A Storecupboard Special: The Tuna Melt
If the Husband were to be asked to name his favourite meal, what do you think it would be? My Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon? Spiced Lamb with potatoes from the garden? Perhaps a...
Category: Storecupboard Specials
Homemade Vanilla Extract
Sweetly spicy and aromatic, vanilla is probably the most used flavouring in the cottage kitchen. It’s a comforting base note in cookies and hot chocolates, pancakes and muffins and almost everything I bake has a teaspoon...
Cook This Now by Melissa Clark: Rhubarb, Strawberry and Lemon Jam
At this time of year there are certain days – damp and cold and dreary days – that make you wonder if summer will ever come. That’s when you want some of this Rhubarb,...
Kitchen Projects: (Home)Baked Beans
When an unseasonably warm March – oh, those lovely days of summer clothes and sandals! – segues into a freezing April, it’s time for a robust but gently spiced pot of (Home)Baked Beans. That’s not to...
Mushroom Barley Risotto with Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms
With plump grains and a luscious nutty flavour, barley is a storecupboard staple in this house – and not just because of its use in brewing beer! I regularly throw a handful into a...
Spiced (and Slightly Salted) Hot Chocolate
A freezing cold afternoon plus one trying-to-avoid-too-much-caffeine-mother and a grumpy-from-her-nap-toddler. The only solution? Two cups of warming Spiced Hot Chocolate. When I was in college, a mug of this – made with lots of...
Eat Only Irish: Cork buffalo mozzarella and La Cucina’s Irish menu
Eat Only Irish? Why of course, when you can pick up the most amazing Irish buffalo mozzarella in Cork’s English Market. The Real Olive Company stall has just started selling the creamiest balls of...
Moving time: Sausage and Bean Hotpot
Moving house is a time for simple, uncomplicated recipes that use up ingredients already in the fridge, freezer or storecupboard. Dishes that can be prepared in advance and let to bubble slowly in the oven or slow cooker are also a big plus.