A shining star of wonderful gorgeousness

I would like to publically apologise to the shining star of wonderful gorgeousness English Mum for not having her on my blogroll. I am a shoddy fellow Irish blogger and I sincerely apologise for my oversight and extreme shoddiness!! This mistake has now been rectified!!!

I also apologise to my readers for not updating my blog aswell, I am a bad blogger and have no excuse apart from laziness! I've been baking but not updating! The last scones were gorgeous though!!! I will be back soon....................................and remember I love you all!!!

Tagged!

I haven't been tagged in ages so heres one from Lorraine, cheers girl

Six things you don't know about me.

1. My favourite drink of all time is a Harvey Wallbanger. This is what I'll drink at home before a night out or what I'll drink on a night out.

2. I met my husband in primary school, we didn't get together until 8 years ago though!

3. I'm addicted to tea and coffee. When I gave them up before I was so grumpy and mean my friends asked me to start drinking it again so I was "me".

4. My favourite color is green.

5. I start singing christmas songs in my head in July...........every year!

6. I love jelly sweets, any type as long as they're not fizzy ones!!!

and just to add a 7th about the pictures above and below.........

7. This is Co. Clare, where my heart and soul lie. If we could sell our house and I could convince the husbag I'd be there in the morning!!!

The people I am going to tag are:

1. Marian

2. Lynnie

3. Jen

4. Kate

and

5. Sarah

Give it a go people, it's always good to share on the internet with it's lack of stalkers and all ;-)

Another missing DB Challenge

I've been in Florida for the last 2 weeks so no challenge for me again unfortunately, I'll share some pics of Daytona Beach and Disney though, just to keep you going until I get back on the blogging wagon!!!

Christmas puddings and mincemeat planned for this weekend though! YUM!

Tiny update

I got my blackberries today AND finally got my hands on Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan!!! Very exciting!

I know I haven't been around much lately

and I apologise for my shoddiness, things should settle down a bit now. Am holding an asian inspired dinner party next weekend so am hoping for loads of pics, how does red prawn curry, butter chicken with rice and naan breads sound?

During my hiatus I've gotten Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell, Simple Essentials Chocolate by Donna Hay AND and ice-cream maker!!! Sorbets all round next weekend methinks!!!!!

Sugar High Friday #45 - Berries

and a first for me, food processor shortcrust pastry!

I've been thinking about Sugar High Friday all month and had decided to make a blackberry cake topped with meringue but at the last minute we went to the organic farmers market this morning and got organic gooseberries that were freshly picked and also some organic redcurrants too. So I changed my mind about what I was going to make and decided on a gooseberry tart.

In the vein of recent reminiscent posts on Helens blog I have been thinking about my grandparents a lot and particularly my maternal grandfather Michael, he was a tall and wonderful man from a small island off the southern coast of Ireland called Cape Clear (or Oileán Chléire in Irish), he became a teacher and moved to Co. Clare, where my heart lies and this is where he met my grandmother Bríd and they married, moved to Dublin and had 4 children; my mother, my aunt who is also my surrogate mother, my uncle who lives in Australia and my second uncle who lives in the south of Ireland and is a bear of a man vey like my grandfather in height and looks who I am extremely fond of.


My memories of my grandfather, who died when I was quite young, are still very strong, I remember the day he died and how hard it rained, I remember him handing us biscuits that christmas from an assorted tin of biscuits which were and still are very popular in Ireland at christmas time. My main memory though is gooseberries, jam and eating them off the bush in his garden, the sharp sweetness, the lovely crunch when you bit into one and the prickly skin. I don't think I've had gooseberries since I was a child so grandad, this tart reminds me of you and how much I wish you had seen me turn into the married woman that I am today. Crap, I am also premenstrual and crying at something I don't think I've ever cried about before, so apologies if I've gotten a little deep in this post and we haven't even gotten to the recipe yet!!!

Firstly, the food processor pastry which have never made before and am sure purists think is scandalous but seeing as I felt lazy it was easy and is flavoured with vanilla which will compliment the gooseberries perfectly.

From Donna Hay magazine issue 38

250g plain, all purpose flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
180g cold butter, chopped
80ml iced water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the flour, caster sugar and baking powder into a food processor and mix.
Add the butter and process until it resembles bread crumbs.
With the motor running, add the water and vanilla essence and process until it all comes together.
Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins.



