Caitriona Redmond

Thrifty Tasty Bites

Category Archives: Recipes

20 Jan

Shakshuka – Baked Eggs

Week 2: Recipe 2

Make Once Eat Twice

To make this simple and delicious meal of shakshuka (baked eggs) you’ll need half of the sauce made yesterday for the taco fries. Although to be fair you could make this first, and the taco fries second if you wanted to! I use small baking dishes for everyone in the family so each person gets a dish with sauce and 1 egg. However, if you don’t have these you can bake this meal in a large ovenproof baking dish and dole out the individual portions once cooked. Ingredients (serves 5 people)

  • Half of the sauce recipe made yesterday
  • 5 eggs
  • Handful of fresh coriander
  • 1 large lime cut into wedges
  • Crusty bread or pitta bread

Method Preheat a fan oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Spoon the sauce into a large oven proof baking dish. Put the baking dish into the preheated oven for about 10-15 minutes (this allows the sauce to warm through). Using a large spoon make 5 pockets/dimples in the sauce and immediately crack an egg into each space. Cover the baking dish with a large saucepan lid or tinfoil. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Serve your shakshuka/baked eggs with torn coriander leaves on top, crusty bread for dunking into the sauce, and a wedge of lime on the side to give it an extra sour kick (this is my 7 year old’s favourite part). 4 recipes down, only 100 to go!!! Eek!

19 Jan

Taco Fries

Week 2: Recipe 1

Make Once Eat Twice

I know I’m a week behind, don’t worry that will be fixed over the coming months! Unfortunately the entire family came down with the flu this past week and everything had to go on hold while I dealt with that. This week’s recipe is based around a vegetable and bean stew which I use to make a taco fries dish on day one, and day two will follow tomorrow. Once again this is a low fat recipe making it slimmer friendly, it’s high in fibre and protein. Remember this sauce will do you for 2 full sized family meals (family of 5) and it’s like a hug in a bowl this one. The kids love it; when I asked them which dish I’d make this week from the list this was what they opted for. The 10 year old wanted a vegetarian meal that he loves and the 7 year old (who doesn’t like cheese) said he wanted it plant-based. The biggest challenge is always convincing my husband that he doesn’t need meat to complete a main meal and the great news is he doesn’t feel hard done by with the taco fries.

Ingredients (for the sauce)

  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 1 medium onion chopped
  • 2 peppers, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon each of salt, ground cumin, garlic powder, and paprika
  • 2 tablespoons tomato puree
  • 100g split yellow peas or red lentils (either is fine or a combination of both works too)
  • 3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 1 tin of chickpeas (including the water)
  • 1 carton of tomato passata
  • 1 teaspoon runny honey

For the Taco Fries

  • 1kg of baby potatoes
  • 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
  • 1 teaspoon each of paprika and onion salt (optional)
  • 2 scallions/spring onions chopped
  • 100g of grated cheddar cheese (optional)
  • 2 limes

Method Place a large saucepan (which has a sturdy lid) on a medium heat. Into the saucepan add the olive oil, onion, and peppers. Stir for about 3 minutes so that they start to soften. Next add the ground spices and the tomato puree. Stir so that the puree starts to cook in the heat and coat the peppers and onions. Pour in the split peas and stir well so that they are also coated in the sauce mixture. Stir for another 2-3 minutes and then add all the remaining ingredients. Stir one more time and wait until the sauce starts to simmer. Cover the saucepan and turn the heat to low. Cook the sauce on low for 90 mins. After 90 mins, turn your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Slice the baby potatoes into quarters. Toss the sliced baby potatoes in a large bowl with the sunflower oil and spices. Put the coated baby potatoes onto a non-stick oven tray and roast in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. To Serve Serve the cooked homemade potato wedges/fries, with spoonfuls of the sauce on top. Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese and chopped scallions on top of the sauce, finally add a wedge of lime on the side of the dish and enjoy while piping hot. Don’t forget you should keep half of your sauce for the second meal the following day! The cheddar cheese is optional, if you are making this a vegan dish then leave it out.

Notes on storage: As this dish doesn’t have any meat or dairy in it, the sauce will store in a sealed container in your fridge for up to 4 days. Alternatively, you can freeze the sauce for another time and it will keep in the deep freeze for up to 3 months once it’s stored correctly. I use glass containers to store sauces in the freezer if that helps.

06 Jan

Cottage Pie Leftovers Recipe

Week 1: Recipe 2

Make Once Eat Twice

Yesterday I made a braised beef with seasonal veg dish and using the leftovers I’ve now made a cottage pie.

