Hello stranger

Well hello stranger. How're you doing?

Ok, so I have been REALLY crap and not posted on here since when....January...December even? I'll try to be more diligent about posting on here more, really. Especially since I now cook everyday. I've moved in with Gar to a little one bedroom house, we've got a cat that at the moment has lost her voice so she's just squeaking at us, and work for me is only a 20 minute walk away. We're living the dream.

Oh yeah, so other great news and a MASSIVE reason why I have no time to really blog anymore is that I have a job as an admin with an events company. It's certainly been keeping me busy and I've tried to found a ladies vintage appreciation society in Dublin. It's slowly getting there. If only I had more time to put into it really.

Anyway so far this week we've been eating a alot of comfort food. Gar's cooked his speciality, we've been to dinner at my mom's and had her rendition of jambalaya, I've made a massive pot of minestrone soup and last night we had potato and carrot rostis with halumi cheese, guacamole and tomatoes in olive oil, pepper and balsamic vinegar. It's been a tasty week :)

Mom's tomato, tofu and almond burgers

Here's a recipe from my mom for some yummy vegan burger patties!

Easy on the bread stuffing

I adore a good bread stuffing. The butter, the herbs, the soft crunch of the sweated onions and just the fluffy softness of the butter soaked bread crumbs which have just sucked up all of the flavours. That to me is when it is at it's most perfect and delicious, when it's fresh out of the pot. Since I've tried to limit my wheat intake to only occasional indulgences, bread stuffing had fallen to the back of my mind. It's a forgotten pleasure for me which has only recently seen a reintroduction to my diet. 


You can make this with whatever type of bread you like; normal wheat, wholewheat, brown, batch, soda, rye or gluten/wheat free. Whatever you like and can eat. 


*Also for the time being you'll have to forgive my lack of a photo I've been having some problems with my SD card and my camera lately.

Merry Christmas and all that jazz

Just a quick post with some seasonal wishes for all those lovely people who take the time to read my blog.

Dark chocolate pecan pies

So it's almost Christmas and it's time to start making some seasonal food. Normally I don't bother with this stuff. I don't love or hate mince pies, but I don't think I'd make them for myself. So this year I decided to try and make a few variations on the traditional mince pie by making dark chocolate pecan pies and roast cranberry and apple pies. 


Here's how I made the pecan pies, which have been very well received by all who have eaten them so far. My mother thinks she could keep eating them til she gets diabetes. 


That's pretty high praise right?

Spelt pastry recipe

Yesterday I went to my friend Rioghnach's Christmas party. She's been so encouraging about my blog and we have a shared love of cooking and all things retro. So I tried to channel my inner Betty Crocker and planned to bring some tasty baked treats to her party.

My list of tasty treats included chocolate macaroons and my alternatives to the traditional mince pie, so mini jam pies, chocolate pecan pies and roast cranberry, apple and Cointreau pies. Sadly the macaroons as we speak are sitting in the bin. They looked perfectly cooked when they came out of the oven, so not suspecting a problem and feeling slightly stressed about how many things I had to do, I left them to cool and thought nothing more of it. Until I attempted to remove them from the greaseproof paper and they fell apart. They hadn't cooked in the centre and returning them to the oven did little to salvage the situation. Sigh. Baking failures make me very sad. 

Dark chocolate mousse

I've had a hankering for chocolate mousse for a few days now. I volunteer as a moderator with a mental health community website so I caved and whipped up a batch of dark chocolate mousse planning to reward myself after my shift with some chocolate yumminess. And it certainly was yummy!

The recipe I used is the Chocolate rum pots recipe from 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats. But with the cream and rum substituted with oat cream and Cointreau.

Just as a side note, this recipe does contain raw eggs. Also it contains alcohol that doesn't get cooked out, so be cautious about people driving a car soon after eating this, but you don't have to add the alcohol if you don't want to.

Blue goes on tour!

Well ok, maybe the title is a bit of an exaggeration! Maybe it's more a tour of the clouds in between here and Spain...


In November I will be escaping our very soggy weather for 5 days to go visit a friend in Madrid whose on an Erasmus year. I'm also hoping to make it up to Bilbao to visit another friend. Though a recent recheck of Google maps to see where it is in relation to Madrid has shown me the two are not as close together as I had thought. Living in Ireland where everything is 2-3 hours on the motorway has perhaps instilled in me an expectation that everywhere else in the world is so easily commutable too (well with exceptions of places like America and Russia).

Icings

I had this tagged onto the end of a bun recipe post and then decided it merits it's own separate post. So here they are, my recipes for sugar free bun and cake icings. 


As I find more or come up with them I'll add them to this post with the relevant book references or website links. 
  
Faux-chocolate buttercream
100 g of diabetic chocolate,
2-3 generous tbsp butter.

Vegetarian black pudding

The smell of black and white pudding cooking reminds me of being a little kid. It's a smell that triggers memories of visiting my grandparents in the West of Ireland. The other sure fire smell that reminds me of them is the smell of a turf fire. 


Before I went vegetarian I really enjoyed meat. I liked rare steaks, sausages, good bacon, chicken skin, smoked mackerel, tinned tuna...to name a few things. I also loved good pudding. To me, really good pudding isn't just mush in a skin. It's well seasoned and full of grains so there's something special about the texture too. 


So far I don't think I've seen vegetarian pudding for sale anywhere. I've heard of veggie hagiss, so there's bound to be someone out there making and selling black and white pudding. But nevermind, if you don't mind putting in the time, this recipe will make a yummy black pudding that you would swear was a proper blood pudding. 


I based the recipe around Darina Allen's recipe for traditional black pudding in her Forgotten Skills of Cooking book but put my own twist on it by using green lentils, pearly barley and red wine gravy. I am really really happy this recipe has worked out so well. Not only do they smell and taste like the real thing but the texture is pretty bang on too. 