For the gooseberry tart, taken from Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends by Rachel Allen:

1lb of gooseberries, cleaned and de-stalked (is that a word??)
100g sugar
1 tbsp water

Put the gooseberries, sugar and water in a pot and heat for 4-5 mins until the gooseberries have softened. Turn off the heat and allow to cool in the syrup.

Blind bake your pastry at Gas 3/160 for 15 mins then egg wash and bake for another 15 mins, I used a 14x4 inch long rectangular tart tin. Drain the gooseberries from the syrup and place them in the bottom of the tart.


For the custard:

250ml cream
100g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

Mix the eggs, sugar and vanilla together and then add the cream. Whisk until well mixed and pour over the gooseberries. Bake for 35-40 mins until the custard is set. Allow to cool and serve with whipped cream and a berry or 2 if you have some left.

This tart was gorgeous, light and custardy with a fantastic tartness from the gooseberries, the perfect combination of sweet and sour to my mind. A perfect summer tart I think, and the pastry was lovely despite it being not my usual method of making it. Special thanks to Susan from Food Blogga for hosting this month and also as usual to Jennifer of the Domestic Goddess for inventing this whole hoopla!

Little saturday update

In the last 24 hours I've gotten the Ballymaloe Cookery Course for €16 from the bookman and the Apples for Jam and Falling Cloudberries Boxset by Tessa Kiros for €24. Best €40 I've spent in a very long time!!!!

Bargain feckin tastic!!!!!

Food bites and other stuff

So I was a tiny bit lazy this weekend and didn't feel like posting, but do you know the guilt gets to me and I have to put something up and seeing as I can't be bothered writing out a recipe here's some foodie bites to keep you going:


Firstly major news from the wonderful Kieran over at Ice Cream Ireland. Kieran and some others have managed to get funding for the 1st Annual National Irish Food Awards (Blas na hÉireann) which will be held in Dingle during the Food and Wine festival, this is amazing news and I wish them all the best, should they need a judge I am only too willing to lend my services ;-) .

Secondly, Deborah has started her new blog Tast.ie and also Spicendipity which is a shop selling gorgeous gourmet baking and cooking mixes of which I must try come payday this week. Dying to try the Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and I definitely wouldn't mind the Luxury BBQ hamper so if anyone feels inclined to send me a present please don't be shy!?!?! tee hee

I also have to tell you about the new Bugatti range that kitchendresser.net have in stock, I am totally in love with these coffee cups and saucers and they have joined my ever espanding list of "must buy" kitchen implements. They also have the new Kenwood Kmix mixer which I am majorly coveting but my Kenwood Chef outweighs it in terms of muscle so I'll be sticking with that for now methinks but a girl can dream............


I bought a couple of new cookery books in Hodges Figgis sale today, Everyday by Bill Granger and Gorgeous Desserts by Annie Bell. Gorgeous Desserts is such a food porn book for me, the pictures are gorgeous and decadent and while the pics Bill's book are fabulous as always, desserts win out for me every time and I've wanted this book for ages since I saw Gorgeous Cakes in my cousins house (I will be buying this book a.s.a.p aswell), I will be heading to bed early tonight to plan what I'll be making first.

I had my aunts and mam over yesterday for afternoon tea which I've wanted to do for ages. My mam passed me the cups, saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and cake plate from my grandmothers tea set and I finally got a chance to use the cups and saucers (after a friendly Mrs. Bucket (read Bouquet) type warning about no breakages and plastic beakers beforehand) and I must say Rachel Allen, although far from my favourite tv chef, does a mean afternoon tea. I made greek almond crescent biscuits, cardamom sour cream cake and lovely scones from a couple of her books which I seem to have accumulated over the last year or so. I have to say Rachel (love the name ;-) tee hee) has really grown on me and I've made a lovely mackeral dish and honey and lemon chicken from her books in the last few weeks and I was very impressed. Her recipes are simple and taste really good and I think these books are well on the way to becoming go to books for lovely home cooked food at the weekends for me.

I haven't bought anything off my "must buy" list recently, not since my creme brulee dishes which I still haven't used so this month I'm planning to buy a book stand for the kitchen and I always have trouble balancing my book and end up putting it down in eggs whites that have spilled on the counter. I'm also thinking maybe a bamboo steamer and maybe an ice-cream maker aswell as I've had to give the one I had a loan of for well over a year back. I'm thinking this one might suit my needs for now as I won't be making ice cream too often I'd say.

