Carne asada

I discovered that the butcher I usually go to carries flank steak a while ago. The price was appealing, so I picked up a slab and made carne asada with it.

Carne asada is a fairly simply dish to make. The trick for great flavour is to let the flank steak soak in the marinade for at least four hours and preferably overnight.

Carne asada with baby gems and sautéed potatoes

Pork chops with mango & peach salsa

This is the dinner that almost didn't happen.

Last week, I bought a perfectly ripened mango and some peaches and decided to make a salsa to go with pork chops. I had trimmed and marinated the chops, made the mango and peach salsa, prepared the baby potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Husband came home around 7pm and said he was hitting the gym and probably wouldn't be having dinner when he returned. Then he walked into the kitchen and saw all the raw ingredients for dinner and apologised for not letting me know of his plans before I went to all this trouble. While I was a bit irked, I did appreciate how hard it was to keep fit, particularly when one hit middle-age, so far be it for me to thwart his endeavours.

And off his went. When he got home around 9.30, he said he was hungry and would like the dinner. So I fired up the grill and pan and within 20 minutes, I came up with two plates of beautiful food. 

Grilled pork chop with mango & peach salsa, served with sautéed Brussels sprouts and crackling, steamed baby potatoes

Persian lemon chicken

A couple of years ago when we were holidaying in Dubai, we visited the Spice Souk and picked up a few spices. Among them was limu omani, or dried lemon/lime. When we got back home, I didn't quite know what to do with these dried citrus so I searched for recipes online and found one for Persian lemon chicken soup. I tried it out and while the flavours were nice enough, I wasn't completely sold and didn't attempt making it again. The rest of the limu omani were stored in a jar sitting on my spice rack.

Yesterday while trying to come up with a different way of using the chicken pieces I had, I remembered the limu omani and decided it was time to give them another go. And the result was a aromatic lemon chicken with cardamom turmeric rice. 

Persian lemon chicken with cardamom turmeric basmati and blanched green beans

Cranberry lime loaf cake with honey butter glaze

I froze a small box of fresh cranberries leftover from making the orange cranberry cake over Christmas last year. Since that cake went down a treat, I decided to use the rest of the cranberries to make a cranberry and lime loaf. 

Cranberry lime loaf with honey butter glaze

Madeira cake with coconut & lime frosting

One of the cakes I discovered after moving to Ireland was Madeira cake. I was told it was a sponge but I thought it felt slightly denser than the sponge I was used to back in the East (like the 'traditional' birthday cakes in Taiwan). Still, Madeira cake became my favourite tea cake.

Lime & coconut cake

Ever since tasting the coconut and lemongrass cake at Kate's Kitchen in Sligo town, I've been trying to figure out how to recreate this delicious cake. I decided to use lime (the juice and zest) instead of lemongrass (which would require a food processor that I don't have to purée). And I figured that the almond flour and shredded coconut would provide enough oils/fat on their own that I could leave out butter/coconut oil.

Lemon and lime loaf cake with citrus glazing (1)

I managed to get really juicy lemons and limes last week and have been enjoying homemade lemonade with crushed mint and ice at home. Very refreshing in this unusually warm Irish summer. To kick off the weekend, I took advantage of this wonderful batch of citrus fruit and baked a lemon and lime loaf cake with a citrus glazing.

I made something similar for the first time a good few years ago, a zesty lemon pound cake. But at the time, I wasn't overly concerned with avoiding wheat (and so I used cream flour) or using only natural ingredients (hence the addition of lemon essence). I do remember it being rather tasty, and so I decided to make another one using coconut flour.