You have to like the internet, I was looking for a pork chop recipe that used sage and, surfing the web, I found this:

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops, weighing 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) in all
• 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste, diluted in 1/3 cup water
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• A bunch of fresh sage, washed and patted dry
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

I was thinking the other day that I haven't made a vegetable soup in a while, I found this recipe while surfing food blogs.



Roasted Vegetable Soup:

Serves 4 to 6

1 head cauliflower, broken off into small chunks
4 small-medium turnips, quartered (don't worry about peeling them)
4 cloves of garlic, smashed with the back of your knife
4 baby onion (or 1 small onion), sliced lenghtwise
2 small potatoes (mine were the size of a clementine)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 cups - 1 cup water (or chicken or veggie stock)

Garnishes: flavored sea salts, herbs, croutons, drizzle of oil (almond, avocado, pumpkin - your preference).

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place all the vegetables on a baking sheet or in a pan in one single layer and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast until golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.
Add about 1/2 cup water or stock and puree in a blender or with an immersion blender. Check if the consistency and seasoning are to your liking and adjust accordingly.
Serve with croutons and garnishes of your choice.

http://www.mytartelette.com/2010/01/recipe-roasted-vegetable-soup-with.html


Neven Maguire has a recipe for vegetable soup in his book that I might make instead, I think it includes barley. I've become quite a fan of Neven Maguire, I made his polenta, mackerel and tomato stew today, and from the same book I've made his sweet potato and chickpea curry and chicken korma. I'm going to make his huevos rancheros recipe again in the next few days. He also does a great full Mexican beef fajita recipe as well, or group of recipes, with guacamole, salsa and fried beef. Which reminds me, I have a kilo of flank steak in the freezer, that's traditionally used for Mexican beef fajitas. I'm a bit of a sirloin convert though. Mexican food is something I'd like to made but haven't had the chance as the aul lad is a bit of a fussy cunt. I might buy a decent chicken next week and have the old roast chicken and roast potatoes with it. I also want to make Eve's Pudding, which is basically an apple sponge, but I keep on forgetting to buy the lemon.

This week I'm cooking bangers and mash, chicken tikka masala and naan bread, steak and potato gratin and beef stew. Yum yum. I should use twitter for these vital announcements. Well, vital to me, I like good food.

I have since changed this to chicken korma and flank steak with sauteed potatoes.

I have since changed this again to fried mackerel, polenta and tomato stew, and huevos rancheros, both Neven Maguire receipes, providing a vegetarian break before stew. The curry is a good 'un, korma is fairly mild with all the cream, the next time I'll use more chili. The tomato 'stew' cooks for five minutes so it's hardly a stew, it occured to me today that battered and paned chicken fillets and sauteed potatoes would go well with this, which is tomatoes simmered with red wine vinegar, sugar and something else for five minutes, again from Neven Maguire. Paneing is a technique whereby chicken breast or pork medallions (sliced fillet) are seasoned and coated in flour, egg and breadcrumbs. It speeds things up to cover the meat with clingfilm and whack it with a rolling pin a few times beforehand. It's good to know as it's used everywhere - this, with veal I think, is wienerschintzel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_schnitzel

To him whose heart is hallowed, to him whose heart is luminous and radiant, to him is the beatitude of the Vision Divine.

Valentinus (2nd Century e.v.)

This is my favourite poem (or part of a poem) by Czeslaw Milosz. Daimonion can be taken to mean muse. This is the third part.

Two five-year-old boys before the poster of a nightclub,
On which a buoyant girl adjusts her garter,
Say something to each other or just stare
At the saurian whiteness of the thigh.

Daimonion, remembering my childhood fears
On this earth of the adults, I grasped who you are.

In their night of distant shooting, fires on the horizons,
Coarse laughter, grapplings, harsh breathing,
The heart of a child is troubled. And you, a wanderer,
Your pity is so strong that you avert your face.

