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Lazy Chipotle Quesadillas

Thursday, 11 February 2016

This is one of my favourite lazy lunches at . When I'm busy in the shop and I don't want to distract myself from whatever I'm doing, this is my go to dish. It takes not time to make and I always have the two main ingredients in the fridge: tortillas and cheese.

Now, if I were to plan to make quesadillas, I would get proper cheese and make them a bit more complicated and complex. I would use corn tortillas instead of these mini wheat ones, I would add or some other sofisticated and delicious ingredient to the filling and I would NEVER use ready grated cheese, but for some reason or other, I never feel like planning to eat quesadillas! For me, they're a spur of the moment type of thing, a quick, uncomplicated breakfast or lunch, that it's both satisfying and warming. My mother makes complicated and delicious fillings, she makes a meal out of them... while I just want them now: simple and quick.

So once you have recovered from the shock of seeing supermarket, ready grated cheese in my fridge, the rest is quite simple and I must say, if you make this recipe with proper cheese, some really good quality cheddar or a great sheep's cheese, the results are far better, but again, this is something I keep in the fridge for exactly the type of days when all I want is a 10 minute lunch from start to finish. My choice is a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella cheeses as it recreates the flavour of the Mexican cheese I would most use for this. If you're stuck though and you only have cheddar, by all means, use it!

About 4 months ago, I started stocking Crushed Sweet Chipotles in the shop, they're not a traditional product in any shape or form, but they are delicious and although a product of modern times, I absolutely adore them and I keep a bottle in the fridge at all times. They're smokey, tasty, spicy and good with anything, I swear!

So here you have it, a very quick and lazy way to make quesadillas for those days when you don't have time for anything else. They're tasty and well worth the foodie stigma of having supermarket ready grated cheese in the fridge! - lol -

Chilli & Tequila Chocolate Torte

Thursday, 28 January 2016

This recipe was born pretty much out of sheer greediness and a tiny bit of research. I'm quite partial to a good chocolate torte and while devising a vegetarian menu for one of my , I experienced a deep craving for a chocolate torte with a Mexican twist. So I put my thinking cap on and within a couple of hours, the bones of this recipe where pretty much there. 

First thing I decided to do was to incorporate chilli to the torte as it goes really well with chocolate. Now, contrary to all those crazy chilli-chocolate recipes out there, I do not believe fiery hot Bird's Eye chilli flakes are the best way to go. Bird's Eye chilies contain a lot of heat, but in my opinion, are very one-dimensional in taste. I prefer something fruitier, deeper in flavour and much more mellow... Mexican dried Mulato or are perfect for the job as they're both sweet with very tame heat and with deep fruity tones that compliment dark chocolate to a T! I had dried Ancho Chillis handy and my favourite uses them too, so I settled for them.

Once I settled on the chilli, I turned my head to the source of moisture in the torte. If you read the blog regularly, you know I'm a big fan of cooking with both Tequila and Mezcal, so, I decided to go for a dash of Mexican Tequila to booze it all up a bit and add moisture to the torte. I know from experience that chocolate tortes can be quite rich and sweet, so to contrarest the sweetness I served the torte with some fresh berries and some cream; you can use raspberries or strawberries. For this recipe, I whipped some double cream with a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar and another dash of Tequila for good measure! 

The result was truly spectacular and with Valentine's Day fast approaching, this is really a great dessert for a romantic meal for two! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Potato & Chipotle Baked Tacos...

Thursday, 7 January 2016

The humble and yet gorgeous potato, Ireland's national vegetable, is without a doubt my favourite root vegetable. Mexicans have had a love affair with potatoes for a couple of centuries and potatoes feature in many Mexican dishes. So when the people behind the campaign asked me a few weeks back to take part on the campaign I was more than happy to come on board.

As many of you know, I adore potatoes; they're not only healthy and nutritious, but also delicious and super versatile. Potatoes are naturally fat-free, low in sugar, high in fibre and potassium and amazingly quick to cook. Like so perfectly puts it in her foreword to Lucy Madden's wonderful book  -isn't it great to find a food you love that loves you back?-

So I threw myself to the task with gusto. There are so many great Mexican dishes that showcase potatoes at their best, I particularly love or my mother's famous but being January and with all that blues after the Christmas excesses, I wanted something delicious, fast and low in fat that would suit my current clean eating buzz. When I think of potatoes, I think of street tacos immediately. No self-respecting taco stand in Mexico would ignore the deliciousness that potatoes bring to a warm corn tortilla. They're a match made in heaven. So I set to devise a healthy taco recipe that would use my favourite potatoes: .

These tacos are truly tasty and quite healthy. They're vegetarian friendly and if you want to make them vegan, just take out the dairy from it. If you have good tolerance for heat, make them a little spicier by adding 2 rather than 1 chipotle chili in adobo. Remember to always start by adding a little bit of chili at a time. You can always add more if you think it's not spicy enough, but you can never go back if you add to much chili from the beginning! My advice is, taste first, add more later!

