The Butcher's Shop

I've been doing my weekly shop and scanning around Dunnes and Superquinn, finding out that it is far better to buy your meat from you local butcher. 


Supermarket meat now gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. Looking at all of that glossy packaging you have to pay for and is reflected in the prices, wondering how long it has been sitting there lonely as a cow. Then, adding insult to injury, I never know if the chicken is really Irish or flown in from Thailand. 


So instead I'm heading to my local butcher's from now on: P&A Homan's on Harty Avenue in Dublin 12.  Where I managed to pick up real rashers with the rind on (half a pound cost 2 Euro - remind me how much a crappy packet of Galtee is again?) a proper chicken, pork loin, a couple of pounds of minced beef and some chicken fillets, all coming to the grand total of 27 euro.  All of which will stretch to seven, maybe eight meals if I do it right. The other  wonderful thing is,  I can negotiate exactly how much I want and am not limited to the tryanny of the sanitised plastic box. I'm winning in so many ways here....not only do I get good value, quality meat, my green bin is happier too. 


So for this evening dinner shall be Bacon, Lentil and Cabbage stew: a meal for four which costs about 5 quid. 


8oz Streaky Rashers - Diced
2 Carrots - finely chopped
2 Sticks of Celery - finely chopped
1 Onion - you guessed it - finely chopped
1 Cup Puy Lentils (get them in the Asia Market - sooo much cheaper)
Half a Savoy Cabbage - roughly chopped (they're about 40c in Lidl at the mo')
Couple of pints of Chicken Stock (cube, real: whatever you've got)
Bowls, Spoons, People, Bread. 


Fry off the diced rashers, add the carrots, celery and onion and sweat them in the bacon fat for a couple of minutes. Add the lentils and stock and bring to the boil.  Then add the cabbage and bring down to a blip-blip simmer for about thirty minutes or until the lentils are soft. 
Delicious velvety stewy soup. There's even enough for Lunch tomorrow afternoon.