America…
America…
America, FUCK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah,
America, FUCK YEAH!
Freedom is the only way yeah,
Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer too,
America, FUCK YEAH!
So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,
America, FUCK YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now,
it’s the dream that we all share; it’s the hope for tomorrow

FUCK YEAH!

(more…)

Last week Dunnes were selling half price pork steaks so I bought one, cut it in half and froze it. Last night I decided to cook one of the halves for my dinner. It worked out a beaut! If anyone else is interested, here’s what I did.

First you’ll need 1×300g pork steak, 6 streaky rashers, a few slices of bread, an onion, a stick of celery, an apple, some fresh thyme and 4oz butter.

First, cut two of the rashers into small pieces and fry until crispy. Set to one side.

Next, chop the celery and onion into small pieces and fry in the same pan as the rashersfor about 10 mins until they are soft.

Next, make breadcrumbs out of the bread and mix in with the fried rasher bits, the celery, the onion, the butter melted and some thyme to make stuffing

Next, cover the pork steak in a sheet of cling film and use a rolling pin (or like me, a beer bottle) and stretch out the pork steak. This will tenderize the meat as well as making it easier to stuff.

Then place the stuffing inside the steak, roll it back to its original shape and cover with the remaining rashers. It is a good idea at this point to leave the steak sitting in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Finally, heat the oven to 190 degrees and bake the steak for about an hour. Just before it is done, peel and slice the apple and cook in a tablespoon of water in the microwave until soft. Then mash with a fork and serve with the steak. I also decided to have some stir-fried broccoli with it too.

Some of you might know that I’m mental for the video games and one of the greatest games in the past 10 years is out tomorrow. The game of course is Grand Theft Auto: IV. Its the game that lets you steal cars, deal drugs, recieve entertainment from ladies of the night, assasinate, run over and beat up pedestrians, explore, and all other activities that result in severe mass destruction and chaos. I’ve been preparing for this game for the past few days and been looking forward to it for three years.

Yesterday I made a lasagne and divided it up into four portions and lashed them in the freezer. Also, I have about three chicken dishes in there too. One of which is made by Ali as I swaped one of my lasagne portions for his chicken saté dish.

I dont plan on cooking dinner for at least a week and perhaps next sunday I’ll make two big dinners to do me for the following week, that is if it doesnt impact my playing time.

I’ve just set up my pc in work with some nice wallpapers so that my colleagues in here know how mental I am for this game. Check it out on the right!

Gamestop will be opening early at 8am tomorrow morning to sell the game, so I’ll make my way down at around 7:30 or so incase there is a bit of a queue. Its a pity I havent taken tomorrow off work as I’ll have the copy of the game staring me in the face while I’m in work. I dont know how much sleep I’ll be getting over the next few weeks but it is definately worth it.

Is anyone else getting the game? If so let us know! We’re getting the Xbox 360 version so if you get that too share your gamertag with us so we can play online.

Tomorrow the residents of gaffbhala plus Trish and Aily are going on a 3 night cruise on the Shannon. To celebrate, Trish very kindly made homemade pizzas for us all. I’m sure the rest of the lads will agree with me when I say they were AMAZING. Fair play Trish - thanks a billion! Here are some pics of our lovely dindins to make you all jealous!

Today I was chairing a meeting at work. Where I work, it is customary for the chair of the meeting to provide cakes/biscuits/sweets. I decided to make chocolate truffles on Ali’s recommendation. Below are a couple of pics of me making them and then a pic of the end product. They were a great success but extremely filling and eating two in a row is a challenge. If anyone is interested in the recipe, click here.

I’ve been using this broccoli recipe recently. It’s easy and it’s fast and it’s bloody delicious.

First, cut/break most of the stalk off the broccoli, wash and set aside. Next heat a bit of oil in a frying pan, get it nice and hot. Add a few pinches of fennel seeds and some ginger into the pan and fry for about a minute. I use ginger paste because it’s easier but normal, grated ginger is good too. Next throw in the broccoli and stir it around so it’s nicely coated with oil, fennel seeds and ginger. After another minute, pour some soy sauce over the broccoli. An optional dash of dark soy sauce will make it even nicer. Stir the broccoli around the pan while frying for a few more minutes but be careful not to over do it as the broccoli can get soggy. You want it nice and al dente. Bob’s your uncle! I often throw a few sugarsnap peas in with the broccoli for a bit of variation.

Yo. Here’s a pic of a recent mac cheese I did. Yum!!

One day last month, Ali made a lasagne. It was pretty nice and since I hadn’t had lasagne in ages, it inspired me to make the lasagne to end all lasagnes from scratch. I decided to make a huge one that I could get about eight portions out of to freeze for future dinners. And so I began cooking enthusiastically with 2 packs of mince and 2 whole blocks of cheese. The making of the meaty sauce went pretty smoothly however the cheese sauce did not fare so well. In making it, I managed to burn the bottom of the saucepan. Convinced that this was only a minor setback, I ploughed on with my project. Sure enough, once the cheese sauce was finished, it had this nasty burnt taste to it. I naively still believed that once the whole lot was baked in the oven, the burnt taste would go away. How wrong I was!

The lasagne came out of the oven fresh and bubbling and looking amazing however when I tasted it, it still had that relentless burnt taste to it. I tried and tried to like it but I just couldn’t eat it. It was ruined. It didn’t stop Ali and Wig eating it mind you. They were delighted to have a whole massive lasagne to themselves! I don’t know – call me a perfectionist or whatever but in my opinion it was inedible.

Most people would have been discouraged by such a disaster but not me. The very next day I went out and bought two more packs of mince and two more blocks of cheese. I diligently started again from scratch. I had a hankering for lasagne and I was damn well going to have one! Long story short, the mighty lasagne mark II was a success. There was no burning of the cheese sauce and the end product was to die for. I ate a portion for dinner that night while Ali and Wig ate leftover burnt lasagne (haha!) and managed to freeze another five portions.

About a week later, I was home late from work and didn’t really have time to cook dinner. This was the ideal time for me to defrost one of my beautiful lasagne portions. I defrosted it in the microwave a tiny bit before chucking it in the oven to heat it properly. 20 minutes later, the oven was beeping at me like crazy to check it. I extracted the portion and quickly determined that all it required was five more minutes until it was ready to eat. Oh no! In the process of returning the lasagne portion to the oven, I dropped the oven tray and it landed face down, squashing my beautiful lasagne between it and the cold, dirty kitchen floor.

I couldn’t believe it, I wanted to scream. All I wanted in the world was a slice of lasagne. Was that too much to ask?!? In the end I went ahead and defrosted yet another slice of lasagne which I managed to prepare ok. However I am now very wary of lasagne. I don’t think I’m ever meant to really eat it. Whenever I try, there just seems to be trouble. Think I’ll stick to cheese on toast in future…