tap it, turn it around maybe, turn the oven back to about 160 degrees and put it back in for another 25 mins or so. Keep an eye on it all the while because fan ovens can differ and you might need to turn the oven down slightly.

When the time is up take out your bread and turn it out onto a waiting wire tray. Turn it the right way up, let it cool and there you go - cheap, healthy, tasty, recession-tastic brown bread!

BBQ Sauce - the obsession that won't die

I recently looked in the press and found 6 different bottles of BBQ sauce. I have less milk in the house. This points to the notion that I'm looking for something that might not be barbecue sauce, but anyway, here are the Various Sauces, and some notes.

Chef BBQ sauce:
Tastes of sugar, vinegar and mcDonalds. (speaking of, check this out! Recipes for all McDonalds meals!) We've had this bottle for years - i'm not sure I ever bought it, i'm pretty sure Aoif didn't. Also, the Chef on the Chef logo looks not look like a man you'd trust with your food preparation. (how big is his chin?!? And what is that? A beard or a leech? And would a leech fall off into your sauce? ...i'm a bit nauseous now.



Cattlemen's Award Winning, Classic Barbecue Sauce (World Champion)
A modestly-named solid all rounder, this sauce is what you should be thinking of when you think of barbecue sauce. Spicy and smokey, a great marinade for chicken breasts. And with a name like that, it could also double up as a gay nightclub.

Ainsley Harriott's BBQ TIME Sticky Ribz sweet and sticky rib sauce
A sticky sugar based sauce. Burns easily, although the charred goop left behind is quite nice. Aisnley's goonish grin looks out from the misspelt label here, so y'know, if you're barbecuing in a state of punching rage, be careful not to look at the bottle too long. Reading the ingredients reveals that there are three types of sugar and honey in the sauce.

Baron's Bar-B-Q Sauce.
Neatly subverting the BBQ/Barbecue axis, the Baron seems to have made a sauce entirely from untreated timber. yes, it tastes woody, and smokey, in the same way that licking the ground in a timber yard tastes woody and smokey.

Paul Newman's Chipotle sauce.
This sauce comes closest to what i'm after, spicy, sticky without burning too easily, no picture of Ainsley Harriott. The only problem? I haven't got enough left for a dinner, and i can't find any anywhere. If you see some, give me a call. (I used up the last lot in a drunken haze, making us some burgers.)

Also, in direct contrast to Chef or Ainsley Goonhead, Paul Newman looks more reassuring than a James Taylor Song. It's all going to be ok, Paul's going to help with the sauce.



Reggae Reggae sauce.
This sauce has a good kick, marinades chicken very well, but has the unfortunate side effect of tormenting poor Aoife, because i'm pathologically unable to use this sauce without singing Reggae Nights, by Jimmy Cliff. (my nomination for catchiest song of all time)

Enjoy here (Youtube):

Breakfast

I'm pretty sure there has been an awful lot written about the shift in the nature of breakfast along with the shift in irish culture.

Back when people were buying plasma TVs to insulate the attic, breakfast could quite respectably set you back five euro (Posh coffee for 3, pastry construction for 2)

Now, we're getting back to the reality of the situation - it's time to get a handle on the breakfast thing. There are, however, some aspects of posh breakfast i want to retain.

Coffee - i'm not talking about giant foam and cream monstrosities, but decent black coffee. Check out www.theotherblackstuff.ie for proper coffee analysis.

Breakfast rolls - They're a special treat, granted - but lately, they've dropped in price to ridiculous levels. Which does nothing but highlight the funny margins charged a few years ago.

Good Friday lunch

And so, to the Carmelites, Jesus said - On Good Friday, You're not to eat any meat. In fact, you're not to eat any meat on fridays up until the late '70s. Fish special on fridays.




I don't know a single observant person who doesn't go and organise to have the very best of fish on Good Friday. It's as irish as panic-buying drink on holy thursday.

Which comes to today's topic - what to eat for lunch on Good Friday. The rules are: You're not allowed any meat, and you're only allowed 1 meal and 2 collations. (i'm not sure of the semantic difference between a meal and a collation - but i think a collation can't be a dinner.)

Lunch, therefore poses a problem. It has to be small enough to be a collation, and can't involve any meat.