You are a friend of the innocent and the defenseless
Who long for the Kingdom, as was that rich young man,
So pure that he blushed hearing a lewd word,
And really suffered from it, and probably for that reason
After his short life, they raised him on the altars. *

*St. Stanislaus Kostka


From the same collection, Facing the River, published when Milosz was in his eighties.


Retired

An old man, tapping with his cane, aware of his silence.

Which fills every corner of his body with a dense, burning lava.

And confirms the trustworthiness of the words of Jesus about a worm that does not die and fire that never goes out.

Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, he sits down in a wicker armchair on the porch of his house.

Voices of birds from the garden are for everyone, he muses, they do not care about me, neither do they know.

And I, instead of screaming and beating my head against the floor, admire the cloudless sky.

Soon that tale, never started, will pass away and I with it.

A cat sleeps in the sun, the world continues and does not need the signs of testimony.

For nothing would have resulted from them, except the realisation that we are poor humans.

Guardians of prison trains, then prisoners ourselves, the torturers and the tortured.

Only I do not understand why I should constantly remember those things.

And accuse myself of events stronger than myself.

Longing for the thunderbolt of a stroke to liberate me from images of this earth.

An old man, serene, liked by his neighbours - he greets passersby, and envies them their innocence.

That is what they have, he muses, if they have not been submitted to a test.



When Joseph Brodsky lectured in English literature he would insist his students learn a number of poems by rote. Not a bad principle.

When I make steaks I like to top them with reduced red wine, this has butter as well, probably my two favourite ingredients. If they could throw some brandy in I'd be laughing.

From http://www.underthehighchair.com/2009/08/beef-chronicles-rib-steak-with-beurre.html

Beurre Rouge or Red-Wine Butter
adapted from Les Halles Cookbook

This recipe makes a lot--enough to top a dozen or so steaks--but it can keep for a while if it is well-wrapped in the freezer. It's nice to have something like this garnish a good steak, because, as Tony Bourdain puts it, you never know when your deadbeat friends are going to drop by demanding a meal.

1/2 cup red wine
1 shallot, finely chopped
8 oz butter, softened
1 handful of flat parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper

In a small pot combine the wine and shallot and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the wine has almost completely evaporated, taking care not to let the shallots burn. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and let cool.
In the bowl of a mixer with the paddle attachment, combine butter, shallot-wine mixture, the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Scrap out of the bowl with a rubber spatula and place in the center of a large piece of plastic wrap. Gently form into a 1-inch diameter log, shaping and squeezing, like rolling a nori roll. Twist the ends of the plastic wrap tightly and refrigerated until the butter is firm enough to slice.
Serve over grilled steaks.


I might make this next week instead of the normal stew:

http://italianfood.about.com/od/beefvealstews/r/blr0246.htm

I'll probably use a ham hock instead of a pig's foot (that's a sentence I'm sure I've never typed before).

Actually I'll probably just make a stew, if it ain't broken...

I'm making a lamb and haricot bean stew tomorrow, taken from a Rick Stein recipe. The herbs used are parsley and thyme, both good strong herbs. If you make your own stuffing you'll appreciate the combination. The parsley actually goes into the stew at the end, chopped up with garlic, it's called a persillade apparently. Them French, words for everything, they're mad they are, all them words and all.

I'm always looking for new potato recipes - we Irish see it as our duty to eat potatoes, and dinner isn't dinner without them - and this is a good one, and very simple.

http://frenchfood.about.com/od/sidedishes/r/chateaupotatoes.htm

I've pretty much mastered basic sauteed potatoes. The improved version adds garlic and rosemary, which I could obviously do as well.

