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!