Carrot and Coriander Soup

This soup is one my ultimate comfort foods. I grew up on this soup in England and was heartbroken to discover that no one has heard of it in America! Coriander = cilantro, and for whatever reason, this gorgeous soup never took off stateside. Don’t let cilantro put you off, this soup is a must try.

*Warning: this isn’t super broke student friendly, it requires either a food processor or an immersion blender. If you’re interested in foraying into the world of making cheaper and healthier meals for yourself though, something like a food processor can be a really good investment.

Ingredients:

1 glug of oil

450 g of carrots

1 potato

1 onion

1 tsp cilantro/coriander

1.2L broth (chicken or veg)

Directions:

1. Chop up the onion into small pieces, and try not to weep.

2. Toss the onions into a big pan simmering with some oil, and let them fry for 5 minutes, or until they start to soften

3. Wash and chop up your potato and carrots. If you bought big carrots, you should probably peel them, but I bought a bag of mini carrots and I was not dealing with that shit, so I left them. They were probably already skinned and processed, lets be real.

4. Throw the potato and coriander in with the onion.

5. Add chicken broth, carrots, and bring to boil.

6. Once it’s started boiling turn down the heat just a little, and let it cook covered (I like to tilt the top so it doesn’t bubble over) in that mildly bubbly phase for about 20 minutes. The way to tell when they’re done is to take out a carrot, let it cool a little and bite into it. If there’s no crunch, it’s ready.

7. Now for the fun part. If you have a food processor, just chuck it all in and whizz it in pulses until it’s essentially mush. With an immersion blender, maybe let it cool a little but leave it in the pot and just whizz right in there. My blender is kinda cranky so it took some time, but I could’ve stopped a while before and just left some chunks of carrots. Not a big deal really. Just make sure it’s soup-like and you’re good to go. Maybe add salt and pepper to taste if you’re like my roommate and like flavoring things.

This makes at least 4 solid servings. You could probably stretch it out more than we did, but it’s been cold as fuck here and it didn’t seem like the time to skimp on our soup servings.

I’d just like to reiterate how much I fucking love this soup. I grew up on it, and this recipe did not disappoint. Those were some high standards too, let me tell you. I honestly hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Fall Flavored Breakfast

Disclaimer: Fall is my all time favorite season. Chapel Hill is truly stunning this time of year- it just doesn’t get better than bright clear blue skies above you and every color imaginable in the trees around you. We have so many trees here it’s like an explosion of color when they change. Right now it’s still mostly greens but I’m seeing some yellows and getting excited!

Anywayyys, my flat mate is a pretty big fan of fall and all its accompanying benefits, like fall flavored food! The pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks and now at every other place that serves coffee. I have discovered the caramel apple spice drink at Starbucks which, for the record, is apple pie in a cup. We have a large tin of pumpkin spice tea in our apartment. A couple of weeks ago we had a large amount of pumpkin bread in the apartment. I’d been looking up recipes for other fall themed food, and it was all either desserts involving pumpkin or large dinners.

Well, yesterday I was having my daily struggle to NOT go buy biscuits for breakfast, when my flat mate suggested I eat the sweet potato I’ve done nothing with for 3 weeks for breakfast. I gave her a look saying “sweet potato for breakfast…what…” but I let her explain because she definitely knows more about cooking then I do. She went on to say if I just mashed up the sweet potato, spread butter and sprinkled brown sugar/cinnamon it would be really good and a perfect brunch dish since it was about 11 am. It was REALLY good.

My only issue is that it requires using a proper knife. Which clearly I can’t handle that early in the morning because I managed to slice my finger cooking breakfast. I think midterms drain my ability to do anything other than school work.

Nevertheless, without further ado, my fall flavored breakfast.

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato

Small amount of butter

Sprinkling of brown sugar and whatever flavor you want

(I actually used apple spice which had cinnamon in it so I didn’t add more but you can use whatever flavor your heart desires)

Instructions:

Pro tip 1: Check what side of the knife you’re holding. Don’t press down if your finger is on the sharp side of the blade.

1. Cut the sweet potato up. Or not actually. It probably cooks and mashes quicker if you cut it up into chunks but I gave up cutting the potato when I couldn’t even cut the whole way around, so I microwaved that baby whole and it was just fine.

