This year’s celebration will again be very different as here in Ireland it is the anniversary of Lockdown 1 and we are still in Lockdown. This year there will be a key ingredient in my Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations one that I love to both eat and drink that mighty pint of black stuff Guinness. It adds a herbily note with tones of molasses. In sweet items it gives a subtle almost ginger bread flavour and it is so good in beef stew in place of wine. I hope you all enjoy your Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations & stay safe.
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It can be hard to be inspired first thing in the morning about food. If like me you need several cups of caffeine whilst pondering what it is you would like for breakfast then you may be interested in this post. Below I have listed a few of my favourite breakfast dishes that might aid you in making a decision.
Guacamole Eggs
This dish is without doubt my favourite breakfast. It originally started out as Çılbır or Turkish eggs. Which is a dish of poached eggs served on garlicky yoghurt with a chilli butter sauce, I know it sounds crazy, but truly is divine. My version came about as I really wanted Turkish eggs for breakfast and had avocados that really needed using up so I mixed them through the yoghurt and it made the creamiest mild guacamole. I then substituted the aleppo pepper in the butter sauce and made a spicy chorizo sauce. I think perhaps I should have called these Irish eggs not because any of the key ingredients are Irish, but because it has the same colours of our flag the green of the guacamole, the brilliant white of the poached egg and the orange tinted chorizo butter sauce. All you need with these eggs is some good toasted bread to scoop them up. I hope you try and enjoy.
Ham & Cheese Jambons
For those not in the know ham and cheese jambons are a puff pastry parcels filled with, you guessed it, ham and cheese. They can be found everywhere in Ireland every petrol station and deli counter and for just reason nothing makes a better portable snack. Another, benefits of these are that the mixture makes 12 what I do is cook 6 to eat still warm from the oven and freeze the remaining 6 to be cooked straight from the freezer at a later date.
Granola Muffins
I used to really only ever make breakfast muffins at the weekend, now with this simple recipe I make them any day of the week. As with all muffins they are best eaten on the day they are made, I find the particularly handy during the week I can take a couple to my desk and eat through the day as I work. The time can vary a little in the cooking depending on the granola used.
Another favourite of mines is a dish that originated in lockdown one, not even really a recipe. I was out of bread and since I was making as little trips to the shops as possible, I had to come up with an alternative, I certainly first thing in the morning wasn’t going to start making a loaf of bread. I had some frozen potato waffles and though they are something to be honest I had eaten in years. I had a box for when my nephews and nieces are visiting, some of them are very fussy eaters. I simply toasted them in the toaster, it took 3 times for them to come out bronzed and slightly crisp. Whilst the waffles were toasting, I poached some eggs and make the quickest zingy chilli sauce by combining the juice of ½ lime, 1 tablespoon of runny honey and chilli flakes, fresh chilli chop finely is an excellent choice here too. Just stir together over heat until it begins to foam up, switch off the heat and let it stand to cool slightly whilst you waiting on the eggs and waffles. I simply topped the crispy toasted waffles with the soft poached or fried eggs and then drizzle with the chilli sauce.
What are your favourite breakfast dishes? Leave me a comment down below ad let me know.
The perfect excuse to make pancakes on a weekday. Whilst a good recipe is essential to pancake making, and below you will find one provided. For me the magic is what you eat them with. Usually for me it’s either a simple blackberry or raspberry sauce made by cooking the frozen berries in a little honey or with crispy bacon and poached eggs. However, you like your pancakes the below recipe won’t disappoint it makes fluffy delicious pancakes. I’m going rogue tomorrow and plan to eat mines with a salted caramel sauce, whipped cream and berries.
The below recipe calls for kefir, simply as I always have some in the fridge you can use instead buttermilk or runny plain yoghurt.
February 14th Valentine’s day; a celebration of love and romance. St. Valentine’s days romantic connection originated from the festival of Luprecalia, held in mid-February. The festivals celebrations included the pairing off of men and women hence it’s romantic connection. The day got its name from a priest that was martyred by emperor Claudius II Gothicus and his body buried close to the Ponte Milvio, to the north of Rome, on February 14th. The feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelaius Ad 469. It is believed that the colour red became associated with Valentine’s day to represent the blood of the martyred St. Valentine.