Chateau potatoes brings to mind imaginary skiing trips (the only skiing I've done is to and from the dole office). This reminds me of something Russell Brand said in his stage show about his thinking of travelling, then he realises that he'll still be himself at the end of the trip. This doesn't apply to Amsterdam obviously (no, don't want to fall of the wagon!) The thing about doobie is that if I did smoke some I know that within seconds I would be back in the same comfortable niche I occupied for years - staring at my computer for hours, loading bongs and one-hitters all night. Still, at least it's not coke. Couch philosophy for me all the way. Not that it matters, those leisurely days are well over. A life of action for me (comparitively). On the subject I'm getting a craving to go climbing again, I blame the swimming. This is also the reason people with mental health problems shouldn't smoke - dope 'internalises' a person, and if someone is mentally ill, or has a tendency towards mental illness they're too much 'in themselves' already. Addiction is a fascinating subject (years ago a girl I knew bought some cocaine, in the dealer's living room she got chatting to another client, a drug counsellor who worked in Mountjoy prison, the counsellor told her 'the purer the drug, the less the comedown', hah). Very few soldiers who came back to America after smoking heroin in Vietnam during the war continued their habit on home soil - environment is a huge part of addiction, as significant, or more so, than the drug itself. Without waxing philosophical, I am not only a part of what I see, but what I see and experience is also a part of me. Luckily dope isn't physically addictive, like, say, cigarettes.

Apple are unveiling a new product next Wednesday and while most bets are on it being a very expensive ($1000!) reader like the Amazon Kindle, no-one knows for sure. Wicked cool.

From http://www.u2station.com/news/archives/2007/07/my_misadventure.php

Yanks.

July 29, 2007

Edge's House

My Misadventures in Ireland: Edge's House

by Brenda Clemons, U2 Station Staff Writer

Bono's security guard told us where Edge lived. The throbbing in my head made the up hill walk long and torturous. We stopped long enough to watch the sun rise over the Irish Sea. The changing hues of pink and purple only added to the vision of the dolphins playing; the purple hues of the sky being reflected off the splashes the dolphins made while jumping and singing.

When we arrived at the house that was supposed to be the home of Edge; I immediately thought that we had been on the receiving end of a practical joke. There was nothing about this place that looked like it belonged to a world famous rock star. There were no gates, no security systems, I didn't see any guards. In fact, the property looked very ordinary as if it belonged to the average family. The house would not have stood out at all if it weren't for the color--pink. Yes, dear U2 fans, The Edge lives in a pink house.

Bridget immediately went about inspecting the property. She walked around and found a few things that would seem ordinary if this were an ordinary house -- but it wasn't an ordinary house. This was the house that was supposed to belong to a legendary guitarist, therefore, a toilet sitting in the backyard was a remarkable object of interest. "Look", she exclaimed, "it's The Edge's toilet! He has a toilet sitting in his back yard." I am not as impressed as Bridget and I simply shrug my shoulders and say, "So? He is probably having his bathroom renovated."

Take a look at the menu at Marco Pierre White's steakhouse on Dawson st. It's very simple and transparent. A ten-ounce ribeye with bordelaise butter and a green salad is around €30, with dessert, wine and a tip you're talking around €50 per person, which is good considering where you are and the quality of the food, which would be right at the top. Bordelaise sauce is mushrooms fried in butter with tarragon, lemon juice, beef stock and other things. The key here is the beef stock, which in restaurant generally simmers in a huge vat for twelve hours or so, and includes beef ribs, shins etc. It's then frozen in smaller quantities and  used for sauces. I think I'll stick with my ten-ounce sirloin and potato gratin for home. In comparison I can't believe the restaurant's meat would be any better (although it would be cut to around 3/4 inch and possibly hung for another week), the method of cooking the steak is the same, no great secrets there. I like to have steak once a week, it's a bit of a luxury but since 600 grams costs around a tenner it's worth it. In the steakhouse the three cuts are fillet, ribeye and t-bone. Fillet is tender but ribeye and t-bone are both cooked on the bone, perhaps the ribeye bone is removed after cooking, so you get a deeper flavour. Some chefs prefer sirloin as the thin layers of fat add flavour to the meat. Most aren't fond of fillet, it's too lean and a bit flavourless in comparison to the other cuts, but people like the way the knife glides through I suppose. Sniff.

http://marcopierrewhite.ie/Menus.aspx

A sixteen-ounce t-bone, that's fucking enormous. Even I would baulk at that much steak. The weight would include the bone as well I suppose.

