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Marks & Spencer Strawberry and Vanilla Cupcakes...

Just delicious!  

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Franks Red Hot Sauce!!! My American readers will scoff at this post, but I have only just discovered that one CAN make restaurant style Buffalo wings at home, with very little effort and they turn out JUST AS GOOD!!! 

No more trips to Tribeca for me!!

American Buffalo Wings

You'll need

8 tbsp Franks Hot Sauce (Available in Tesco!)

8 tbsp Butter

1.5 tsp White vinegar

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/8 tsp garlic salt

1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

Pinch of Salt

Method

Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan,and heat until the butter has melted.  Leave to cool.

Sprinkle the chicken wings with Maldon table salt and place into a really hot oven, cook until the skin is crispy and bubbling.  Throw the wings in on top of the sauce and coat.

Serve with Blue cheese sauce (1 part mayo to 1 part sour cream, crumble chopped blue cheese and spring onion into the dip) and celery sticks!

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My new kettle!!!

My eyes lit up when I spied this unusual kettle in House of Fraser the other day, and since a new kettle was on my shopping list (my old one is ten years old) and I had a voucher for HofF burning a hole in my purse, I said "Feck it!" and plumped for it there and then.... It reminds me of Art Deco, Sixties style and Futuristic all in one!

It does what it is supposed to, and in record time, but I get a kick out of it too, so that is a bonus! The wood handles make it seem less "Appliance" too!

I love it!

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The Notebook Grill!

We got this after looking all through the internet for a portable barbeque, we wanted something light that would take up minimal space.  The notebook grill? Check and check! We'd seen it online and then came across it in our local supermarket so snapped it up!

It folds practically flat, and is ready to go in seconds! 

Brilliant gadget altogether - and only €30 in Tesco!!

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...the modern world!

When my daughter was about 4 she asked Santa for an ice cream maker, God knows where she got the idea, but of course he came, he delivered and there it was.  

"Can we make ice cream now?" She asked, running into me with a tub of Ben and Jerrys from our freezer.

 

"No, no, Lovey" I hushed, " You don't put ice cream into an ice cream maker, you need to make the ice cream from scratch"

A couple of weeks later my mother rang me in a flap, Mary had gone down for a visit, and was given some money and when asked what she wanted to buy she kept saying to my mother that she wanted to buy 'scratch'.  My mother couldn't for the life of her figure out what the child was after.  I told her to tell Mary we would get some later.

So we did, later that day we bought 'scratch'... eggs, cream, honey, vanilla essence and sugar, and we made ice cream.  It was good but not long after that machine took up residence in our attic where it has resided ever since, our kitchen being too small to store everything - sacrifices must be made! 

Most days I buy scratch... the chances of me using preprepared sauces have halved since finding what can only be descibed as catgut in a jar of pesto, not that the chances were high in the first place.  I always bought pesto, I don't know why because home made is always nicer.  There are very few things that are not as good homemade as the shop bought version.  Well, funnily enough, except for ice cream... have you tasted 'Ben and Jerrys' Oat Cookie Chunk??

I have the time of course, I'm not working, I don't think I could do most of it if I was.  However I find it just as easy to melt a bit of butter and add flour, milk and cheese as I do to stir a powder into milk.  

The question is "Would I love cooking as much as I do, if there wasn't the safety net of "oh i don't feel like cooking lets get a chinese/run over to the shop there and grab a roasted chicken/take that lasagne out of the freezer"??

Would I love cooking if there wasn't such an amazing variety of produce for sale?

Would I love cooking if food was lasting only a day because there was no fridge to put it in?

I doubt it.  That is why I love the modern world, because on days like yesterday when I had a bad cold, and Joe wasn't too well either, I could relax on the couch while Bill ran across to the shop and brought home a big Steak and Kidney pie, peas and chips. 

Eating my convienient dinner I remarked how this pie wasn't a patch on the one we make here, and everyone agreed.  I must get that recipe out one of these days, I said.  

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...Rose water!

Its my secret weapon, bound to turn any plain cake or biscuit, or creamy dessert into something of the 'exotic'...


Marks and Spencers do a large bottle for about 4 euro and it lasts forever, one drop in whipped cream transforms a strawberry trifle, add some to a chocolate cake mix or a teaspoon into icing changes it from a kids treat to an adult affair!

Yesterday we made these rose biscuits, they are very sweet so make them only about an inch or two wide, we made big ones and one was enough! So make them small and serve two on the side of a turkish coffee for a real treat!

Rose Biscuits

You'll need

100 gms cream flour
80gms caster sugar
80gms soft unsalted butter
qtr tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 small egg, beaten (or half a large one)
3/4 drops Rose water

Method

Using a spatula, cream the butter and sugar together and add the egg and the rose water.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix to a solid dough. Form the dough into a sausage shape, of about an inch and a half circumference. Put in the fridge for about an hour, then slice into thin rounds. Pop the rounds onto a lined baking sheet and into an oven of 190c for about ten minutes, or when they are golden.