And in that note I may love you and leave you. Today's foodie news has been brought to you by Rachel and the fuit lemon (tee hee)

Tastespotting is no more.........

what am I going to do in the evenings when himself is playing the PS3 and I have no archives to look at :-( boohoo

A bit of everything...........

but mostly nothing!!!

This weekend and last weekend, save for having the family over I've made a good bit of stuff;


Choux pastry for HHDD#20, it was divine! I made eclairs and profiteroles and filled them with honey orange cream and topped with cardamom icing, the flavours were amazing and the husbag was putting whole profiteroles in his mouth. When I put the pics on the computer they were in a word........crap!!! To out it nicely, my normal turn of phrase would have been shite but seeing as I like to think my blog is international some of you might not know what shite is, said with an Irish accent of course so we'll stick with crap! No chance to take more pics as there was a choux massacre...............you can see the results above.


I also made chocolate tarts - chocolate pastry, lined with melted chocolate and filled with creme patisserie and topped with fresh cherries, blueberries and strawberries. Once again divine! I brought them to a friends house and never photographed them filled (these non-bloggers just don't understand this photographing food), the shells look nice though.


I also made fresh lemonade, the most divine refreshing and tangy lemonade courtesy of Laylita's Recipes and as always Tastespotting! I can not rave about this enough, we had lemon and lime on Sunday and orange and lemon on Monday as it was a bank holiday.

So. Good.

I changed the recipe slightly and used a whole litre of soda water, 1 lime, a lemon and a half and half a cup of sugar which is about 4ish ounces of sugar but you can use more to taste. I cannot stress though, that when you blend this you MUST strain it as there are loads of bits of the peel etc in it. I was very sceptical that this would be nice but it's WAY better than homemade lemonade with just the juice, much more flavour and tartness but still a lovely sweet balance. Check out the recipe over on Layla's blog on the link above, she also has Watermelon mimosa up at the moment which looks AMAZING!

I also made gorgeous Avoca salads, for those of you who have eaten there I made the broccoli, feta, cherry tomato and hazelnut salad and the balsamic potato salad - Divine!!! I will definitely be making these again soon as I've loads of lovely homemade fresh dressing leftover. YUM, expect salad recipes this weekend methinks.

Other than that I made beef skewers with peanut dipping sauce, sticky chicken wings, lovely mushrooms on toast, bellini's, Bill Grangers amazing scrambled eggs - you know the usual things people make at the weekend.

I'm hoping for something more productive this weekend with actual photos of finished dishes this time. I got creme brulee dishes today, that I've been waiting a couple of months for so maybe some lavender or rose creme brulee in the coming weeks, I am never going to get through my ever expanding list of things to make for the first time if I keep going!!!

On that note, I'm off to bed now, sogni d'oro (sweet dreams) rachx

Food Bites and other stuff

No recipe post until later this week so I thought I'd tell you all about some food related its and pieces to keep you going until then. The picture above is one I took across Galway bay to the Aran Islands a few weeks ago when we were down there for the bank holiday weekend, this is one of the most beautiful views in the world to be and when we drive along the coast road from Ballyvaughan to Fanore it's like my heart has come home!!!!

Firstly I have to rave about a fantastic kitchen accessory site I came across last year, Kitchen Dresser, this is a fantastic site with lovely bits and pieces for the kitchen and I check it regularly to see if they have new stock.


I recently bought these lovely plates, bowls and a jug from them that you can see in the picture above that are so cute and pretty and have a lovely vintage look to them. I also have to compliment them on their outstanding customer service, when my order arrived a plate in the set of 4 I had bought was broken, I mailed them and received not 1 but 2 mails back telling me I would get a new plate and it arrived the very next day. I am seriously impressed with Kitchen Dresser and will definitely shop there again, the postage is only €8 to anywhere in Ireland aswell so no excuse to get some lovely bits for your kitchens laydees.

My second piece of "news" is that tonight I had this for my dinner, bruschetta ai funghi. Lorraine is always encouraging me to get back into mushrooms, I have a slight aversion to them due to a traumatic experience in Biology class when I was doing my leaving cert that involved an hour long video of the most terrifying mushrooms and toadstools actually detaching from the ground and moving!!!!!!! HORRENDOUS!!! This was a gorgeous recipe and I added a tsp of cream and some fresh thyme to it, I can't recommend it enough and actually mailed Lorraine to say how gorgeous this was.


Another food related piece of news that I am sure most of you know about was the release of Kieran and Seans fantastic Book of Sweet Things that came out at the beginning of May and a fantastic book it is too. I made rum and raisin ice cream, it being my favourite flavour, and it was SSSSSOOOOO good!! And Fairycakeheaven got a mention in the book which I am well chuffed about.