Also steak can stay in the fridge for up to a week. I haven't had curry for a good while, I got a recipe from a Neven Maguire book for a sweet potato and chickpea curry, which I know is vegetarian but I like to abstain from meat once a week or so (I find an all-meat diet can be a bit heavy after a while) after which I'll made the aul steak. I must check the rice to see if it's still in date.

I think I might be allergic to seafood, so far it's been prawns, mussels and possibly oysters. The problem is that I like to eat, and if you like to eat you have to either do it low-fat (eurghh...) or cook for yourself and exercise moderately. This is the way it is on a budget anyway. To get back on subject, you tend to hope you had a dodgy prawn or mussel. I'd like to make this to test the smelly waters.

Seafood chowder


A bowl of soup must be one of the most welcoming foods known to man.


This seafood chowder always goes down well but particularly when it is bitterly cold outside. It is just so rich and tasty with the most wonderful infusion of shellfish, fresh and smoked fish. The secret of this soup is not to over cook the fish, so bare in mind that everything continues to cook even after it is taken off the heat.


Ingredients


. 25 g/1 oz butter
. 1 small onion, diced
. 1 leek, trimmed and diced
. 1 small carrot, diced
. 1 potato, cubed
. 50 g/2 oz smoked salmon slices, cut into julienne (long thin strips)
. 120 ml/4 fl oz dry white wine
. 450 ml/3/4 pint tarragon scented fish stock (see recipe page 00) or water
. 225 g/8 oz mixed fresh fish fillets, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces (such as cod, haddock, hake and salmon)
. 175 g/6 oz raw Dublin Bay prawns and mussels, scrubbed clean
. 1 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
. 175 ml/6fl oz cream
. salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method:
1. Heat a large pan over a medium heat. Add the butter and once it is foaming, tip in the onion, leek, carrot, potato and smoked salmon. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until softened.
2. Pour the wine into the pan and allow to bubble down and reduce by half. Add the fish stock or water and bring to a simmer, then add the fresh fish and shellfish.
3. Return the pan to a simmer and add the parsley and cream, then season to taste.

4. Cover with a lid and simmer gently for another 2-3 minutes until the fish and prawns are tender and all of the mussels have opened, discard any that do not.


To Serve


Ladle the chowder into warmed serving bowls, piling plenty of the fish and shellfish into the centre of each one.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/theafternoonshow/2010/0111/warmingwintersoupswithkevindundon839.html

The Irish broth in this link  is good as well, in the video he simmers it for over an hour at very low heat. Still, it can't be as good as Tuscan Bean Soup, the greatest soup on the planet and a dinner with sourdough bread.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/caitlin_moran/article6981148.ece

I liked the Jonathan Ross Show, and Film 200-, what a pity. I wonder what sheep will do his job in future, actually I'd imagine it'll be Graham Norton, moved from his Monday night to Friday night. Film 2010 is demised as well I'd imagine. A pity overall.

I'm listening to Queen, mainly because I like Brian May's guitar sound. It turns out I'm not the only one, May built his guitar in the early sixties, and wikipedia says about the guitar tone:

Tone

* Perhaps the most novel feature of May's guitar (and the one that is most difficult to ascribe to a particular technical specification) is its very singular tone. Many theories abound as to what particular aspect of the guitar (or the setup of effects and amplifiers used to convey the sound) contributes this tone, but no guitar before sounded quite like it, and efforts to replicate the tone in latter setups can only come close. It is near-impossible to describe, but is so singular that it is easily-identified.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Special

The solo in 'Killer Queen' is a great example of this.

House prices set for further fall

Irish house prices may fall for a fourth year in 2010 as the recession persists, a survey of economists said.

