You're on!

Okay I've been tagged! 

Here goes...

1 - What were you doing ten years ago?I was living in a little flat in dalkey village, with my then one year old daughter...  

I remember I cried turning 22!! Can you believe that? 

I thought I was over the hill and I hadn't even reached base camp!

2 - What are the 5 things on your to-do list today?

1) Visit my grandparents and my stunning aunt Marian who is home.

2) Have our family meeting 

3) Bake for Marys cake sale tomorrow

4) Look through the Ten on tens!

5) Stop and smell the roses...
3 - What Snacks do you enjoy?

Olives with feta, CHOCOLATE (help me), I absolutley could not live without tomatoes on toast...

4 - What Places have you lived in?

Dun Laoire, Mallorca,Dalkey,  Seville, Carrickmines....

5 - What are the things you would do if you were a billionaire?

Buy a lovely rambling house in Dalkey overlooking the sea, Give my mother a ton of money, Get Diarmud Gavin to make me a garden full of magic... Buy a block of apartments and rent them to young mums, Start a charity to offer "call in" cholesterol and blood pressure checks to the workplace, Fund a massive campaign to abolish the death penalty, Give a stranger a thousand euro every ten minutes for one day... Open a cafe with Ciara just because we should, buy a houseboat, go around the world by ship, get cooking lessons from Gordon ramsay (shirt off gordon!), hire a housekeeper... Buy Bill a Vintage Ferrari, Pay for one more series of SATC, Get a simpsons episode made with us in it, buy Picassos 'Guernica', open a museum of 'the child', Executive produce a movie of The Famous Five, Get Alexander McQueen to make me a dress, Buy out and close down companies that make alcopops, Pay research grants for interesting ideas, Buy all the titanic memorabilia and throw it back in the sea, play serious poker in vegas, have Joan Baez play at my wedding... oh and buy up all the tropical fish from all the pet shops and set them free...

6 - Who are the People you want to know more about?

I'd love to talk about life, being women and mothers with my paternal grandmother and great grandmother, and my maternal great grandmothers... 

What stories and points of view they'd have, They would be my dream dinner guests! 

Now the rules!

Answer all the questions. Tag 6 people, leave a comment on their blog to inform them that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog for rules. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answers.

I'm tagging...

Emily

Kim (and her mom!)

Nicole

Mamageek

Judy

Anyone who reads this and wants to play!

Fabulous!

I went to see the Sex and the City movie last night - It did not disappoint.  I was a huge fan, am a huge fan, of the series, have most of it on DVD and still talk about it with the girls.  It was amazing to see how the characters are doing now, and to catch up with their lives... like meeting old friends.  

For me Sex and the City has a wonderful genuineness to it, having been single for 8 years before I met Bill, I recognise the storylines and believe me it really is like they tell it! Sex and the City has told modern heartbreak better than anything I've ever seen.  The reality of it.  The acting is fantastic, the writing brilliant, but prudes beware - the movie version takes its 18 cert and runs with it!!! 

I have never found anything on tv to replace SATC, and I would doubt I ever will.  I watched a bit of Desperate Housewives but I hated the way the women were pitted against each other, competing with each other.  I hate competitive women, and steer well clear once I spot the signs... and I love the comradery in SATC, the support and protection that I feel from my own close girl friends! 

Anyway, if you liked the series you'll LOVE the movie! It has a thumbs up from me!! As any SATC fan will know the cosmopolitan cocktail is practically another character in the series, here is a little twist on that old favorite!

Cosmocello

for four

2 shot of vodka

1 shot of limoncello

4 slice of lemon

2 glasses of cranberry juice

crushed ice

Shake vigorously together and serve in a martini glass! 

The truth about Chocolate!

This is an email I received from Ingrid this morning...

Chocolate is extracted from the beans of the cocoa plant,
Beans are a vegetable,
Sugar is extracted from sugar beat,
The Sugar beat is a vegetable,
Therefore chocolate is a vegetable.
Let´s spin the theory further:
Chocolate bars contain milk,
Therefore chocolate bars are healthy!!!
Raisins, cherries, orange peels and strawberries are in chocolate
They belong to the fruit family, so eat as much as you like

WIHOOOOO!!!! THANK GOD FOR THAT!!! ANYONE FOR SHMORES?

Leftovers, Leftovers, Leftovers

So, due to my eyes being bigger than our collective stomachs, there was over half the leg of lamb left even after the huge dinner on sunday and a lunch of it yesterday!

I have to say two words now... don't forget them... Mint mayonnaise...

If you never try anything I suggest here on this blog please try it. Those of you who have will understand me completely. It really is the most luxurious taste combination and a must, an absolute must, when faced with leftover lamb.

Just mix a spoon of mint sauce (mint, sugar, malt vinegar)and add to a large dollop of hellmans mayonnaise....

Eat with a side dish of lamb or potatoes with tomatoes and bread.

If you still have lamb left, which we did - I really did buy enough for a small army - there is the must do inevitable cliche... at christmas, easter... it is inevitable....