Let talk food and drink
What makes a recipe romantic? Is it the mood enhancing chocolate, the aphrodisiac qualities of oysters or perhaps some celebratory bubbles? For me someone who is completely food obsessed it’s quite hard to narrow down. I think whatever the dish maybe it must be easy on the washing up and dessert should be a make ahead one. I’m sure a kitchen strewn with dirty pots and pans does not make for a romantic setting. Below I have made a few suggestions as to dishes that I feel may help with the romances.
Steak tagliata , is a steak that is simply cut into thin strips, in fact it gets its name from the Italian word tagliare meaning to cut. I use a big juicy sirloin steak and can easily feed two of us with the one steak, and we aren’t light eaters. If this sound like the dish for you check out the recipe below.
What’s not to love about this classic Italian dish? It has some of the best flavour combinations eggs, bacon, pasta and cheese. This is another very quick dish, by the time the pasta has cooked everything else will be ready to go and only needs tossing together. Of course should the mood take you, you and your significant other can always have your Lady and the Tramp moment with this dish.
Again, another quick-fire recipe after all who is going to be in the mood if they have been slaving away in the kitchen all day and what a quacking recipe it is too. By the time the duck breasts have rendered out their fat and become golden brown and crispy skinned and had a few minutes resting everything else should be ready.
My go to dessert for Valentine’s day would without question be my quivering prosecco jellies with strawberries. These grown-up jellies still have a little tongue tingling fizz from the prosecco. It is an absolute requirement for me to have some double cream to pour into the crater left after every spoonful.
No Churn Nutella Ice Cream
Would any Valetine’s day be complete without chocolate? This is one of my favourite ice-cream recipes it only requires 3 ingredients and a quick whisk together and then pop it into the freezer until frozen.
I feel a little ambivalent about white chocolate or at least I used to until I discovered good white chocolate the kind that comes flecked with vanilla seeds. Again, another simple dessert that requires very little cooking a few minutes in fact to make the raspberry sauce and melt the white chocolate. Then just just pop them into the fridge until ready to eat.
Chorizo often creeps its way into my comfort food and go to recipe for a couple of reason one is its long shelf life I always have a couple stashed in the fridge and the other is because I simply adore its flavour and the flavour it imparts on any dish it is cooked with. For example, the flavour it can bring to a simple pan-fried chicken breast is phenomenal. Simply chop the chorizo warm it through in a dry pan until it releases those flavoursome orange tinted oils, remove from the pan then fry a butterflied chicken breast seasoned simply with salt & pepper in the oil until cooked through. Top with cheddar cheese and pop under a hot grill to melt the cheese. Yum!
This brings me to my chicken & chorizo orzo which is the type of bolstering comfort food I love. The orzo gets all sticky and gives the whole dish a velvety texture, the chorizo gives bright bold flavour and the chicken cooks in the steam released from the whole dish and the skin in the final 15 minutes in the oven with the lid off makes the skin really crisp up and bronze. Truely comfort food at its best. It also helps that it is very easy on the washing up. Check out the recipe below.
I am delighted and excited to share with you my recipe for lamb ribs. I am evangelical about this recipe. My first encounter with lamb ribs was at a young age. A local supermarket sold them and as a rare treat, we would get them occasionally. These ribs were kept in a hot cupboard all day and whilst big on flavour were nothing more than fat and bone, which is really a lot of what a lamb rib is about. These ribs were never very impressive in comparison, in appearance anyways to other ribs with there sticky glazes and sauces, but what they lack in appearance they sure made up for in taste. These ribs are nostalgic for me and evoke memories of childhood. Chewing on the bones until every last ounce of meat and flavour was gone. I had completely forgotten about them for such a long time until recently seeing them in an utterly alluring episode of Simply Nigella. I tried immediately Nigella’s. Recipe and I did love it, but I had to reinvoke the flavours of my youth, and thus this recipe was born. I also as an adult realizing how expensive lamb can be, am even more entranced by this cut as it is not only one of the tastiest ways of eating lamb but also one of the most inexpensive was too. I use a shallow roasting pan with a wire rack so that the ribs, which are a fatty cut, as they cook render their fat and let it drip below. I use all my favourite herbs and spices to use with lamb when cooking these; cumin garlic rosemary and of course mint. They take a long time to cook but are a very simplistic recipe. It’s merely a matter of combining the spices with just enough oil to make it into a wet rub to smoosh and coat the ribs in. When they have had their time in the oven the fat will have shrank and crisped, and the meat so tender that it comes away from the bone with ease.