2. Microwave for 5 minutes on high. (Really just until it’s soft enough to mash)

3. Mash.

4. Throw into a bowl, add your butter, sugar, spices or whatever you want, toss, and enjoy!

I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about having it for breakfast, and I think I’d still prefer my oatmeal with a sprinkle of brown sugar if I wanted something sweet, but if you’re craving something fall flavored, try this out for any meal or snack and let me know how it goes! I’m curious as to what other flavors people put in.

That time I set my oven on fire

What’s up y’all! I’m back! It’s been an amazing summer, but school is finally back in swing and I’m settled into my apartment nicely. I actually used the oven for the first time today, and what better way to start off the school year than by…. setting the oven on fire the first time you use it. Yes, that happened.

Funnily enough, this post was originally going to be called “The lasagna that wasn’t”. You see, I promised my lovely house mate I’d make her lasagna for her birthday, and we invited our neighbor over to share and get to know each other. It was all set to be a respectable evenings, with just a couple major flaws.

1. I’ve never cooked lasagna before

2. I mix and matched my recipes and pretty much just put in whatever I had of things (aka I was unwilling to spend too much money in the grocery store)

3. I’m apparently not good at following directions

So, from these fatal flaws, here’s what went wrong with the lasagna.

– Housemate requested ricotta cheese in place of cottage cheese, so I only used ricotta, not thinking I might need other cheese too.

– I only bought a small thing of ricotta and sauce so I halved half of the recipe, while keeping the other parts at full measurements

– I used way too big of a pan for the amount I had

– I used uncooked lasagna sheets that I’m pretty sure you had to cook first

So, the lasagna was flat and crispy around the edges, but otherwise it actually tasted really good. (At least I thought so). It wasn’t the disaster I expected. No. The garlic bread was the disaster I did not expect.

I had thrown some garlic bread into the oven as we were waiting for the lasagna to cool just in case the lasagna was inedible. As I was taking the garlic bread out, whatever way I grabbed the pan, it wasn’t flat and the piece of bread towards the back must’ve rolled off the back and down onto the hot bars on the bottom of the oven. Needless to say, the bread went up in flames, smoke started pouring out of the oven, and our smoke detector promptly went off.

Luckily, our neighbor handled the smoke detectors while we opened doors and windows to try and get the smoke out. The fire was contained in the oven so we figured we’d just let it burn out and leave the bread till it was cool.

After that things pretty much went according to plan. We ate, and it was edible! But man, I was not expecting the bread to be the eventful part of dinner. Oh well, it was funny as hell!

I got a tumblr.

So guys and gals, I gave in. I’ve held out for a long time because heaven knows I already have enough places on the internet to procrastinate, but today, I made a tumblr. It kind of started out as my outlet to post all the funny (read: stupid) pictures I find that I’d feel bad about spamming you all with. 

That being said, you’re not getting away that easily.

 

It’s actually marginally relevant too. I cooked asparagus the other day and it’s AMAZING. I don’t think I’ve ever had it before, but it’s not one of those foods I refused to eat out of principle of having decided to not like it. Anyways, it was absurdly easy to cook and a healthy (more importantly, yummy) addition to any meal. You can cook it any number of ways but the easiest is just boil it for 3-5 mins and then sprinkle seasoning on if you wanted… but it’s so not necessary.

Anyways. If you fancy seeing more stupidly funny pictures relating to food and anything else I come up with, go check out my tumblr at http://katedoestheworld.tumblr.com/ (the gifs actually work on tumblr!)  (Why am I so wordpress-tech challenged?) (Help!)

 

Comfort cooking for that SUPER healthy friend

Ever had a friend who follows strict nutritional guidelines, eg. eating certain grams of protein and carbs and certain times of the day and what not? Well, my best friend (also a dancer) has been out of commission with injury for almost a year now, and in order to stay in shape and healthy came up with a diet plan with a nutrition specialist that worked for her. I’m so proud of her, she looks amazing and is healthier than I’ve ever seen her, but my god, it makes it hard to cook for her! I try to be healthy but I a lot that she normally wouldn’t. Now to be fair, she’s normally good about eating what she’s given but I feel bad serving something I know she doesn’t really want to eat. At the same time, I can’t serve just salad for dinner, and I’m not great at fancy meats. I’m also a comfort food craver (if you haven’t noticed). It’s basically all I eat. Yesterday though, I found the answer.

Sweet potato fries.

They are possibly the greatest thing ever. They’re like regular fries. But better. SO MUCH BETTER. They have more flavor. More nutritional benefits. I’ve never been more excited about a food. How excited, you ask? This excited.