I’ll keep it simple, because my recipes have to take little time in the kitchen. The only additional ingredients you will need are about 200g of frozen peas and sweetcorn, plus a small amount of grated cheese.

Shred the remaining beef from the previous meal and stir it into the leftover gravy.

Preheat your fan oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

Spoon the gravy and beef mixture into a large baking dish. Top with the frozen vegetables.

Spoon the leftover mashed potatoes on top of the vegetables and gravy mixture. Sprinkle grated cheese on top of the mashed potatoes.

Cook in the oven for 45 minutes, until all the food is warmed through and serve immediately.

If you want to, this meal is also perfect for freezing so once assembled, cover well and put straight into the freezer where it will keep for up to 1 month. Ensure it is completely defrosted before cooking in the oven.

05 Jan

Braised Beef With Seasonal Veg

Week 1: Recipe 1

Make Once Eat Twice

For the first in the recipe series I’ve gone back to a family favourite. Mam used to make this braised beef dish in a heavy casserole dish with a lid. The homely flavours come thanks to the veg that all comes from a local farm. It doesn’t get more Irish than this.

Ingredients
3 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
1kg housekeepers cut of beef (note remove any string or elastic before cooking)
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks
1/2 small turnip (or swede) peeled and chopped
1 litre of vegetable stock (use hot water and 1 vegetable stock cube)
1 heaped tablespoon cornflour

For Serving
Mashed potatoes (make enough for 2 meals)

Method
For the braised flavour you will need to sear the onions and the beef. So first grab your casserole dish, put it on a high heat and fry the onions in a teaspoon of vegetable oil until they turn brown/charred. Remove the onions from the dish and put them on a plate.

With the dish still on high, sear all sides of the beef so that it’s dark brown. Add the onions back to the dish, the rest of the vegetables, and then the stock. Cover the casserole dish and reduce the heat so that the stock is on a slow simmer. Cook for 3-4 hours. Note the stock should reach a maximum of halfway up the piece of beef, it should not be covered in the stock.

Adapted for the slow cooker: Fry the onions and then the beef in a frying pan before putting them into your slow cooker. Add the chopped vegetables, stock, put the lid on top and cook on high for 5-6 hours.

Before serving, remove the beef from the dish/slow cooker. Remember you have to keep half for your second dish tomorrow so it may be easier to cut it in half and cover now before serving dinner.

In a small cup mix 1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour with a splash of cold water until you get a loose paste. With the vegetables and the stock still on the heat, quickly stir this paste into the mixture. It should thicken the mixture to a gravy instantly. Once again, half of this mixture is to be reserved for your second meal.

Serve the beef with the vegetables in gravy with mash on the side. I’ve served ours with buttered cabbage as I got some fresh from the farm yesterday and I love the vibrant colours.

One of the main reasons why I love this recipe so much is because all of the vegetables used here are Irish and in season. It makes it very budget friendly for what is a very frugal time of the year.

Cover the leftover food and chill the food when it reaches room temperature. I’ll have the second recipe for you tomorrow!

23 Dec

Ham Soup With Dumplings

This ham soup with dumplings is a great one-pot meal. You could even freeze the cooking water from the ham on Christmas Day and reheat it to make the soup at a later date. Ham Soup With Dumplings - Wholesome Ireland - Food & Parenting Blog

Ham Soup With Dumplings

  • Servings: 5
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

  • 1 litre ham cooking liquid/stock
  • 1/2 turnip/swede, peeled and chopped into dice sized pieces
  • 4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into dice sized pieces
  • 100g of dried soup mix
  • 300g plain flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 spring onions/scallions finely chopped
  • 30g melted butter
  • 70ml cold water
  • 400g shredded, cooked ham

Method

Take a large, heavy bottomed saucepan with a firm lid. Pour in the stock, soup mix and chopped vegetables and bring to a simmer. Put the lid on and simmer for 20 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, scallions and melted butter. Then slowly pour in the cold water in quarters. Stir the mixture with a fork and stop adding water when you have a stiff dough.

Once the vegetables in the pot are cooked and tender, stir in the shredded ham. Shape the dough into small ping-pong sized balls. Sit them on top of the soup. Put the lid back on the pot and simmer for 15 minutes. Using a large spoon, gently turn the dough over and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

Serve in large soup bowls and eat with a spoon.

