My perfectly imperfect wholemeal and almond cake.

I’ve said quite a few times on this blog that I can’t bake. That I was more of a cook, and that the science behind baking flat out freaked me out.

Well. I was being silly. The main reason why I “couldn’t” bake was because of my stinking attitude.

I have finally realised that of course I can bake. Now, it’s highly unlikely that I would ever make a living from the things that I bake. But I can still bake. You don’t have to be a science boffin to get a bit of flour together. And putting up a mind block about it certainly doesn’t help.

This revelation came along at the same time as my recent epiphany of You’re Not On Masterchef, Aoife. The point is, cooking and baking should be fun. So what if your cake turns out lopsided? If it’s a complete disaster, it’s certainly annoying when you have to throw it all away but…is it really the end of the world?

I’ve realised that, actually, there is no great mystery to baking. That old saying of you can either bake or you can cook is unhelpful and untrue. Like anything else, you can pretty much get the hang of it with a little bit of practice. Again, you might not be brilliant at it, but you can certainly give it a go.

So, yes. I’m feeling very zen about my baking future for 2012. And in honour of that, I’d like to point you in the direction of a wonderful wholemeal and almond cake from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Every Day cookbook. I made it recently and was wooed by its simplicity and deliciousness. Definitely a good cake for fledgling bakers who aren’t into fuss.

What you need for Hugh’s Wholemeal and Almond Cake 

From River Cottage Every Day

300g unsalted butter, softened

250g golden caster sugar

4 medium free-range eggs

150g wholemeal self-raising flour*

150g of ground almonds

1 teaspoon of baking powder

50g flaked almonds

4 tablespoons of runny honey

*If you can’t find self-raising wholemeal flour (which I couldn’t), use 2 teaspoons of baking powder instead of 1.

Grease a 23cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Place the tin on a baking sheet, so that it catches any butter that might seep out when it’s baking. 

Pre-heat your oven to 170C/fan 150C/Gas Mark 3.

Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat thoroughly until very light and fluffy. (Actually, I did this first part in a food processor, which probably isn’t ideal as it can make for a tough cake, but it worked fine. Your best bet would be to use a hand-held electric beater and a large bowl.) 

With the beater running, add one egg at a time, adding a spoonful of wholemeal flour with each egg. (After I had finished this part in my food processer, I transferred the mix to a large bowl.) Now fold in the ground almonds with a wooden spoon. Add the remaining wholemeal flour and sift in the baking powder. Fold it all together gently as the more you mix it, the tougher your cake gets. 

Scrape the mixture into your greased tin and and scatter the flaked almonds over the surface. Bake for about 45 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and, when the cake is still hot, evenly drizzle the honey over the top. Try to evenly distribute the honey all over the surface.

Place the tin on a wire rack and leaving to cool a little before taking it out of the tin. Serve warm or cold, with some nice creme fraiche or even double cream. 

As you can see, my cake got a little burnt around the edges as I’m still getting used to my new oven. Six months ago this would have been deemed as another baking disaster in my brain. This time around, however, I chose to ignore the charred parts and concentrate on the deliciously honeyed centre of the cake, which really was a success.

Hope you have a similarly successful baking experience with this recipe!

KITCHEN TUNE

Loving this very zen version of Bon Jovi’s You Give Love A Bad Name, done in the style of Bon Iver by Miracles of Modern Science.

James Whelan’s Butchers striploin steak, as purchased in Avoca Monkstown

Aren’t dinners that are fuss-free to prepare yet taste positively luxurious the best?

A Sunday or two ago, I whipped up this extremely quick dinner made up of few bits and pieces that were lurking in the fridge. I’m not sure where the inspiration for the feta potatoes came from (somewhere divine and delicious anyway) but they worked so unexpectedly well with the rest of the steak dinner.

I was so very pleased. I mean, I practically didn’t even have to do anything to make this dinner! Really, I can’t even express how delighted I am when I make a simple supper that boasts luscious flavour combinations. And, truly, it almost always happens like this meal – an accident!

I popped out to Avoca’s new pad in Monkstown during the week and picked up two striploin steaks from meatman-extraordinaire Pat Whelan’s stunning butcher shop (James Whelan Butchers) within Avoca’s food hall. The whole food hall has been opened since November, and not only does it have the amazing butchers (which has a glass wall so you can see the butchery going on *looks amazed*) but they also have an Irish free-range chicken rotisserie, a cheese room (yes, an ENTIRE room full of cheese) and loads of the usual Avoca scrumminess, just everywhere. It’s certainly worth the trip out to Monkstown and it’s only a 2 minute walk from the Dart Station. So keep it in mind.

