Category: Food

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Mary Flahavan’s Chunky Tomato and Oat Soup-A meal in a bowl!

fla tomato soup

Chunky Tomato and Oat Soup
A meal in a bowl!
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 stick celery
1 small onion, peeled
1 carrot
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
750g/1 ½lb vine tomatoes, chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
400g can tomatoes
300ml/ ½pt veg stock
50g/2oz Flahavan’s Organic Oats
I tsp sugar or balsamic vinegar
Olive oil to drizzle
6 basil leaves, torn, to decorate
Method
Dice the celery, onion and carrot finely. Heat the olive oil in a large pan and fry the vegetables gently for 5 minutes until softened but not browned. Add the garlic and fry for a few seconds then add the vine tomatoes and red pepper. Cook for a further 5 minutes until softened. Add the canned tomatoes with 200ml water and the stock then bring to the boil.  Add the oats, stir well and simmer for 10 minutes.  Season to taste and sweeten with a little sugar or balsamic vinegar if necessary. Decorate with basil leaves and drizzle with olive oil before serving.
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Darina Allen and Rory O’Connell’s Christmas Mincemeat recipe passed down in Myrtle Allen’s family for generations #Ballymaloe

Here are three delicious options, the first is the classic Mincemeat recipe passed down in Myrtle Allen’s family for several generations. Of course, it contains suet so it’s moist and juicy and best eaten hot. The second, Emer Fitzgerald’s Mincemeat is vegetarian, it doesn’t include suet or butter and is also gluten free. The third, Brandy Mincemeat, does not include suet either, but does have butter.

Ingredients

  • 2 cooking apples, e.g. Bramley Seedling
  • 2 organic lemons
  • 450g (1lb) beef suet (see P.00)
  • pinch of salt
  • 110g (4oz) candied citrus peel (preferably homemade)
  • 2 tablespoons Seville orange marmalade
  • 225g (8oz) currants
  • 450g (1lb) sultanas
  • 900g (2lbs) Barbados sugar (moist, soft, dark-brown)
  • 62ml (2 1/2fl oz) Irish whiskey

Method

Makes 3.2 kilos approx. Makes 8-9 pots.

  1. Core and bake the whole apples in a moderate oven, 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4, for 30 minutes approx. Allow to cool. When they are soft, remove the skin and pips and mash the flesh into pulp.
  2. Grate the rind from the lemons on the finest part of a stainless steel grater and squeeze out the juice and stir into the pulp. Add the other ingredients one by one, and as they are added, mix everything thoroughly.
  3. Put into sterilized jars, cover and leave to mature for 2 weeks before using. This mincemeat will keep for a year in a cool, airy place.

A Simply Delicious Christmas with Darina Allen and Rory O’Connell is on RTÉ Player now. Recipe taken from ‘A Simply Delicious Christmas’ published by Gill Books.