Click the picture for the pure joy that is Karen Gillan and Matt Smith doing a happy dance. Do it.

I barely have anything to write.

Ingredients: (this is enough for about 2 people, sweet potatoes are huge so 1 potato per person probably measures out pretty well, but can you believe a serving of 2 sweet potatoes is only 89 calories! awesome.)

2 sweet potatoes

1 glug of oil

Sprinkling of garlic salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven at 220 degrees Celsius.

2. Wash and dry the sweet potatoes but don’t peel them.

3. Cut them into about 1/2 in circles and then slice them into fingers.

Pro tip 1: So I have no upper body strength (the ultimate irish dancer problem) and thus struggled to cut a sweet potato in the aforementioned fashion… don’t judge me. Anyways, for those of you who know how real the struggle is, it might be easier to cut lengthwise down the potato and create slices from there. They might look a little less fry like but who actually cares?

4. Throw the slices into a zip lock bag, drizzles in the oil and sprinkle the garlic salt. Shake well until all the fries are covered in a good coating. If it’s not enough just add more.

5. Spread the fries out on a pan and place in oven, cooking for 30-35 minutes. Check once around 20 minutes to flip the fries.

It’s that easy. We made these with BBQ chicken and coleslaw, all absurdly easy and yummy. I strongly recommend.

Meanwhile in Ireland…

The internet is a weird and wonderful place, and most people online have just way too much time on their hands, or are busy not working. Sometimes, this results in unproductivity. Others, it results in this:

This might just be the most accurate representation of Irish cuisine, ever. Thank you random stranger, for making my day.

“You must forgive me if I’m up and goin’ to Carolina in my mind”

“In my mind I’m goin’ to Carolina
Can’t you see the sunshine
Can’t you just feel the moonshine
Ain’t it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind
And I’m goin’ to Carolina in my mind”

– James Taylor

You guys, I’m home. Well, one of my homes. I have many, but right now, Chapel Hill feels a lot like home and man have I missed this place. It is SO good to be back in this beautiful town. I had an amazing 5 months abroad that I wouldn’t trade for the world, and all you college students thinking about studying abroad: DO IT DO IT DO IT. I had an amazing time and have made best friends I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Sunset on the river Lee near my *former* apartment in Cork. I will always love this beautiful place.

Nevertheless, I am loving the heat, the blue skies, the scorching sun, the endless tree cover, the ridiculous thunderstorms, driving my bug again, living in a proper house with a real kitchen and no flat mate, and did I mention the fact that it actually feels like summer? I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for warm weather.

I actually go here. And yes, it’s actually this beautiful. (Not my picture)

Alright, enough gushing about how Chapel Hill leaves a stamp on your heart. You guys get the picture. I’ve actually been back for a solid 2 weeks if not more but it’s been a crazy time involving dance competitions, catching up with friends and family, birthday parties and readjusting to American life. This week is finally looking like it’s settling into normal life, so I figured I’d kick it off by getting back to blogging!

I’ve not really cooked much since getting home since my mother dearest is home and she is an amazing cook (thanks for nothing on those genes, mum) so she kind of just does everything for me food wise because she assumes my state of uselessness in the kitchen. I’m trying to do more, but it won’t be as frequent as when I was in Ireland. That being said, as a result of the various parties, I’ve done a fair amount of baking, which I happen to be really good at, so don’t be surprised to see some yummy baked goods in the next few recipes. I can’t promise they’re healthy but they’re really quite easy, and everything in moderation, right? 🙂

Alright, no recipes today because I’m still recovering from a tummy bug and don’t even want to think about food right now, so instead, I’ll leave you with picture highlights of my month abroad, and a little note that while I will try to post consistently over the summer, I’m actually leaving the country (again) for 6 weeks at the beginning of July! This time I’m off to Asia… but more on that later!

Cork at christmas!

St. Finbarre’s Cathedral in the winter

London in January snow

London from the top of The Shard over Easter, equally as cold as when I was there in the snow in January!!!

Heineken Cup quarterfinals at Twickenham!

Buckingham Palace, half mast for Margaret Thatcher

more London ( I could’ve gone on forever with my pictures from London, really, it’s probably my favorite city ever)

BEACH!!

Streets of Malaga

Streets of Malaga

Panorama Malaga from the Alcazaba- Moorish fortress

View of Puento Neuvo from El Tajo Gorge in Ronda. Prettiest place ever.

