guinness group photo reflection

This being my 3rd visit to Belfast (and Dublin) these aren’t exactly ‘impressions’– more like ‘highlights’ — but I thought impressions sounded better for a title…

It also may seem as though all I have done during my time in Ireland is eat and drink, which is completely untrue. While eating and drinking, I’ve enjoyed having good craic with old friends Stuart and Julianne as well as newly-in-person-but-previously-on-facebook friend Sara. See, so it’s not just eating and drinking…

• Great brunch of chorizo, spinach and red pepper at The Yard in Holywood
• Yummy recipe (cooked by Stu) from Rachel Allen, Lamb tagine with lemon and pomegranate couscous
• Great day trip to Dublin complete with 
  • breakfast (delicious porridge) at Avoca
  • a tour of the National Gallery (featuring Fabritius’ The Goldfinch)
  • a pint of Guinness 
  • and finishing off the day with dinner at Wagamama 
• Sunday dinner at Stu’s parents…a delicious curry and lovely conversation with Derek and Lesley  
  

  Dinner with Derek and Lesley

• Perusing the latest on Stu and Julianne’s cookbook shelf: Rebar,  Cook with Jamie (Oliver), Rachel’s Favourite Food for Living by Rachel Allen
• lunch at Boojum–fantastic Mexican food–up to California and Mexico standards
• good coffee at Cafe Nero and ground cafe in Waterstones bookstore

Okay, so, we did do a lot of eating and drinking, but so much fun to do so while catching up with good friends!

I just found out about the site, Recipe Zaar. (Thanks to facebook friend Nathan Solla for the recommendation!) You can enter what ingredients you have on-hand, and it gives you a list of recipe options with those ingredients. I always seem to have stuff and wonder what is a creative or new recipe to make, so I’m pretty excited about this site.

Entering the ingredients “cauliflower, ginger” and selecting Main Dish and Curry, I ended up with Aloo Gobi last night for dinner. Yum. Definitely recommend it.

The other night I bragged on facebook about my delicious homemade veggie enchilladas. Since I made them up, here’s my attempt at a recipe:

Erin’s Veggie Enchilladas

The impetus for this recipe was the desire to use up some things I had in the fridge, mainly:
left over homemade salsa
fresh (from Mexico) corn tortillas that, due to their lack of preservatives, don’t keep well
left over zucchini vegetable salad
a batch of homegrown green beans
Probably, if I were starting from scratch, I would use a different sauce than the pureed homemade salsa, but it actually worked out quite nice. So, here you go:

El Pato Sauce

Homemade Salsa:
3 medium tomatoes (fresh from the garden or vine-ripened is better than store-ripened)
1 bunch of cilantro
1 red onion
1 can (7.75oz) of El Pato Jalapeno Sauce or similar
1 16 oz can of tomato sauce (or simply more chopped tomatoes)

Chop tomatoes. Chop onion. Cut up cilantro. Mix it all together. Add El Pato sauce slowly, to taste. If you need to make it more mild, add tomato sauce. Salsa is better after it sits (refrigerated) for a bit.

Zucchini Corn Salad:
1 Zucchini, sliced in thin strips
1-2 cups corn (frozen is fine, fresh is fresher)
1 red pepper, chopped to desired size
handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
A few basil leaves
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Slice the zucchini, put it in a bowl with some sea salt, cover it with a moist paper towel, and let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or two (or less, if you don’t have the time).  Take it out, rinse it, and dry it off.  Add chopped red pepper, defrosted corn, halved tomatoes and chopped basil. Add oil and vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, the enchilladas:
As I said, I had all the above already sitting in the fridge, which made this a quick and easy recipe.

Heat oven to about 350.

Puree salsa in a blender. It will still have texture, but be more soupy. Put it in a flat bowl. Heat frying pan. Put in corn tortillas. You can put them in oil to soften them, but I prefer to just sprinkle a bit of water on them, which softens. The point is that you want them to roll easily.

Once tortilla is warmed, take it out of pan, put it in pureed salsa mixture to coat both sides. Fill with zucchini salad mixture and roll, placing in a baking dish, seam side down. You might also want to put some grated cheese in with the veggies.

Repeat this for as many tortillas as you have. Ideally, they will fit snugly in your baking dish. Pour remaining salsa puree over the nestled tortillas. Cover with grated cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or long enough for cheese to melt.

Serve as is or topped with sour cream, cilantro, slided avocado and sliced tomato. Yum.