Remove and leave to cool.


We iced ours with icing made of 1 egg white, about 200gms of icing sugar, a tbsp of flour and a few drops of rose water. We added a drop of red colouring for a pale pink effect.

When I'm making them again I won't ice them, they were gorgeous but very sweet. It depends what you like but the biscuits are lovely plain, maybe with some icing sugar sprinkled on top.

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...Dried Sour Cherries!


This week I'm loving Dried Sour Cherries, which are available in the dried fruit section in Dunnes Stores. They are so nice to nibble on, and are fantastic in recipes!

This week I've been using them to make the most luxurious scones!


Orange and Cherry Scones - As suggested by Nigella Lawson in Domestic Goddess
(Makes ten)

500g Plain flour

2 teaspoons bicarb

Pinch salt

4 and a half teaspoons cream of tartar

75g unsalted butter diced

300ml milk

100gms dried sour cherries (or raisins if you prefer)

zest of 1 orange

Caster sugar for sprinkling.

Preheat oven to 200c. Sift the flour, bicarb, cream of tartar and salt. Rub in the shortening until it resembles sand. Add the fruit and the zest. Make a well and pour in the milk, and stir together. Flour a surface and turn out the dough. Roll out with a well floured pin to about an inch thick. Cut into about 10 round scones. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar if you like a crispy top.

Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown (I often turn mine upside down for the last 5)

Eat with copious amounts of tea, sliced in two with cream and jam or honey.


As you can see... I couldn't decide... Jam or honey, honey or jam... so I had one of each!!

Eggs part one

I want to write something about eggs. A particular friend of mine (you know who you are!) is constantly teasing me about how picky I am when it comes to eggs. Not in "how do you like them?" at all - serve em up to me anyway but burned and I'm a happy bunny, no my fuss starts and ends with the buying of them. In one sentence - THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!

The first I realised this was when my aunt began to keep hens and one day presented me with a neat little parcel containing three eggs. One tiny blue one, one white golfball like one and one dull brown but with an amazing sheen. Not knowing what to do I basically boiled them and served them with toast. First bite and my life with eggs on the menu changed forever! The taste! The colour! It was an epiphany! No run of the mill regular eggs for me! I refuse to live my life with run of the mill bland eggs - with or without free range on the lid! Now I look for organic free range at least! The happier the hen, the nicer the egg! It makes such a difference - and for baking? well once you try good eggs in a sponge cake nothing less will ever do again!!

At the moment I am favouring an egg called a Sillan ór - Superquinn do them, 6 for €2.99c - they are from corn fed chickens and in my opinion the nearest you'll get to a backyard fed on love hens egg that if you're ever lucky enough to get your mouth around grab them and run!

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I love-love-love Olive magazine, it is the most inspiring read for any food lover - although the recipes themselves can sometimes be a bit flat!

You learn to distinguish the faff from the finds recipe wise with food magazines I find! However it is an amazing magazine if you enjoy finding inspiration in food articles or pictures, if you, like I, look through cookbooks for hours but rarely follow the recipe to the letter, Olive mag is for you!

I got the April issue yesterday and it was dreamy... a whole section on Afternoon Tea which is one of my favorite things in the world!! I love the idea of tea cups and dainty eating of dainty things, its a very feminine experience!

I love the politeness and smallness of the food served at Afternoon Tea, and I love the "Englishness" of it! Having always secretely admired the English culture of church fetes and tearooms, it allows the child in me to once again play at being "proper".

Having Afternoon Tea makes me feel like I should be wearing a hat, and I love it! I want to play Cole Porter music and clip my words when I speak. It evokes images of steam covered station platforms, waving hankies and soldiers uniforms, of seamed stockings, pencil skirts and

netted eyes... There is something about images of England in the war torn 40s that are so romantic, so heartbreaking and moving.

Afternoon Tea encapsulates that feeling for me! In its essence its such a female thing, such a girly idea, and I love having tea with my girlfriends but I find it incredibly romantic too - I love the idea of sitting by a huge open window, while rain falls outside on long green lawns, my man reading a newspaper, me reading him... with a dainty white clothed table, pots of tea and an array of fondant coloured cakes and tiny crustless sandwiches to pick from! Nothing sounds nicer...

I absolutely must persuade Bill to bring me to Hunters Hotel, which Ciara tells me does the best Afternoon tea in Ireland! Tiny sandwiches, petit fours, tea... seriously what sounds better than that? If you've never had it, you MUST! Watch 'Brief Encounter' first though so you're in the right mood!

Funny how something so twee and girly can be so romantic to me, but you know what they say - in the most simple flowers lie the strongest perfume! ;-)