View of Granada from the Alhambra

St. Finbarre’s Cathedral in the Spring (this was actually late May so almost summer but it was the first time it felt like spring in Ireland!!!)

Celebratory post-finals drink at the college bar. Woo!

My very first salad!

I’m not sure what it says about me that it’s been several months since I started this blog and this is the first salad I’m posting but…wahay better late than never!

So this is one of those things that started out as something and ended up being something completely different. The original salad can be found on Lauren’s Latest site and it’s a “Strawberry Avocado Kale Salad with a Bacon Poppy seed Dressing”. I thought it sounded delicious and adequately summery for the above 10 degrees and dry weather we’re having in Ireland, so I set off to Tesco to get my groceries for the week. Apparently Ireland doesn’t sell kale. Well, Tesco and Dunnes don’t and I’m pretty sure the English market doesn’t, and since those exhaust the places I shop here, I’ve decided Ireland doesn’t do kale. I just picked up a bag of iceberg lettuce instead because it had the stuff for a Caesar salad inside too and I do love a good Caesar salad. I got my avocados (first time I’ve ever bought them!), but it turns out, the internet tells me today that my avocados are not yet ripe.. I discovered this with dressing made and bacon in the oven. So no avocados tonight. So we’re down to a “Strawberry Salad”. And as for the dressing… well I couldn’t be arsed to buy poppy seeds if I’m being perfectly honest, didn’t seem like it would affect the salad at all and I’m too frugal to be wastin’ my money on stuff like poppy seeds (ha!). So with all that in mind, I give you my “Strawberry Salad with Bacon Dressing”. Doesn’t quite have the same ring…… I promise it’s just as good though.

Ingredients:

1/2 Bag of lettuce

1/2 tub of strawberries

A couple of slices of bacon (3 or 4 should do but it’s whatever you’re feeling)

— The amounts for the salad and bacon are a little less set in stone… just go with your gut and be reasonable in proportions. Maybe pay more attention to the dressing.

1/2 cup of mayonnaise

2 tablespoons of white vinegar

2 tablespoons of sugar

*My dressing seemed really thick and strong to taste, but once it was tossed into the salad it was perfect

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and prepare a baking tray with tin foil and a cooling rack over it if you have one. If not, not to worry the bacon will cook just as well on the foil.

2. Combine the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar and mix all together.

3. When the oven is ready, lay out the slices of bacon on the pan/cooling rack over the pan and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes (until crispy).

4. Put the lettuce you want in a bowl, chop your strawberries into quarters and add to the lettuce.

5. Spoon the dressing over the salad and toss well.

6. When the bacon is done cooking, take it out and break it into little pieces. Sprinkle into salad, toss some more, and voila!

It’s that easy. It was yummy, quick, and not a complete disaster considering my lack of key ingredients 😉

 

Oats on Toast

Well hey there! It’s been a while… I know. Remember how I told you about that awesome trip to Spain I was going on? Well that happened. I’ve actually been traveling for the past hiatus, hence no cooking. I also can’t promise there will be much in the next month or so either. It is officially exam time, and my mind is about to turn into a mush of information I will forget the minute I walk out of the last exam room. Also I have no money. Turns out, traveling for a month will do that. (This is when I start to realize why people get jobs. Anyways…) My term here is coming to an end soon (unfortunately) and once I am back in the great state of North Carolina (and in a house that has an actual kitchen with proper cooking utensil and parents buying food for me) I will hopefully be posting a lot more! Then again, I’ll also have parents cooking for me (they spoil me to death, especially when they haven’t seen me for 6 months), so yeah we’ll see how that goes.

Alright. Onto today’s recipe. Found on pinterest (where else!) but originally from the lovely Pepper Lynn, this recipe is a breakfast you can prepare the night before and finish off in those 5 minutes you have for getting dressed, eating breakfast, and getting out the door when you wake up half an hour late. So an every day thing for me. Pepper also claims that this wonderfully nutritious breakfast keeps her filled up until about 1pm. I’m currently having it as a snack (and loving it- so much that I couldn’t wait to finish it to type this) thus I can’t speak to how filling it is… but I’ll get back to you on that internet.

I realize I haven’t actually said *what* it is. I should get to that. Well, it’s uncooked oats. Pepper goes for overnight oats… probably a more appealing name. If the thought of uncooked oats turns you off- yeah me too. Bear with me you HAVE to give this a go. The base is a mix of oats, yogurt, and milk. The rest that you do in the morning is flavor- and this can be WHATEVER you want it to be. You automatically have your favorite flavored breakfast.

