A day at the museum & three things to do with a leg of lamb

The Green Coat by John Lavery

We went to the Ulster Museum today to see "Revealed" which is a collection of Government art and much more interesting than it sounds!

It's an exhibition of over 160 pieces which are usually displayed in British government buildings around the world, with artists from the 1500s to the present day including van Dyck, Graham Sutherland, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Martin Creed, Gary Hume, Ed Ruscha and Grayson Perry.

I loved it, but I loved the Sir John Lavery collection even more, while "300 years of Irish landscape" was also worth half an hour of anyone's time. The Ulster Museum has definitely got its act together with the curation and display of its best artwork. Wish I could say the same about the Troubles section which was just plain dire - you could see it had been committeed to death by people who were just too scared to offend, to the extent that it was meaningless and boring.

My husband was pretty appalled by it all, particularly as he does a walking tour in Belfast which deals with the history of terrorism - it's not an easy subject to deal with, but it can't be airbrushed out of our history either.

Anyway, last night I did a leg of lamb as Jamie Oliver recommended, roasted directly on the oven rack with spuds and carrots underneath to catch the juices - and very good it was too. Left with plenty of good meat and some rather more gristly stuff on the bone, I made a lamb broth with the bone and scraggy meat which will go towards Harira soup tomorrow, while the good meat went in a very easy and lovely tagine I make a lot.

Lamb tagine

1lb or so of roast leg of lamb, cubed
1 tablespoon of minced garlic and ginger
Vegetable oil
2 aubergines, cubed
500ml passata
A pepper or two from a jar, sliced
2 tsp turkish style mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
Salt & pepper
2 chillies, chopped (or 1 tsp minced chili from a jar)
2 tsp quince paste or membrillo
1 tin of chickpeas

Fry aubergines in 2-3 batches till deep golden brown, drain very well in kitchen towel. Fry ginger & garlic for a minute till it colours, add spices and fry a bit more. Add passata a glug at a time till it's all incorporated. Add chillies and quince paste, stir through. Add a bit of water to make a soupy sauce. Put everything else in and cook on a low simmer for about 30-45 mins.

Gran works her 1920s 'fro

Sad wee day today as we cleared out Gran's flat and moved her stuff to the nursing home. It's a lovely place and we just wanted to make sure it felt as homely as possible for her. We found this fabulous picture of her while we were packing up her things - here she is, working a ludicrously uncomfortable coat and a mad afro on Rutland Street, just off the Ormeau Road in Belfast around 1923-24.

I lied, I lied. I got another foster.

No, I don't know what I was thinking of either. I only posted Dearg off to Sligo a week ago. Sheba's spay went successfully but she was an incredibly bad patient; I had to sit up with her all night stroking her head and paw (this is no exaggeration-the minute I stopped an unearthly wailing kicked off. I got to bed at 7am). Mark and I had plenty on our plates and sure Christmas is only a few weeks away.

Then Jane from Sighthound Strolls posted an urgent request to foster a little whippety lurcher for Christmas. I have a massive weakness for whippets and they are only tiny.....I persuaded the ever amenable Mark that we should take him in as we would hardly notice one more little one. Fortunately the whippet got rescue space that day, but Jane said if I was willing to foster she had the sweetest little Saluki X.......

To cut a long story short, next Saturday we were back down the road to Newry to pick up little Bono (so named for his extravagant vocal style) whom we promptly renamed Yogi as we both hate U2 and he is a darling little bear of a dog.

Dear Dearg III - a day is a long time in fostering

Looking like butter wouldn't melt......hmmmm.

One thing you learn very quickly about pound dogs is that it's such a stressful experience for them (the noise, the cold and the fear) that it takes weeks for their personalities to come back again. The first two days are especially hard for them and all they do is eat and sleep. The problem with this is that you won't see some of the more "challenging" behaviour for a day or two and then, just as you've been lulled into a false sense of security, they display some appalling behaviour out of the blue and invite you to "deal with it, bitch".

And so on the third day Dearg decided to act the bollocks and attack all the other dogs. To a certain extent I don't mind husky-on-husky fighting - they mostly enjoy a bit of light hearted scrapping and they have enough coat to protect them from the worst of it. But my little Saluki X is extremely thin skinned and Dearg was lunging at her in an alarmingly fangy way. Also my own two huskies are getting on a bit and you could see that while they were trying to be polite they weren't really enjoying Dearg's toothy advances.

At this point the fosterer has to take a very deep breath. You cannot risk your own dogs being hurt or being affected in the longterm by a foster dog's behaviour. On the other hand, the foster dog has been through an awful lot and you have to give them a break. Something's got to give. And that something is your right to a decent night's sleep.

Mark and I took turns for a full two weeks to sleep on the sofa and ensure that Dearg didn't take a lump out of any of the other dogs. This is not something we will be repeating any time soon and we cannot recommend it. We both have trapped nerves and filthy dispositions as a result of the enforced separation. While I do think the two weeks in our house did Dearg the power of good, it took a lot out of us and our dogs. He's now with Irish Sled Dog Rescue in Sligo and if you feel you could give him a good home, please get in touch. He's a good little man, affectionate and clever. But I think he wants to be an "only dog".

My magical powers...

Soooo.....my first blog post ever about a random little trip to Moira for corned beef ends up on national news and Mr McCartney gets a deal with Selfridges. Coincidence, or what? OK, coincidence. Been eating his corned beef sandwiches all week, moving on to his pork & walnut sausages tomorrow night. If they end up in some kind of sausage Oscars this weekend, start worrying, I have special powers.

• Moira butcher George McCartney crowned corned beef king

Good luck McCartneys of Moira - off to London for the Great Taste Awards final! |

Good luck guys!

Off to London for the Great Taste Awards Final! | McCartneys of Moira:

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Corned beef: Food of the gods?

We attended a great Doggy Fun Day organised by Beechgrove Stables near Banbridge on Saturday. Unfortunately we couldn't bring wee Sheba as she's just come into season and that's not the kind of Doggy Fun we had in mind.

Instead hooked up with the wonderful Jackie Redmond and her agility squad - we had a good chat about training sighthounds and we got to meet Lady, the elderly greyhound Jackie is fostering. Also caught up with the magnificent Mr. Jack Quaile who was letting his wee alsatian Diamond have a rake around the agility course (more of a demolition derby to be fair, but she had fun!).

On the way home we diverted to McCartney's butchers in Moira. I bought my usual 10lb of assorted sausages (I particularly recommend the Italian, Pork & Apple and Oak Smoked but to be fair it's impossible to go wrong here - everything is the best of the best). Having heard great reports about their famous corned beef I was keen to give it a go - corned beef is one of my very few "bleugh" foods so I was intrigued that McCartney's were making it. I've been going to McCartney's for 20 years and they are really creative, high quality butchers.

Got talking to the owner and he told me they are in the finals for the Great Taste Awards "the food Oscars" on Monday night for their corned beef! Getting it home I can see why. It's the most utterly moreish beef product I've eaten in a long time.

Where your usual experience of corned beef is that gruesome mush bound together by dripping (our school canteen used to add insult to injury by dipping it in batter and deep frying it!) this is luscious shreds of lightly seasoned, braised, pressed beef bound in the lightest imaginable jelly and thinly sliced. It is about as different from canned corned beef as a Porsche from a Lada. Buy it by the kilo (it's about £2 per 100g and worth every penny).

Production | McCartneys of Moira:

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