Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Congratulations to Lorraine at Italian Foodies – the winner of this year’s Best Food/Drink Blog at the Irish Blog Awards! Kieran of Ice Cream Ireland was also a winner, taking the Best Business Blog award. You can read about all the winners on Maman Poulet, herself also a joint winner in the Best News/Current Affairs category. Sounds like a good night was had by all!
Best of luck to all the nominees, particularly those in the Food and Wine category, for this year’s Irish Blog Awards! It’s all happening tonight at the Alexander Hotel in Dublin but, the fact...
There’s always a new one, isn’t there? No sooner have you mastered Bittman’s No-Knead Bread and played around with jars of starter for your own Sourdough than another intriguing bread recipe comes along. I discovered this one through the NZ FoodLovers Forum, found the recipe, and discovered the book that it comes from – Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois – here.
It’s not exactly salad time yet but, when a gloriously sunny Sunday coincided with the local point-to-point races and the family coming round for a pre-race lunch, I couldn’t resist poking out an old bag of puy lentils (still working my way through two kitchen’s-worth of ingredients!) to combine with the last of our Ushiki Kuri squash.
The veggie garden is looking a little sad at this stage in the year. Just a few scraggly kale plants, as-yet-unformed purple sprouting broccoli – but we still have some leeks, when we remember to cook them! We’ve recently been having a cold snap so I’ve been making lots of soups and, one day when I happened to remember that we still had to use up the leeks in the garden and actually had some potatoes in the house, I made a version of Clothilde’s minimalist Leek and Potato Soup, which she in turn had adapted from Sophie Brissaud‘s recipe. As I was just after a stock-making session, I used chicken stock as well as water in the soup for more depth of flavour, and finished it off with dollops of ever-present yoghurt. This is very much an approximation of the recipe – I just didn’t want to get out the weighing scales!
I was on RTÉ Radio 1‘s Mooney programme yesterday talking about baking and breadmaking – if you’re interested, you can listen here (I’m on after the 4pm news!) and here are some links to recipes that I either mentioned or intended on mentioning during the show.My ever-popular Chocolate BrowniesChoc Chip Cranberry CookiesLemon & Pistachio Yoghurt CakeAnd, for those breadmakers out there, here is a recipe for a simple Brown Soda Bread and – if you’re getting more adventurous! – you could try Mark Bittman’s No Knead Bread or even experiment with some Sourdough Bread.
Due to a car battery failure, our Valentine’s treat got put on hold until Saturday night but the fondue was definitely worth waiting for. I didn’t make the traditional Gruyere/Emmental fondue but I did put together a variation of Myrtle Allen’s Ballymaloe Cheese Fondue, using local Hegarty’s Farmhouse Cheddar, a few splashes of Fern Bay Sauvignon Blanc, some garlic and parsley. We dipped cubes of sourdough bread, which had been crisped up in a hot oven, pieces of rosemary flatbread from work, dried apricots, some thinly sliced Gubbeen chorizo and salami, cutting the richness with a few cherry tomatoes, gherkins (my latest foodie love!) and a green salad from West Cork. So simple and so good – I’m a fondue convert. The following day we were around at my Clonmel Cousin’s for brunch (yummy muffins!), waxing lyrical about our new fondue set and making her pull an almost forgotten old Christmas present from the back of the cupboard. Don’t forget to use it, Ruth!
Happy Valentine’s Day! Be you romantic or not, there’s just no way of avoiding it. But you can make it easier on yourself. After hearing too many tales of horrendous evenings in restaurants from my waitress sister, I’ve always avoided restaurants on Valentine’s Night in favour of preparing something at home. I’m working all day today so there’s not going to be time to prepare any three course meals when I come home tonight – but I’ve got something even better.