And it’s so easy. And quick. And yummy. And good for me? I’ll take it.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of rolled oats (and then a little extra for good measure)*

1/2 cup of plain vanilla yogurt**

1/3 cup of milk

~ From here, choose your own flavor. I chose strawberry jam, so I threw in about 3 spoons of jam.

Instructions:

1. Pour out your oats, yogurt and milk in a jar or bowl and mix it all up .

Pro tip 1: The original recipe calls for Greek yogurt and more milk but I can’t stand Greek yogurt so I opted for vanilla yogurt and less milk. Works just as well- just make sure when you’re adding the milk your final consistency is thick and creamy. If the milk makes it too liquidy just add some more oats.

2. Put it in the fridge overnight. If you get the munchies during the day (not those munchies, silly) and fancy a nice snack, this is great too, just make sure it’s been refrigerated for at least 30 mins to let the oats soften.

3. When ready to eat, add your flavor of choice and enjoy.

Pro tip 2: When I first tried it I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure about the texture. I’m still not sure I’m too fond of it on it’s own. So like I do with a lot of things I tried it with bread. DO THIS. Especially if you didn’t like the texture or the feel/taste of the oats. When spread on toast it takes away all of that. The warm toast and cool spread and taste of jam was like heaven. I really wish I hadn’t tried it because I already eat SO MUCH BREAD, but man oh man was it good. I refuse to eat it any other way. It also means I only use about half of it on 2 slices of toast. Could easily see that as a nice afternoon snack or breakfast the next day if it makes it that long.

Pro tip 3: Always say yes to nutella. Nutella is a personal favorite of mine, and if you fancy that sneaky chocolate in the morning, put a light spread of nutella and your jam oats on your toast. YUMMM.

It doesn’t look that appetizing, I know, but it’s worth trying. Some love it, some hate it. Don’t be that guy that hates it until he tries it…

 

Say Cheese!

Ok internet, first off, apologies. I have been horrendous about posting in March, I know. Here in Ireland, they do this weirdass thing where classes end at the end of March and then you have a month off before exams. It’s pretty great in that I’m going to be traveling for almost all of April (have I mentioned my Spain trip? yes?), but it’s pretty sucky in that all of our end of term papers are due…now. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ve not really been doing all that much work since I’ve been here. I’m normally really very studious but ehh, I’m on a study abroad! These classes don’t do much for me, so I’m soaking up the Irish culture. The thing with that is I know have all my term papers to write for next week and one of my early finals to study for. That being said, my brother has also been visiting me so we’ve been doing a lot of eating out, absolutely no cooking, and an absurd amount of drinking. That being said, he left today, so I cooked dinner with another friend I have visiting, and I’m really just ignoring the fact that I have a paper to write. 

Cheesy Chicken Broccoli Rice 

This isn’t so much of a put together dish as it is lots of different foods thrown into a bowl together. Either way, it tastes yummy.

Ingredients: (serves 2 people with some left over)

1 head of broccoli

Some grated cheese

1 fillet of chicken*

2 cups of rice

* We had the chicken left over from when we cooked 5 chicken fillets the other day (my brother eats a lot of chicken…) and we cut them up into pieces and put them into sandwich baggies and refrigerated them. I used a baggie of chicken in this because it was all we had left but feel free to use no chicken or more chicken or whatever floats your boat.

Instructions: 

1. Cook the rice.

Pro tip 1: I don’t actually know how to properly cook rice so you’re best off following the instructions on the bag, they probably know best. 

2. Cook the broccoli.

Pro tip 2: We cut up the big head of broccoli into mini heads, threw them in a bowl with some water and microwaved it. After 2 minutes it was still pretty tough so maybe give it 2 minutes, have a feel, and then another 2.

3. Reheat the chicken in the microwave for like, 30 seconds.

4. Take the rice off the heat, sieve out the water and pour into bowls.

5. Add in your chicken and broccoli, and sprinkle grated cheese on top to finish.

Pro tip 3: The cheese adds nice flavor, I suggest adding a lot as it melts into the rice with the heat. Yum yum yum.

So, I didn’t take a picture, but you can imagine what a bowl of rise with chicken, broccoli and cheese looks like. Instead, here is a picture of an Airedale Terrier puppy. Enjoy.