This year, we had wraps with lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, scallions, mayo, cheese, tortilla chips and bbq sauce. (we haven't been to the shops for a while, and this is what we had in the fridge.)

What are your thoughts on observant food?

Tea, love and drunkenness

So - one of the main legendary factors of irishness is being a bit...well...pissed. So, if you do happen to find yourself at the wrong end of a few pints, do the following:

1) Get in a taxi, fake conversation (yes, it is terrible that there's too many drivers, of course the Primera is a fantastic car, and definitely those lampposts are too far apart)

2) get home, stinking of beer and smoke, and try to kiss your non-stinking girlfriend.

3) (and remember this is the step that will take you to a happy state of cheap bliss) Listen to some James Taylor, eat a bit of chocolate, a big durty mug of tea and snuggle up with someone you love. (or just fancy, like)

Sandwich fillings #2 - Posh up your lunch!

So fair enough - a brennan's sandwich at night is lovely, but a the tastle of a buttery bit of cheddar and white at lunchtime is enough to catapult you back to school with the taste of Cadet Orange, the smell of wet jumpers. (and the tangy odour of that one kid who made puddles on the gym floor.)



To posh up your lunch, why not make fancy mayonnaise?
This is just mixing bog standard mayo with ingredients from the press. takes two minutes.

Cajun Mayo:
Use this on cooked chicken.
1 tsp of Cajun spice
3 Tsp of Mayo
blend together in a bowl with a fork.

Teriyaki Mayo:
Great with tinned salmon, or cooked chicken
1 tsp of teriyaki dressing
4 tsp of Mayo

Blend together in a bowl with a fork. ( the mayo will take about two minutes to fully blend - you should end up with a smooth mixture.)

Sweet Chilli Mayo:
Great with most things except beef.

1 tsp of sweet chilli sauce/dressing
3 tsp of Mayo

Blend together in a bowl - again, this will go lumpy before it goes smooth.

Sandwich fillings

I for one am fed up of rocket, pesto and oily bread. I'm not saying they're bad, I'm saying they have their place. That place may be Tuscany. It's time to start rediscovering the sandwich fillings we grew up with!

Again, these aren't going to win any awards - but they're for eating with a giant chipped mug of tea and an episode of Where in the world!
(Teresa Lowe, where are you and the Ryan Hotel group when we need you now!)

Anyone got any ideas on other fillings?

for Sandwich:
2 slices of Brennan's white. (or one folded in half)
Butter/Marge, depending on what you have in the fridge.

Ingredients:
- Crisps, a bit of cheddar and a chopped up scallion.
(cheese and onion and cheese and onion)
ham and a scallion
- Tomato, white pepper and lettuce
- a bit of black pudding, tiny splash of mayo and a bit of iceberg lettuce.

- Banana or
- Jam or
- Honey

Bring back Glenroe

As this blog has been given the title Life of Miley, I feel it is necessary at this early stage to set the wheels in motion for a campaign to bring Glenroe back to our tellys on a Sunday night.

Imagine yourself settling down with a cup of tea and a couple mikados, tuning in to count the number of times Miley says "well holy God", to find out who Dick Byrne's lates conquest is and to find out how Mary Ann and Denise made it through their teenage years without Biddy to kick them into touch.....

Coddle - the cheap Dublin Dinner

Coddle is a great meal for lots of people who want to eat for nothing. It's an old dublin meal, and while no one's making any claims that this is the best coddle recipe in the world (see various Avoca/Irish speciality cookbooks),this is a recipe you can stick on with no hassle.

Serves 4-6

1 pack of Sausages.
1 pack of rashers
3-4 big potatoes
3 carrots
1 onion
water

To cook this, you'll need a knife, a chopping board and a big pot.
A cooker's handy too.

Peel the potatoes, chop'em into 1cm thick slices
Peel the carrots, chop'em into 1 cm thick slices
Cut the rashers into 1cm wide strips
Cut the sausages into 2 cm chunks.

Throw everything into your big pot, and fill it up with water. Cook for at least an hour. (if you have a pressure cooker, you can do it in much shorter.)

Enjoy this before heading out to picket the docks, and listen to a speech by James Larkin.