Leftover Curry

You'll need

Leftover meat

Leftover vegetables if any

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 onion

1 chili

1 clove garlic

handful of coriander

1 tsp curry powder

100mls cream

Method

Fry the onion until soft. In a mini chopper (or on a mezzaluna) chop the herbs, chili and garlic together until in tiny pieces. Add to the onions. Pour on the tin of tomatoes. Stir in the curry powder.

Add the cooked meat and vegetables to the sauce. Simmer on low heat for about five minutes.

Stir boiled rice with boiled couscous and serve with the curry.

So that was our lamb used up! Nothing left but some gristle and some bone! And I can tell you there was someone else who was very very glad of it!

Thanks mom!

After my blog on the delights of Afternoon Tea, my dear mother has presented me with this amazing tea set!

Aren't I lucky!

Very 'Gosford Park'!

x

Its me bread and butter!

I had baked bread yesterday, more out of a need to use up some flour coming up to its sell by than anything, and when I woke up today I was still had the baking buzz. This hits me maybe once every few weeks and the house will be filled to brim with all manner of baked goods - much to my own downfall, but this time it has been breads I've been turning my hand to. I made chili garlic hearthbread, a foccacia and Mary dearest made some lovely soda bread. All eaten in one sitting.

Then this morning, when I knew dear C was on her way, I whipped up a batch of our favorite Nigella scones, forgetting that C has really had to stop eating wheat, so I was left with 16 huge white scones to dispose of myself. That still didn't satisfy my baking buzz and so later on I threw the last of the flour into a bowl and made the cutest little white loaf.

By the time dinner came to being made I couldn't face another stir of a spoon... So I threw a few burgers on the grill, fried a few eggs and boiled up potatoes with puy lentils. It was a mish mosh of "must use this week" foods and I was not too sure about the flavours! All served up with fresh baked bread and my own homemade butter!



It was lovely and tasty thank God, not one word was said as the four of us licked away the salty yellow yoke from our lips and wiped our plates clean with soft white buttered bread...

Bread and Butter

For the butter, you'll need 1 cup of double cream poured into a clean jar or flask with a wide rim. If you happen to have a flavour shaker use this, with the ball removed.

Making butter is so easy, just shake the cream in the jar and you'll hear it go from slooshing to plopping, then to nothing as the cream is as whipped as it can be... keep shaking and suddenly you'll hear a slooshing again. When you look into the jar there it will be, a little ball of butter! Squeeze the butter rid of any milk and there you have it! Add salt to taste!

Plain white loaf

You'll need 500gms plain flour, sachet of instant yeast, 300mls of warm water with 2 tbsp of olive oil added, 2 tsps sugar and 1 of salt.

Sift flour, yeast, salt and sugar into bowl. Add the water and stir with a wooden spoon until its raggy but clumping together. Tip onto a floured surface and knead until stretchy and smooth (about 10 mins or so) - pop back into the bowl, cover with a tea towel and put in a warm corner for about 2 hours. WHen you return it'll be doubled its size and you can now enjoy punching it to deflate! Then turn it out again, knead for a couple of minutes and then back in the bowl and cover again for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 230degreesC. After this time, pop it onto a floured oven tray and shape it into a sausage shape. Push the sides upwards to make a small ridge under the loaf ( like a cartoon loaf). Pop in the oven for 15 minutes, turn it bottom up and leave for another 10 minutes. Then turn once more to really brown the top before turning onto a wire tray to cool.

The smell through the house alone makes this worth the wait!

Sweet Sweetest Sweet...

My daughter is an amateur confectioner. When she was 4 she asked santa for a chocolate factory and set about making chocolate bars wrapped in gold paper for everyone she knew. Then it was onto the most irresistable rocky road, which I could eat a plateful of without a blink... she has a knack for "just the right amount of sweetness"...

She has been dreaming about making Turkish delight (her absolute favorite sweet) and has been begging me to look online for a proper sugar thermometor which she can buy with her paypal vouchers she got for her birthday!! She is the funniest thing!


Her latest thing is fondants. Give her a chance and she'll whip up a bagful of peppermint creams or chocolate covered orange creams... What I enjoy most is the splogey child-made sweets, no ceremony, just bish bash bosh and on to the next batch.


Recently, for mothers day, she spied some leftover lemon juice I had from the cakes I'd made, and asked me for it. Within a few minutes she handed me one of her creations, a dark chocolate lemon cream. It was divine. Really divine.


Later on she expressed an interest in heading into this field full time, I suppose my chocolate covered face spurned her ambition... Is there a course to become a chocalatier? I must look into it.



Marys Lemon Creams



You'll need:

100gms dark chocolate

Juice of 1 lemon

1 egg white

Icing sugar (about 250gms-ish)



Marys instructions:

Stir the egg whites very fast until 'fuzzy' (frothy) and then sift in as much icing sugar to make a thick paste. Add lemon juice, teaspoon by teaspoon, until you can smell it. Then add more of the sugar until the mix is able to make a ball between your fingers. Make a little ball just the size of a marble. Then make lots of them.



Melt the chocolate in your fondue or pot. Drop the little ball in and take it out with a teaspoon when its covered. Let it dry on a baking paper covered tray.