Tagged: peeled

Bibliocook.com - Potato Apple Tart 8

St Patrick’s Day: Potato Apple Tart

Potato Apple Tart

With St Patrick’s Day being tomorrow, one’s thoughts turn to food. Specifically food of an Irish sort, which includes, naturally enough, all things potato. So when I was reading through my recently acquired copy of Margaret Bates’ Talking about Cakes with an Irish and Scottish Accent, her recipe for Potato Apple Cake caught my eye. She said it was a delicacy from the orchard districts of Co Armagh but didn’t give an exact recipe, describing it as two rounds of potato cake sandwiching an apple filling and cooked on the griddle.

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Winter Warmers: Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

This is the soup that I cooked at the Glenroe Ladies’ Club demonstration – it is something that I make regularly as it has a great flavour, doesn’t take long and is really good for freezing. The smoked paprika is fabulous with it, giving a real depth to the soup. Perfect for warming your hands while you sip it out of a large mug.

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Blackberry picking: Apple and Blackberry Crumble

Blackberries

As a child, autumn was one of my favourite times of year. Going back to school was much eased by the fact that there were blackberries available for eating on nearby hedges, crab apples down the fields to be gathered and plenty of field mushrooms to be picked. This year, Little Missy in her sling for our daily walks, trying to grab any bramble that comes near her, we’ve been keeping an eye out for plump sloes and watching as the elderberries ripen, while eating lots of blackberries.

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Have spork, will travel

Spork

Last year, on a trip to London, I picked up a spork – a light plastic utensil which features a spoon at one end, fork at the other and serrated knife edge on the fork side – in a kitchenware shop and I’ve rarely been without it since. The last quarter of 2008 was taken up with train trips to Dublin as I worked on the Foodtalk documentary series and, food on the train being what it is – or isn’t – my spork was invaluable.

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Squash for soup: Bean, Squash and Cabbage Soup

A few of our Ushiki Kuri squashThe vegetable garden suffered this year. Not only was the weather appalling but the Husband, lulled into a false sense of security by our bunny-killing machine (aka Puddy Cat), took down the rabbit-proof fence – the week before the cat up and died on us. It didn’t take long before the rabbits realised that our newly planted leeks, beans and kale were an all-you-can-eat buffet. The only things that survived were a few plants of perpetual spinach, some Swiss chard – and, thankfully, the squash.