It’s not the horse you need to worry about!

The news in Britain and Ireland has been full of the horse meat scandal for weeks. First burgers, then lasagne! No food is safe!!!

Apart from the fact that it’s only affecting ready meals. Ready made burgers, ready made lasagne  in all the major supermarkets and supposedly in some fast food chains.
Horse meat has been eaten for centuries, and is still regularly eaten in many countries around the world. Although it’s not nice to find something unexpected in your food, it’s not really going to do you any harm. What is going to hurt you is the salt (or sodium content) of those ready meals. One single serving Tesco lasagne contains 47% of your daily recommended salt. That’s the recommended salt intake for a healthy person. That allowance almost halves for people who are middle aged or have high blood pressure. The burgers do better. One burger contains 13% of your salt allowance.

There’s an answer to this problem of not really recognising what goes into our food. Do you know what it takes to make a burger? Shape mince meat into a burger shape and grill it. Salt content? Approximately 3%. You can also customise your own burger: choose your size, add onions and a surprise cheese centre. It only takes a few extra seconds!

Consider cooking your own food, and stop relying on ready meals. Your body will thank you, and you won’t have any more nasty surprises.

Boojum

Should you find yourself in Dublin city centre with a craving for good food fast, head away from the usual junk food sources. Yes I know there are two McDonalds on O’Connell street alone and the smell from Quiznos is ever so tempting, but you will be rewarded for stepping away from the main streets. Head on over to Millennium Walkway, just off Jervis Street to a little Mexican restaurant called Boojum.

I’ve never been a big Mexican food enthusiast. Sure I’ll indulge in the odd Old El Paso fajita but I’d never gone to a mexican restaurant until I passed Boojum today in search of a noodle bar with OH. The queue was spilling out the door on to the street and the sign offered a meal and a bottle of water for seven euros. The noodle bar we had been heading for did not appear appetizing, and we had time to kill.  We joined the queue and checked out the menu.
Boojum offers a Subway style experience for Mexican food. You choose from a burrito, fajita, taco, bowl or salad and pick your preferred filling and salsa. The queue moved on quickly and the staff were chatty and friendly whilst being amazingly efficient. I chose a chicken fajita with cilantro-lime rice, sweetcorn salsa and cheese. I get nervous about the choices in places like this. I hate to be the one to hold up the queue, but I also love the idea of getting my food exactly the way I want it. The large printed menu on the wall meant I could choose how I’d like my fajita before I got to the counter, so I felt quite prepared.
Usually I prefer to sit at my own table, but this was lunch time on a Saturday. Boojum offers a communal dining experience with several long tables seating six people on each. We shared our table with two other groups of two, and the spacing between chairs allowed us to continue our own conversation without feeling too overlooked.

If you’re looking for a long lazy lunch, or to impress someone special then Boojum is not for you, but for fast good food, it’s well worth heading away from the chain restaurants on the main street.

Extra: I was on my way to work, so didn’t indulge, but at €2.95, Boojum offers some of the cheapest beers in Dublin.

Religious Freedom and Critical Thinking

Yesterday the UK. House of Commons voted to pass a bill making gay marriage legal to the House of Parliament. I’m not a legal expert and this isn’t a legal blog so I won’t go into the details of what this really means but it’s a big step to making gay marriage legal in the UK. I watched the debate with interest for just under an hour and mostly heard a few of the same points repeated over and over. It has been made clear that no church will be forced to carry out gay marriage ceremonies should they choose not to, but advocates for religious freedom worry that teachers will be forced to teach gay marriage, even if it is against their ethics.

This argument really struck a chord with me. I attended church schools for almost my entire education from a catholic primary school, all the way to catholic college. Belief in God and the bible was assumed throughout, we prayed daily, mass was compulsory and religious imagery including crosses and statues were prominent. However, even though my schools were classified as religious, I  sat the same SATs GCSEs and A-levels as other students all around the country. Not once did I feel that my religious beliefs were being compromised to pass these exams, and it could have happened easily. My R.E. lessons were firm that God created the world in 7 days and the first man was named Adam and Eve was made from him. Outside of school I was fascinated by science and confused at the concept of evolution and The Big Bang. Children are curious and I found out more about evolution and questioned my parents and teachers, before coming up with my own conclusion. I decided that God had started The Big Bang according to a long term plan, and that was how people evolved, according to His plan. My little brother attended the same schools as I did and came to similar conclusions at a similar age, before he turned 10. Nowadays I consider myself to be an Atheist. My brother has come to believe in reincarnation. My point is that we should learn to have more faith in our children. Give them facts and theories and leave them to form their own conclusions. Children question everything and this should be encouraged. Point them in the direction of alternative sources and let them make up their own minds.

It shouldn’t matter whether or not gay marriage is taught in schools. To be honest, I never remember being taught about marriage in school! My views on marriage were formed outside of school by observing the relationships in my family. It was this that taught me about love, marriage, divorce and re-marriage. If schools don’t teach gay marriage children will learn elsewhere. Homosexuality is prominent in our society, on TV, in films, in books and within our social circles. It’s not the schools place to teach it. Individuals can make up their own minds. Fear of what will happen in schools is by no means a legitimate reason to outlaw gay marriage.

Cajun Chicken Gumbo

So yesterday evening after playing with WordPress for hours trying to get rid of the flipping “About” button I gathered the energy to start considering making dinner before OH came home. I looked at recipes for chicken burgers, then realised we had no burger buns but stumbled across Cajun chicken burgers. This led me to look for Cajun chicken recipes and I found Cajun chicken gumbo. You can check out the recipe here.

Came out delicious and served over some plain boiled rice (cooked in a microwave, a trick for another day). I didn’t have the Cajun spice mix described but I did throw in 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp paprika and about half a raw chilli (chopped). The red of the chilli added a bit of extra colour to boot. Its nice to have some basic jars of spices because you can make all sorts with them! Supermarket “spice mixes” for chilli, shepard’s pie and other basic dishes are way overpriced. Look at what actually goes into them and pick up the basic spices instead (plus garlic and onions). It’s a larger initial investment but saves over time, tastes nicer and leaves you with a real feeling of accomplishment that you have made something from scratch 🙂