It is cold, wet and windy ourside, but I do not care. I am feeling warm by the fire and well fed too, lucky me.

This evening I cooked up beef sausages in a tomato and herb sauce which was served with some nice mashed potato. Beef sausages are not so common in Ireland, usually pork is the norm. In fact, I don’t think you usually see them for sale in the supermarkets, but we buy our delicious organic beef sausages from the organic meat stall at the farmers market in Boyle, Co. Roscommon each Saturday. All their sausages are delicious, pork and lamb are available too. It is always a nice experience shopping at the market, every Saturday morning Deirdre from Irish Organic Meats cheerfully greets us and we chat about all sorts while she weighs out the stewing beef, their thick home cured rashers and packs a plump organic chicken into our shopping bag. Check out the link at the bottom to see their website.

We buy most of our food supply at the market, the meat is frozen and we get enough fresh vegetables and fruit to store until the next weekend. So this evening I decided to use the last of the tomatoes, a courgette and an onion along with some frozen chicken stock, made from the carcass of the chicken after it had been portioned up for freezing.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients:

6 beef sausages chopped into pieces

4 tomatoes peeled and chopped

1 Onion diced

1 carrot diced

1 courgette diced

1 tsp of paprika

1 tsp of oregano

1/2 tsp rosemary

1/2 tsp of thyme

300 ml chicken stock

10 black olives sliced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

30 ml of Donegal Rapeseed Oil

Method

1. Saute the diced carrot and onion until soft.
2. Add the sausages and brown
3. Add the courgette and stir fry for about 3-4 minutes
4. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook on medium heat until they become a thick sauce, about 10 minutes
5. Add herbs, paprika and salt and freshly ground black pepper
6. Add stock, if using frozen stock turn the heat up high and move it around to melt it. When stock has melted turn down the heat, add the olives and simmer for about 30 minutes.
7. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes and enjoy.

Note: all ingredient used were organic except the Donegal rapeseed Oil. We use this instead of Olive Oil as it is locally produced and reduces food miles.

http://www.irishorganicmeats.com/

Brown, dried, dead. The effects of winter on many garden shrubs in Irish gardens. The past two winters have been hard on many of the stalwarts such as Hebe, Cistus and even herbs such as Rosemary and bay leaf.
If colder winters are going to continue we have to look for alternative shrubs. Recently I saw this attractively trained fir tree, Abies koreana, an nice hardy plant to use instead if a standard bay tree, Laurus nobilis. It looked great under planted with The ornamental grass. Stipa tenuissima.