Dinner at Molly's Yard, Belfast

Sometimes, a restaurant is worth a second visit.  Even though it's in a city with loads of brand new, look at me our food is amazing, restaurants that appear on every list of recommendations.  Molly's Yard is that restaurant.  It's nowhere near the usual suspects, tucked away in a corner beside Queen's University in the heart of studentland, but it's somewhere you should plan to visit.  Why?  They've inventive, delicious food and a love of all things gin.  Sometimes they combine the two for sold-out gin tasting menu events which are much sought after.  Lucky people of Belfast.

Calvados Apple Cake with Salted Caramel Mascarpone

Something we're a little bit fond of in the day job is cake.  We pretty much drop everything if there's the rattle of forks and the chance of something sweet to bring a bit of sunshine into our lives.  Doing the Bake Off in work is a great way for everybody to show off their baking talents (or blatantly cheat in some cases - you know who you are) and I have a great time being Queen Judge and very fairly evaluating everybody's entries.  You'd think that would absolve me from having to bake myself, wouldn't you?.

Not a chance.  Especially with my colleague Karen sitting across from me. If she hears the C word, there's an immediate yelp of "cake, cake, CAKE???" and she gets very excited.  When she heard I had bought some apples, I was instructed to go home and make a cake.  With the apples and maybe some salted caramel because she's fond of that too.  How could I resist such an order?  To turn it into a very grown up cake, I marinated the apples in some Calvados and made a mascarpone cream with the last of my salted caramel.  As I'm feeding a crowd, I made a large traybake cake and topped it with the salted caramel mascarpone,but if it was for a smaller crowd, I'd make two 8 inch cakes and sandwich them together with half of the mascarpone and use the rest to decorate the top, with a few swirls of salted caramel for added prettiness.

Taste of Dublin 2015

2015 marks the 10th anniversary of the Taste of Dublin food festival which kicks off in the Iveagh Gardens today.  Sadly, I'll be missing it due to #babaduckenvacances but if you're planning a trip into town, here's my top tips for a great afternoon or evening out.

A Week of Food and Drink

Summer is coming and there's loads of food and drink events coming up.  In fact, if you put your mind to it, you could be out gallivanting almost every night...

Just Say Yes

Picture by Karen Kearney

A few weeks ago I was in the car with Lulu to buy her birthday present (more of that later) when we passed the official Yes bus. She looked at me and asked me how I was going to vote in the upcoming Marriage Referendum on Friday. I was a bit taken aback that she even knew there was a vote and turned the tables, asking her how she thought I should vote. Straight away, she said “you have to vote Yes, why on earth would you vote No?”. If a 9 year old girl can grasp the importance of marriage equality, then it’s pretty simple.

Apple Salted Caramel Blondies

Yes, it's another one of my freezer finds.  Last summer, my parents gave me a huge bucket of apples from the trees in their back garden, some of which went into my Hit The Floor cake and I decided to make puree from the remainder which I put into ziplock bags and into the freezer to be used at a later stage.  It's actually getting rather ridiculous because there's apple puree, pear puree, frozen cherries and raspberries, all waiting to make a star appearance in a cake.  We haven't been to France for almost two years so I'm at almost at the very end of my stash of fleur du sel caramel.  I sacrificed some of it for this decadent dessert and it was worth it.  A blondie is a chocolate-less brownie where the gooeyness comes from melted butter and dark brown sugar for lovely toffee flavours.

While The Cat's Away

Myself and the little fluffy dog have been abandoned while The Hubs heads off on his annual Jolly Boys trip.  But we're not sitting on the sofa pining away for him, oh no...  Firstly, I decided to get stuck into a bit of spring cleaning and dust off the power washer to scrub the patio and the drive.  It was exactly like the TV ad as our green and grotty granite slabs were transformed into a pale gleaming vision of beauty.  The same went for the driveway which wasn't looking too pretty after an unexpected application of gunge from a leaky radiator being loaded into the plumber's van.  Once the toil was completed, it was time to think about dinner. Myself and the dog have similar taste in food. We're not vegetarians and we are exceedingly fond of a bit of steak so I decided to create a little French-inspired feast for us to share.  As we're on countdown to our holidays, I'm really getting into the mood!  Apologies in advance for the photos - it was late, we were hungry so hunger won over food styling...

Speculoos Brownies

I have a friend, let's call her Dawn, who absolutely loves those little speculoos biscuits you get with your posh coffee.  When we got samples of speculoos spread in work, she was in seventh heaven and every so often you'd hear a plaintive cry of "get these things away from me".  She didn't really mean it though... A while ago I saw a jar of the spread and bought it with her in mind but then she was in wedding preparation mode and nothing but dust and carrot sticks passed her lips, so the jar stayed in my cupboard.  Until now.  You see, she's now a very happily married pregnant lady and the new cry is "baby wants cake" so I had to oblige! These are very indulgent brownies, made with some exceedingly high quality chocolate, crushed speculoos biscuits and giant dollops of the speculoos
spread on top for added decadence.

West Waterford Festival of Food 2015

Yes, it's that time of year again.  The West Waterford Festival of Food kicks off on Thursday 9th April in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.  Now in it's eighth year, this year's festival is themed around celebrating Generations of Food Stories and there's heaps of activities for people of all ages to enjoy.

Double Spud Topped Cottage Pie

This week has been a flipping disaster.  Firstly, poor Sandie the fluffy dog ended up at the vets where we found out she has an ulcer on her cornea.  The poor little mush is not a happy dog at all with eyedrops being administered by Little Sis and Lulu forming a two man headlock team every few hours and painkillers hidden in pieces of chicken.  She's feeling very sorry for herself indeed.  Then the next day, I hurt my eye.  Nothing major, I thought.  Just whip out the contacts, stick on the (hated) specs for a day and all will be well. Eh, no.  A visit to the chemist turned into an immediate visit to the GP which transformed into a "get to Casualty in the Eye and Ear hospital.  Now".  After having my eyelid turned inside out twice - as gruesome as it sounds - and dye drops into my eye, I also have an ulcer on my cornea.  Nice.

So this means no driving for a week, lots of eyedrops every few hours, avoiding bright light, splitting headaches and rummaging through the freezer for dinner as quite frankly, I'm not in the humour to cook.  This is the time I'm grateful for batch cooking because I unearthed two portions of special cottage pie that I froze before Christmas.  In foil dishes too, so no washing up necessary.  In fact, had I been alone, I possibly would have eaten it straight from the container.  But decorum called for a plate, extra veggies and cutlery.  Can't let standards slip just because I'm like One Eyed Jack.  This makes 4-5 decent portions which you can eat straight away or freeze for up to 6 months.