Ham Soup With Dumplings - Wholesome Ireland - Food & Parenting BlogNB: Soup mix is a dried mixture of pulses that you can buy in your supermarket. There are 2 types. One requires presoaking, I only buy the ready to use version! You’ll typically find a mixture of barley, wheat, lentils and small beans in the mixture.  Very handy for bulking up a soup or stew and adding fibre to your diet.

21 Dec

Make Ahead Cookies

Malted Milk CookiesThese malted milk treats have a beautiful fudgy flavour thanks to the malted milk powder that I use in the baking process. There are a couple of brand names if you’re looking to pick it up for yourself. The ones that are easiest to find in the supermarket are Ovaltine & Horlicks.

Allegedly, the malted milk that I like is used in a large Irish diner-style chain of restaurants for their malted milkshake.  Ever wanted to make one yourself at home?  Simply add a couple of tablespoons to some quality partially melted vanilla ice cream.

The first thing you could do with the malted milk is to include them in some food-themed gifts for Christmas.

That includes some fudge cookies in a jar inspired by The Pink Whisk:

Cookies in a jar

Also some malted hot chocolate inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe from an old show of his. Both gifts will go down splendidly well.

Malted Hot Chocolate

What will be a huge hit though have been my malted milk malteaser cookies.  As per usual with my cookies, the dough can be chilled in advance and baked within 3 days or frozen for up to a month before baking.  This recipe makes approximately 20 large cookies which are chewy in the middle and crunchy on the outside.

Malted Milk Cookies

make ahead cookies

  • Servings: 20
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

  • 90g Malted Milk Extract
  • 90g caster sugar
  • 85g butter at room temperature
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1 packet Malteasers (malt balls covered in chocolate)

Method

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celcius and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof baking paper.

Cream the milk extract, caster sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Beat in the 2 eggs until fully combined then add the flour and baking powder and mix again. Finally crush the malteasers in your hands before stirring them into the cookie dough.

Using a dessert spoon, spoon the mixture directly onto the tray, leaving a lot of space between each cookie.  I normally bake only 4 on each tray so you will need to rotate your trays, however it’s rare you’d bake the whole batch all at once. That is, unless your step-daughter decides to stick her fingers in each of the cookies on one tray as soon as they come out of the oven.  Ahem.

Bake in the oven for between 9-12 minutes.  As soon as they start to turn golden brown, remove the trays and leave the cookies on the baking paper for 10 minutes before gently moving with a spatula to a cooling rack.  The cookies will keep for up to 7 days in a sealed container kept in a cool, dry location but honestly I’d refrigerate or freeze your dough and bake these cookies fresh.

20 Dec

Braised Brussels Sprouts with Garlic and Chilli

It’s the season to love your brassicas.  No it’s not a dirty word, it’s a family of vegetables.  Included in these are the brussels sprout and this is what I did with some this week.

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18 Dec

Braised Red Cabbage

Most Sundays there is a market that himself likes to visit. It’s not too far from home, as the kids would say it’s “a spin”. Normally he rambles around with the kids and sometimes picks me up bits for photographs and at the end of his stroll he always drops by the vegetable stall. Most of their vegetables are either grown in the next county or sourced fairly locally and they are cheap.

Day 18 of my Christmas with Caitríona series is a classic Christmas recipe!

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17 Dec

The Big Christmas Food Shop

If, like me, you’ve got that slightly rising panicked feeling about Christmas Dinner and what the last shop before Christmas Day will cost, stop now and have a little read of Day 17 of my Christmas With Caitríona series.

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14 Dec

Flavoured Salt

This is a great recipe to use up your leftover meat from the Christmas dinner. This is a tray bake that can be lifted from plain and simple eating (not a bad thing after Christmas excess) to a meal with a zing from some flavoured salt.Flavoured Salt - Wholesome Ireland - Food & Parenting Blog Read More →

12 Dec

Simple Handscrub & Lotion Bars

Simple-Homemade-Cosmetics-2.jpgSimple Handscrub

This is the kind of gift that a small child can make, and actually they’d probably love the feeling of squishing the oil and other ingredients together. We used organic ingredients because we’d rather use them where we have the option. Read More →

11 Dec

Chocolate Biscuit Christmas Pudding

Not everybody is a fan of desserts with dried fruits in them.  However, I really love the appearance of a Christmas pudding. So we get around this by making a chocolate biscuit Christmas pudding cake. I like to lace mine with crunchy malteasers but you can add in any chocolates, sweets or nuts that you like!

As this recipe has no baking to be done I think it’s a brilliant one to make with children with little supervision. Once again I have a video to go along with the recipe on YouTube!

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