A-Z of Me

So I saw this on Retrochick's blog and thought it would be kinda fun to add to my own one too. So here's my A-Z of me, probably more information than you ever wanted to know about me. 

A-Age: 22

B-Bed size: Double 

C-Chore that you hate: Dusting, it makes me sneeze something terrible. Then I look like a fool if I wear a face mask to stop the sneezing. 

D- Dogs: A long weekend of looking after Gar's friend's dog and their apartment has definitely cemented my love of cats. They don't need to be walked, they can be house trained to poop in a box and they generally don't tend to eat whatever leftovers you have on the kitchen counter while also smearing it all over the couch. We've already agreed on names, for when we live together and can adopt some kitties. Orwell and Beckett after our favourite authors. Though zombie kitty is also pretty tempting.  

House keeping note

Amide the chaos and clutter that is me trying to reorganise this blog, some of you may have noticed a new addition to the site. For those of you who haven't, no worries, I shall explain. 


Now in the gadgets sidebar to the left of the screen there is a tab saying Buy Ingredients Online. 

Pretty much it is (or should be) what it says on the tin. When you view specific recipes, this tab should become a button you can hit to buy the ingredients you need online through Tescos. 


I signed up for this feature at the start of the month so by now it should be enabled in all of my recipe posts. 


I would really like to hear any feedback you have on this new feature, if you think it's useful/useless/now-enabled-you-to-live-the-reclusive-life-you-always-imagined-because-it-just-introduced-you-to-food-shopping-online/whatever. 


This is your space to pipe in with your opinion!

World Vegetarian Day 2011

World Vegetarian Day this year is something that registered with in the peripheries of my mind but that didn't really grab my attention. I think I've seen some stuff floating around facebook about it, but if you asked me to tell you anything about it, I wouldn't know what to say to you. That is until now.

It's October 2nd lovelies.

Today I decided to add a "Useful Links" page to my blog, in which I've posted links to lists of vegetarian friendly brands of cheeses and spirits available here on in Ireland published on the Vegetarian Society of Ireland's website. Then on their mainpage, this happy little fella caught my eye:

Chocolate Orange Macaroons

A few years ago cupcakes became the "it" thing in confectionery.  I think macaroons are possibly replacing cupcakes as the new super trendy sweet treat. Normally I'm not one for being trendy, generally it actually puts me off things but I do have a sweet tooth and really enjoy macaroons. There's something wonderful about teaming of the soft meringuey biscuity base and top sandwiched together with a buttercream filling. The French truly have a gift for creating wondrously indulgent sweet things! I think that last statement is just one of those widely accepted facts of life. 

But one of the unfortunate results of things becoming trendy is that you can end up paying stupid prices for something you could just make yourself. Like €1.60 for ONE macaroon - sod that!

This is the first time I ever made macaroons, a French dinner themed pot luck last month proving to be the kick I needed to finally make them. As you can can see from the pictures, I made two types of macaroons, the green ones were elderflower flavoured but if I'm honest I'm not entirely happy with how they turned out, so I'll hold off on putting up a recipe for them until I've refined it more. 

As a final note, those who have problems with sugar, be warned these things are loaded with it!

Baked aubergines with soya cream and thyme

Original recipe by Nick Slater in Tender (pg 61). 

I LOVE aubergines. When they are properly cooked (not just cooked until they go rubbery) they go so soft and gooey and have such a gentle flavour. To me this is a beautifully simple recipe that really celebrates how wonderful aubergines really are. 

Back in action!

Just a quick post to say hello and say I'm still here! 


The past few weeks (dare I say months - has it been that long?) have been pretty busy. Between spending a ridiculous amount of time on buses, barely any time at home and feeling as per usual like I have nothing really to show for how I have spent my time, I haven't done alot of cooking. The few unsuccessful attempts I have had in the kitchen lately have actually led to a bit of a crisis of confidence. But everyone has their off days/weeks/months, right?  


Anyway I am back to the blog and back in the kitchen! 


You may have noticed that the overall look has been pretty heavily tweaked and I have been working on a number of new posts that will be published in the next few days. 

Corn pasta with feta and spinach and tomato sauce

This is something myself and my mother thought up on a particularly bad day, so we both really wanted comfort food. I had a particular hankering for ready made spinach and ricotta cannelloni, which of course is bad for me with both wheat and cheese. So we concocted this really easy to make, delicious and rather guilt free alternative. Since the tomato sauce is home made using only 4 ingredients, it's suitable for people with sugar problems too since none is used to sweeten the sauce. 

Shameless event promo.

Don't read this if you only care about food. But do read this if you're in Dublin Ireland the first weekend in August and you like classic cars, hotrods, girls or guys, bikes and awesome music! 

Lentil stuffed sweet peppers

Based on 'A lentil stuffing for a cheap supper' recipe by Nick Slater in Tender, p 289.


Serves 4-6 people.


Ingredients:
200g green/brown lentils,
1 sweet pepper per person,
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 onion, chopped
6 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp sweet paprika,
2 tsps hot paprika,
Salt,
Pepper
Olive oil.


Preheat the oven to 180°C

Veggie jambalaya (photo step by step)

Without a doubt this is one of Gar's favourite things (and even my mother's) among my cooking repertoire. There's nothing like a big bowl of this on a cold miserable day with some bread on the side to mop up the flavours. I use a small cheat when I make this, a jambalaya should be started on the hob then finished off in the oven , but I skip the oven and just leave it to cook all the way on the hob. 


I decided to beef out the last one I made with more vegetables than usual to make it less of a carb-fest. It's pretty good both with and without the added veggies. :)