Home prices will shrink 9 per cent, according to the median of six estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices have already fallen 27 per cent from their peak in early 2007, based on a monthly index by Irish Life and Permanent.

"The economy is contracting, there's still housing oversupply there," said Dermot O'Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers.

"It's hard to say we've reached a floor."

Ireland's economy shrank about 7.5 per cent last year, almost twice the euro-region average. Gross domestic product may shrink 0.8 per cent in 2010, marking a third annual contraction, the survey showed.

The survey indicated that unemployment could rise further, from 11.8 per cent in 2009 to 13 per cent this year.

"It's going to be a tough one," Mark Bourke, chief executive officer of Dublin-based IFG Group Plc, said in Dublin yesterday. "There's very little to indicate there will be a major recovery."

In addition to the economic slump, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan is facing a widening budget deficit and is cutting the wages of government workers and welfare payments.

The actions won't be enough to reduce the gap this year, according to the survey. Economists see the deficit averaging 11.6 per cent of GDP in 2010, little changed from 2009's 11.7 per cent.

There may be some pick-up in economic growth the second half of this year, in tandem with a continuing recovery in overseas demand, economists said, echoing forecasts from the Government. The global economy is gathering strength after central banks around the world trimmed borrowing costs close to zero and injected billions of dollars in stimulus measures.

Confidence in the world economy held near a record high in December and the MSCI World Index has surged 71 per cent since reaching a 2009 low on March 9th. The benchmark Iseq index has gained 60 per cent in the same period.

"Export growth is likely to return in a significant way in 2010," said Rossa White, chief economist at Dublin-based stockbroker Davy. "Second, consumer spending will bottom early in the year and expand slightly as the year progresses."

In a note on economic predictions for 2010, the stockbroker today forecast GNP growth of 0.3 per cent for 2010, and said the economy would pull out of recession in the first half.

Consumer spending is also expected to rise as unemployment peaks and the fiscal position improves, the broker said, while disposable incomes should start to grow in the second half of the year, boosting consumption.

Bloomberg

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0105/breaking33.html?via=mr

I've made potato chips by colouring them in a pan and then baking in the oven, but obviously they tend to shrink in the oven and turn a bit hard, although they're still better than average, so here is a sauteed potato that shouldn't shrink. And if they're still a bit solid, stick them in the oven for a few minutes.

http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/cookalong-live/cookalong-live-the-series/week-4/how-to-make-sauteed-potatoes_p_1.html

Or you could do it this way... I feel kind of small...
http://www.lookandtaste.com/everything-else/Sauteed-Potatoes/317/

This is a good technique to learn - if all you have is a bag of baby potatoes, a few eggs and some chili flakes in the kitchen you have scrambled eggs and sauteed potatoes for dinner, which I will probably be making tomorrow, as I have nothing else in the house. Plan A was to go down to the chippers, the Fairview Grill make decent chips.

It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens,
Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens...

There seems to be a bit of a division between those who like risotto al dente or beyond that, when I cook risotto I cook it to al dente, add the extra ingredients - frozen peas, chicken, cooked mushrooms and so on - then some more stock to reheat them, and season to taste; by this time the risotto is slightly past al dente but still has bite. You don't want risotto to taste like spaghetti cooked for ten minutes.

I've been listening to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony lately, and less for the famous second movement than for the third, and the melody which has sustained trumpet(?) while the other musicians play. Genius. It reminds me a bit of Wagner's Tannhauser overture, especially the last three minutes, best played LOUD!

I was looking at the library catalogue to borrow 'The Land of Green Plums' by Herta Muller, but all the copies are out. She won the Nobel Prize for literature this year, so everyone must be running to the library to borrow her books. Bunch of sheep, jumping on the trendy bandwagon.

I made what to me are perfect roasties this evening: roasted in duck fat with a few cloves of garlic, still in the skin, and chopped rosemary thrown in around forty minutes from the end.