Guerrilla Gourmet: Kevin Thornton
Kevin Thornton‘s Guerrilla Gourmet evening at the Rock of Cashel is now online here for any fellow television-less fans of the show.
Tagged: baking
Chocolate Orange Bread and Butter Pudding
Sunday was family dinner day. One of the advantages of living in the countryside in North Cork is getting to spend more time with my family – and getting to try out lots of new recipes on them! This time round I decided to go with something very simple – Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon. “That doesn’t sound like you at all,” the Little Sister said suspiciously when I was talking to her on the phone that morning. “What’s the catch?” The last time she was around we were talking about serving her rabbit from the back garden so her reserve wasn’t entirely unwarranted, although unnecessary on this occasion. A good chicken needs no disguising. I just pushed some lemon thyme under the skin on the breast, tucked a few cloves of garlic and half a lemon inside the cavity and landed it in the oven, serving it with roasted carrots and peppers (livened up with a few chillies) and potatoes. There was supposed to be a side dish of Buttered Leeks as well – our leeks, grown from a bundle of seedlings that a friendly neighbour left on the doorstep last summer, flourished in the garden all winter – but, between breakfast in bed and flat tyres we forgot to pull them.
“There’s more to a meal than steak…”
A quote from one of satisfied customer’s at Denis Cotter’s Guerrilla Gourmet evening, when he cooked a vegetarian meal for adamant beef-eaters at Bandon Mart. Watch the whole programme and access recipes online at the RTÉ Guerrilla Gourmet website – note: the programmes are only available for 21 days after broadcast.Read a short review of Denis Cotter’s beautifully realised Wild Garlic, Gooseberries…and Me here, as well as an older cookbook and Café Paradiso review.
Blog Awards 2008
Congratulations to all those who are on the longlist for the Best Food and Wine Blog 2008 – it’s great to see so many old favourites there, including Val’s Kitchen, Italian Foodies, Ice Cream Ireland, Martin Dwyer, The Humble Housewife and Eat Drink Live. There are also plenty of new blogs, reminding me that it’s definitely time to do some work on my blog roll!
Pancake Tuesday
Don’t forget Pancake Tuesday tomorrow! I’m looking forward to trying out a new product from Sowan’s Organics – two organic pancake mixes, one with unbleached white flour and a spelt variation, which I’m particularly interested in. Both come fortified with organic vanilla, a great addition to savoury dishes – when I’m making Nic‘s Buttermilk Pancakes, I flavour them with some vanilla extract before adding the crispy bacon and maple syrup. If you have to buy a mix, best stick with something organic but, if you’re interested in making your own pancakes, you’ll find my standard recipe here with a useful dish for Pancake Tuesday – Ricotta and Spinach Pancake Bake. For more ideas check out Greatfood.ie‘s pancake special.
Baking in Ireland
I was recently asked whether baking – particularly bread making – in Ireland is undergoing a recent resurgence or is it on the way out? Are people too busy/too tired to cook, never mind bake, for themselves? Judging by the amount of people that bake and blog about it, it doesn’t look like it! What do you think?
Black Forrest Gateau – Deconstructed
Black Forrest Gateau was one of the joys of a ’70s childhood. With its layers of chocolate cake, punctuated by cream and tinned cherries, then decorated with chocolate curls, it always stood proud on desert trolleys of the era during the infrequent times my family went out for dinner. My attempts at assembling my own variation on, what was for the time, perfection, were made with the assistance of a small cookbook that purported to show you how to cook everything possibly needed for Christmas well ahead of time and freeze it. I took this all very seriously and well remember myself piping trays of cream rosettes for freezing (and forgetting) in advance of the festive season. That Gateau wasn’t too bad but a recent attempt to bring the cake into the 21st Century was even more successful.
Missing in action
Apologies for the loss in transmission for the last while. My hosting company decided to play silly buggers and, as we were in New Zealand on an in impromptu trip to surprise the Husband’s grandfather for his 80th birthday, it was a little difficult to sort out. Still, I’m back now and ready to start eating my way through 2008!