I have to tell about another book I got recently too - Ursula Ferriogno's Complete Italian Cookery Course, I got this for all of €6 in TK Maxx and it's one of the best purchases I have ever made there, I've used this loads and because of the wonderful pictures I have made a few risottos and have even graduated to making them with whatever I have and not just using the recipes which I am very proud of indeed. This is a must have book for anyone into Italian cooking and I even prefer it to Jamie's Italy and Giorgio Locatelli's Made in Italy: Food and Other Stories which have until now been my go to Italian books after Lorraine of course.

I am sure there are other things that I have meant to tell you over the last few weeks, I bought Carrageen moss at the weekend so I'll be making Carrageen Panna Cotta or Souffle over the next few weeks, the recipe will be from a book my grandmother owned and is a very treasured possession.

On a non food related bit, this is my favourite song at the moment, I am loving Duffy andI think her album is fantastic, she's very reminiscent of Dusty Springfield I think and very soulful without being depressing too. Let me know what you think.


Also, check out Desserts Magazine, an online magazine with great recipes and submissions from bloggers I read all the time, Helen's macaron tutorial is also invaluable for anyone who wants to make macarons for the firt time or who just needs a few tips in making them, I still haven't gotten around to making some but as this weekend coming is a bank holiday I'm hoping to give them a whirl so keep your fingers crossed for me.

And on that note I'll sign off for the night, I need my daily dose of scandal from Perez Hilton. Ciao laydees (and any gents but I don't think there are any apart from Niall) Rachx

I've been tagged................

By the lovely George from Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess and Brenda from Tea and Wheaten Bread on the same round of tagging, George tagged Brenda and I and then Brenda tagged me aswell, mad isn't it!!!!

As both tags are the same, to describe myself in six words and then tag 6 other bloggers so here goes

• Passionate
• Fun
• Talkative
  
• Loyal
• Protective
• Shoe mad

Hope that will give you all an insight into my personality and the people I am tagging are

• The Airy Fairy @ ~airy fairy cupcakes~
  
• Lynnie @ Lyndar the Merciless
• Katy @ Sugarlaws, one of the newer blogs that's going around the same length of time as myself, Katy makes gorgeous food and I'm still dying to make her Smoked Pheasant salad!
  
• Victoria @ Ommnomnom, a new vegan Irish blog that has gorgeous recipes
• Lisa @ Little Bits, Lisa was my Blogging by Mail match a month or so ago and she has the most lovely recipes on her blog.
• and finally Maz @ Style Treaty for her endless inspiration and wonderful outlook!

And on another note, I don't think there'll be a food related post this weekend, I've got some crazy virus that's doing the rounds since Wednesday and it's taking me ages to shake it off so I doubt I'd have enough strength to stand in the kitchen to boil a kettle not to talk about make anything!! It's taken me half an hour to write this short post cos I keep having to stop aswell!!! Wish me better soon girleens............................

Oh and the pictures are of some lovely orchids I got for my birthday from my fantastic friend Jenny whose a florist! There is nothing like some flowers to make someone smile and these are absolutely gorgeous - Thanks Jen!!!!!

As I sit here eating rocky road from Avoca in Rathcoole................

I feel compelled to tell you about my new camera (and laptop tee hee) which is a Canon Eos 400d that I bought from Komplett.ie. It's my first "grown-up" camera, meaning a non point and shoot and it's THE BUSINESS!!! I am so impressed with the difference in my photos, there's a depth to them now which wasn't there before and was irritating the hell out of me every single time I took a photos of something I'd made.

I know some people might say this is a pretty basic digital SLR camera but for me it's fantastic coming from a point and shoot perspective (I still love you old camera but more for drunken photos at parties you see and you'll have a much better time there than in my kitchen, trust me!!!). It's easy to use and along with a macro lens I bought I saved about 400 squids which is a bargain and a half aswell. It arrived on Thursday and I had bought it on Sunday night late which is pretty fast aswell so a vote of confidence for Komplett too.

I might just set up a blog of pictures I'm so chuffed with myself!

And just so you know the rocky road was WAY too sweet and sickly for my liking but I bought the new Avoca teatime book when I was over there and all their dessert recipes are in it YUM!

Here's a couple of shots of the cats an some daffodils that have already bloomed in my back garden cos of the crazily warm weather we've been having