Dara's Home-made Chips and Ketchup

Surprise a loved one, or indeed yourself, by making some lovely home-made chips and ketchup instead of frozen chips! It only takes about 5 or ten minutes to prepare.

Chips
Chop up some potatoes length-ways, or however you would like you chips to look. Spread them evenly on a baking tray and not on top of each other. Coat them with oil and any seasoning you like (we're getting into wedge territory here, but I suggest some chopped garlic). Place them in a pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes, give or take, depending on how thick you cut the chips. Give them a shuffle around halfway through. While they're cooking, let's make some ketchup!

Ketchup
Most ketchups are unnecessarily loaded with salt, but if you leave it out you can have as much ketchup as you like without worrying about your ticker! So, put a good scoop of tomato puree in a dish, depending on how much ketchup you want to make. To this I add;

crushed garlic (or garlic powder)
crushed onion (or onion powder)
malt vinegar
cider vinegar
black pepper
unrefined sugar dissolved in warm water (or syrup/ honey)
and the secret ingredient - paprika!

The quantity is up to you, start small and taste as you go along to see which ingredients you want more of. Easy on the vinegar, as it's quite strong. Paprika really sets it off, though, so plenty of that. Add the sugar mixture to sweeten and thin out the ketchup as you desire. And there you go! Serve that with your chips and impress your guests, or yourself.

- Dara

Plum, Kiwi and Apple Salad.

This is really tasty!

I think that this salad encapsulates what I want to do with this blog: change people's attitudes to food so that we eat consciously and flexibly.

This is the result of needing to use up fruit. I'm not a big fruit eater... As far as I'm concerned if you're hungry you eat food that will fill you up, (i.e. not fruit), if you're not hungry you don't eat. So when I eat fruit I prefer it in things to just on its own. Apart from apples; they're wonderful and great. Feel free to try to change my mind on this dismissive attitude to fruit - I'm trying to eat more of it.

Fruit is a blast of sugar (natural or no, it's still sugar). Sugar is a simple carbohydrate which makes your blood sugar levels disco disco, so it's really good to eat it with some protein so that your energy levels don't disco disco crash. Protein is more of a... erm... a tango. If we're sticking with the dancing analogy, then slow dances of protein and complex carbs are better for filling you up for longer, and for keeping your energy stable. The moral of the story is - eat nuts/seeds/cheese with fruit.

Right, so how to make this salad is:

1. Grate a load of apples and mix in some lemon juice. (Otherwise it'll go brown and icky.)

2. Throw in some sunflower seeds.

3. Cut up some plums and kiwis and mix them with the apple and seeds.

If there's any apple left over then it'll go really nicely with grated carrot to make a salad.

Homemade Pasta with Leek, Mushroom and Broccoli Sauce.

This is me showing off my new pasta machine.

Pasta dough is just flour and eggs with a bit of lukewarm water. I've made it before using a rolling pin, but a pasta machine is just very very cool. And surprisingly therapeutic. Word of warning though - it does take a wee while.

For the sauce I sauted some leeks and garlic in olive oil then added some sliced mushrooms and cooked them till they were nicely juicy. Then I slopped in half a pot of creme fraiche and some black pepper and added the whole lot to the cooked pasta. I also threw in some very finely cut cooked broccoli.

Pasta should be cooked in lots and lots of boiling water. I demand that you eat it while it still has a bit of bite rather than letting it turn to slop. Ask any Italian and they will tell you that sloppy pasta is only fit for old people's homes.

To serve I added some slices of mozzarella.

Voila!

Mozzarella and Tomato Salad with Bruschetta.

Like all Italian food, the secret of this dish is the quality of the ingredients. This one was served with a mixed green salad and sprouted sunflower seeds.

Cut up the tomatoes and mozzarella and arrange them on the plates. Rub the basil between your fingers to release the flavour. Sprinkle it over the mozzarella and tomato, then add salt, freshly crushed black pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Toast the bread then rub it with a clove of garlic. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and you have a very tasty piece of bread which could be called a bruschetta.