Also, if you want to go the whole authentic hogs, make some simple red salsa from and top your tacos with it. It makes such a difference to make a salsa from scratch instead of using one from a bottle and it will only take you about 15 minutes to make! I hope you enjoy these amazing tacos as much as we did! 

To learn more about this awesome campaign and to help us highlight potatoes as the original superfood,  go to  for  ROI or for the UK, where you'll find gorgeous recipes, tips and loads of information about potatoes. Also follow the hashtags and on twitter and instagram, some great stuff there!

Salsa Tatemada...

Wednesday, 28 October 2015

Today I felt like going back to the keyboard and write something. Ever since , I've been feeling pretty down and uncharacteristically uninspired. Normally, my head is buzzing with ideas, yet for the last couple of months, it's been all slow and fuzzy... I've been doing just the bear minimum and coping the best way I can. A few weeks ago, I went back to the kitchen and forced myself to cook again. Cooking makes me happy and I was desperate for some joy.

I believe things happen for a reason and getting back into the kitchen coincided with an all-too-short-but-meaningful recipe testing internship our friend Emma Clarke, aka on twitter and instagram, did with me. I love Emma's wackiness and her no-nonsense approach. So Wednesdays were set aside to spend them in the shop with Emma, cooking and testing recipes. We always eat what we cooked, which made the day even better.

One of the first recipes we worked on was this Salsa Tatemada or charred salsa and I thought I'll share it here with you. Lovely Emma is now finished her spell with me and she's off to work in one of my favourite shops on the planet (Sheridan's Cheese Mongers), so keep an eye for the gorgeously chatty blond in there. You'll know is Emma when you talk to her, there's something about her witty ways that sets her apart from the crowd.

This a very classic charred salsa, commonly made in most homes in Mexico, where the majority of the population have gas stoves (electricity is quite expensive), so if you have an open flame stove, this salsa will be even better made on it by sticking the ingredients in a skewer and gently roast them on the open flame. My recipe here, requires to char them in a pan because I have to do with what I have, which is an electric hob.

Make sure you use a cast iron pan or skillet, as most other pans will burn badly. If you can't find fresh jalapenos, use any fresh chili you can find. We cannot be choosy with fresh ingredients like chilies in Ireland unfortunately, but we are getting better at sourcing the good stuff. Anyhow, this salsa keeps well in the fridge for about a week in a covered container. I hope you enjoy it as much as Emma and I did!

Coping...

Saturday, 26 September 2015

I know a lot about stress and coping and making the best of what hand is dealt to you.. I learned it at a very young age. When I was seven years old, I went through a very traumatic situation that miraculously only scared me in small ways. I don't talk about it and very few people beside my own family know it... and I'm fine with that. I don't want to remember it, I was immensely lucky and I survived it.

Six years ago, I went through a different and very personal situation, when once again, I had to dig deep and cope. I came out of it with a deep sadness but knowing how strong and resilient I could be. A couple of years later, I lost my dearest of friends to suicide. The pain of his loss was excruciating; I grieved and I missed him and I learned a lot about myself in the process. When I came the other side, I made changes in my life and, selfishly and stupidly, I thought that was it, I thought I had gotten my fair share of trauma...

Until the phone rang at 2:30 am a few days ago and I heard the crying voice of my sister letting me know that my brother Pepillo had passed away. The shock of that phone call will never wear off. My mother's cries in the background, the urging question I had to ask... was it a violent death?... these days Mexico fights a cruel drug war and sadly, violent robberies and kidnappings are at the order of the day. I breathed a sigh of relief when she said it was not. It took a few hours to find out that my barely 53 year old brother, the oldest and only boy in the family, had died of a massive heart attack. Pepillo never smoked, never drank, went to bed early and worked hard, he was never sick, had rarely been in hospital and was, generally speaking, a very healthy man.

The last two weeks have been hell. Nothing, and I stress this again, NOTHING, prepared me for that call. The shock, the pain, the helplessness, the guilt of not being there, the waves of sadness and anger and despite it all, having to function with some sort of normality, grieving at a distance is so tough. Being strong for those in the family who are crumbling under the pain. I hadn't seen my brother in four years, that's the last time I was home. The reasons might sound familiar to those of you who live far from your loved ones: too busy, can't leave work, too expensive, not enough time, somebody else is visiting and all holidays went to that. All valid and all useless when it came to the fact that I did not have a chance to hug my brother one last time while he was alive. That kills me... it eats away at my soul.

I wasn't sure I wanted to write this. I wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it. Where's the lesson to be learned? What's the moral of this story? Ask people to get heart checks regularly? Tell your family you love them every day as you don't know when you'll see them for the last time? All of these things sound so hopelessly corny! And then I realised that there is no need for a moral or a lesson, this is all just coping, venting, sharing the load, it's the way I chose to cope with grief... I will miss my brother, I will be sad for a long time, but I'll slowly come through to the other side with a hole in my heart but knowing he led a good and fulfilled life and he died being loved by many. May he rest in peace.

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