I think the most important factors for valentines recipes is that they are quick, easy and light on the washing up, not that the washing up should be a factor on Valentine’s Day. It can be taken care of tomorrow.
First recipe up is what I call my date steak. One Steak can feed two generously. A lush juicy steak is given a quick fry then rest in the salad dressing, where it oozes some of it meaty flavor into the dressing whilst also taking on some of the flavors of the dressing. The steak gets sliced finely and then strewn over a messy tangle of salad. Delicious and only moments of work. Steak is always a real treat and even though this recipe takes very little time to make you would never know it. It is a quick feast.
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Spaghetti Carbonara
Again, another quick and easy meal and of course you can have your lady and the tramp moment with this dish. It takes longer to eat than it does to make. By the time your pasta has cooked everything else will be ready to go.
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If you want to get ahead of the cooking then try this Fabulous dessert, strawberries in Prosecco jelly. I make this in champagne saucers and it really just looks like a glass of champagne. It is a gently set jelly, the Prosecco retains the bubbles so the jelly has the most gentle light tingle in your mouth as you eat. To vamp it up even more for your loved one, whip some cream gently, scoop out a passion fruit and fold through the softly whipped cream.Dollop spoonfuls of the cream as you eat your jelly. I laugh at the cheesiness but I call this ‘’Quivering with passion jellies’’ and I think it sums up this day perfectly.
I bought a slow cooker a long time ago and until recently it spent most of its time at the back of a cupboard. It is only recently I have come to get full use of this wonderful piece of kitchen equipment. I must confess however, I know that my slow cooker will inevitably be constrained to the winter and colder months as I find it best suited to braised dishes and that is usually not the sort of food I want to eat in the warmer months. But whilst the weather is cold, I am getting full use of my slow cooker I nearly always cook in large batches when using it when time and energy are in short supply. When I know I’m going to be busy and not have the opportunity to eat I go ahead and stick something in so I know when I get home, I will have a hot comforting meal ready. Most of the time it is only two of us eating so I like to come up with recipes such as my slow cooker ham that do provide several dinners but, the several other new dinners over the next few days come from these. From the leftovers of my slow cooked ham I make ham & Pea potato cake, my egg fried rice with ham or even just some simple stir-fried greens with a hefty slice of ham that is topped with a fried egg, runny yolk a must.
sticky date pudding
I have recently been adapting some of my dessert recipes for the slow cooker, which I will explain. The reason this idea came to meet was recently when at a friend’s house for dinner there was a little bit of a crisis due to the oven being in use with dinner itself and temperatures, which inevitably shouldn’t have been a concern, I would just pop pudding into the oven after take out dinner as I enjoy a little break between courses. This, however, got me thinking of ways of cooking hot pudding or desserts without having to use the oven. What other pieces of equipment are found in most kitchens I thought. Then it hit the ‘slow cooker’, I knew as soon as I had decided on the cooking appliance that it had to be a pudding and I came up with a few but my top favourites were easy and delicious. One my slow cooker STP (Sticky Toffee Pudd) and the other my chocolate pudding. What makes these both great is that they are super easy to make combine wet and dry ingredients and cook it in its own sauce in the slow cooker giving your pudding an incredible sponge much like that of a steamed sponge pudding. I share below my recipe for slow cooker STP.
Check back over the coming weeks for many more slow cooker recipes.
I would like to wish all my readers celebrating Thanksgiving
tomorrow a very joyful day. Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Ireland
making me incredibly envious of the celebratory feast that occur, and I miss
out on. However, I would like to say how thankful I am for the continued
support from readers across the globe and I hope that you may be able to alleviate
some of the kitchen stresses this year with some of my shortcuts and hacks.
In the coming weeks there will be many more holiday inspired
recipes for quick stress-free party foods, cosy bowl foods, seasonal cocktails,
heart-warming comfort food that will aid you through the hustle and bustle on
the lead up to Christmas, seasonal cakes & bakes and recipe for making the
most of the Christmas feast leftovers.
Below is my recipe for salted caramel & apple Bundt cake
which I wouldn’t want to celebrate any holiday without.
