One thing leads to another. Inevitability. So, when I checked the Kilruddery website, immediately after my August visit to the house and garden, I discovered that a berry foraging and jam making session led by Ed Hick was scheduled for Sunday the 21st September. And as I thought it was the type of event I might enjoy I promptly booked a place.
Category Archives: Recipes
Berry Foraging and Jam Making
Healthy and Delicious Fridge Cake
I have mentioned before on the blog that I try to eat in a healthy fashion. Mostly! I say mostly because I am inordinately fond of cake; I also like to eat the occasional burger and fries with a dollop of added-sugar-horror aka tomato ketchup on the side; and I indulge in the odd ninety-nine ice cream cone.
Filed under Cake, Food/Wine, Healthy Living, Recipes
Homemade Chocolate Granola
Will I, won’t I? Well, actually, I will: eat in a vegan fashion for four weeks that is, but just not at the moment. I had thought I might do so in January, but I have decided against. Truth be told, every time I contemplate a meat, poultry, egg, and fish free four-weeks (and these are just some of the food stuffs I would need to forego) I wonder might it be dizzingly difficult and would I have will-power wobbles and throw in the towel in the first week. Quite likely, so I need to get my head properly wrapped around the idea and suss out some vegan recipes before I give it a go.
Filed under Recipes
Saint-Émilion au Chocolat
Gosh, one month melds so rapidly into the next and before you know it the just-begun year is more than half over. Time does indeed fly: Easter now feels as distant as the outer reaches of the solar system yet was only three months ago. Now that summer has hit its stride Easter also seems like a different planet, one where the days were colder and central heating was needed as a talisman against the evening chill.
Baking: Banana Bread with Walnuts and Sultanas
I recently had an existential showdown with some bananas. As existential showdowns go it wasn’t in the same league as Oscar Wilde’s with the wallpaper in a Parisian hotel, where he reputedly uttered the immortal line: ‘one of us has got to go’, while lying on his deathbed and looking at said wallpaper.
Baking: Porter Cake for St Patrick’s Day
I am Irish so therefore I like Guinness. Right? No, wrong. I don’t like it at all. I believe it’s an acquired taste but no sip of it that I have ever had has encouraged me to try to acclimatize my taste buds to what’s known locally as the black stuff.
Filed under Cake, Celebrations, Ireland, Recipes
Baking: Chocolate Scones
One perennial on my annual to-do list is to eat in a healthy fashion. It’s not that my diet is intrinsically unhealthy just that it is forever in need of a little tweaking. Eating in a healthy fashion is a rather nebulous notion so I have honed in on just a few things I would like to do. One is to drink more water, more wheat grass juice and more blueberry smoothies. When I say more I am going to aim for an achievable one litre of water per day, two to three shots of wheatgrass juice per week and the occasional blueberry smoothie. The other change I would like to make is to dissolve my enduring belief that foodstuffs are divided into the good and the bad. In other words so long as I don’t overdo it I am not going to beat myself up for indulging in the occasional not-so-uber-healthy treat.
Filed under Recipes
Baking: Tomatoe and Chilli Tart
If you read the post immediately preceding this one you will now that, for the month of November, I am on a sort-of-a-detox and a sort-of-a-diet (hereinafter known as a double SOAD). Strangely since I started said double SOAD food hasn’t dominated my thoughts nor have I obsessed for a nano-second about some mega-meal I might eat on the first of December when I have finished the double SOAD.
American Grown by Michelle Obama
When I heard there was a new, well newish, book out called American Grown by Michelle Obama I was always going to buy it. Michelle Obama is one of my style icons and I much admire the work that she does through her Let’s Move campaign to combat childhood obesity in the USA.
Proust. Golden Syrup. Flapjacks
I had a Proustian moment when I saw these golden syrup and black treacle tins (pictured below) used to store sugar sachets in the Summer House café in Lismore. Saying that may casually imply that I have read Marcel Proust’s major opus A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which for the record I haven’t. But I know the story of how Proust, on tasting a madeleine which had been dipped in tea, was transported back to the landscape of his childhood to a time when his aunt customarily gave him a similar tea soaked madeleine each Sunday morning. When I saw the Tate & Lyle tins I remembered the days of my childhood when home-baked treats were plentiful and a tin of golden syrup was always a staple in the store cupboard.
Filed under Recipes
Just Add Attitude 