I’ve been lucky enough to have Pat Whelan’s beef before and am delighted to have his produce closer to home, as opposed to Clonmel where his family has run a butchers for the last 40 years. I used the striploin steaks (of which I got two for €10 – well worth it) in my recreation of my flukey supper and it turned out just as delicious as the original.

What you need for a Steak Dinner for 2 

For the spuds

8 to 10 baby potatoes

Olive Oil

Chilli flakes

Salt

A heaped tablespoon of feta cheese

Fresh mint

For the mushroom sauce

8 to 10 lovely mushrooms

1 clove of garlic

Olive Oil 

Salt

1 heaped tablespoon of  crème fraîche

1 sprig of thyme

For the steaks

Olive Oil

2 steaks, the best quality you can get your hands on

Salt

Pepper

Start by pre-heating your oven to 200C/fan 180C/Gas Mark 6. Wash the new potatoes and put them in a roasting dish. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with a pinch of chilli flakes, as much or as little as you like.

Add a pinch of salt and roast the potatoes for 30 to 35 minutes, until lovely and golden brown.

Meanwhile, go sit on the sofa and chill out for 20 minutes. Read a book. Think about life. Watch Desperate Scousewives. Take a load off. Relax.

Once your potatoes have had about 20 to 25 minutes, you can start getting the rest of the dinner together.

Wash and slice your mushrooms, getting rid of the stem if you like. Finely chop the garlic clove. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan over a medium to high heat. Fry the mushrooms and garlic with a pinch of salt for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms are nicely cooked. Add the heaped tablespoon of crème fraîche and the leaves from the sprig of thyme. Stir well, letting it come to a simmer before putting the heat right down and setting aside until your steaks are ready.

Heat a griddle pan or large frying over a high heat with a drizzle of oil. Season your steaks with salt and pepper and fry on the hot pan for 3 to 6 minutes on each side, depending on how you like your steak.

Let it rest on a board for a few minutes before cutting it into slices.

Serve the steaks in two bowl with the mushroom sauce poured over the top. Divide the potatoes between the two bowls and sprinkle a handful of feta over each. Finish off with a sprinkling of freshly chopped mint and wash it down with a lovely glass of red wine.

KITCHEN TUNE

Loving this track called Brothers from Brooklyn-based duo Tanlines, the first from their upcoming LP to be titled Mixed Emotions. 

A squeeze of lemon juice? Although you’d be forgiven for thinking that a squeeze of orange juice would be the more appropriate choice as an addition to carrot soup, I’m delighted to report that its bitter cousin the lemon works equally well.

This is a recipe I adapted from one I found on the wonderful 101 Cookbooks blog. It was exceedingly quick to make and turned out to be a flavoursome hug-in-a-bowl. An excellent addition to anyone’s kitchen repertoire. Especially for this time of year!

I added a bit of a kick to the original recipe by adding cumin and chilli, which I think gave the result some extra heat welcomed on a cold night.

What you need for Spicy Carrot Soup with Lemon for 4

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 medium white onion

2 cloves of garlic

4 large carrots

1 teaspoon of chilli flakes

1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin

750ml of vegetable or chicken stock

1/2 lemon

Salt 

Heat the olive oil in a large deep pot, good for making soup. Peel and chop the onion in to rough chunks. Peel the garlic and roughly chop. You’re going to blend it all so don’t worry about finely chopping anything. Fry both in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, stirring, until the onions start to soften.

Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop the carrots. Once the onions have softened, add the chilli and cumin and cook for a further minute, stirring. Now you can add the carrot chunks to the pot.

Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Put a lid on the pot and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the carrots are tender. You can add a drop of hot water if you think it needs a bit throughout the simmering.

Allow the soup to cool slightly and whizz it all up. Now squeeze in the juice of your half lemon – be careful not to let any pips get in there! Add a pinch of salt and give it a taste. Add some more salt if you think it needs it.

I served mine with a dollop of yoghurt and a few more sprinklings of chilli flakes. Yum!

KITCHEN TUNE

Here’s a track from Dublin based band Tieranniesaur who were nominated for this year’s Choice Music Prize. The nominees were announced today and you can see the full list here!

The holiday season is a surprisingly brilliant time to move house. It’s the second time myself and Niall have done so, and we couldn’t help but grant ourselves a few smug pats on the back for being so clever.

I mean, first of all, people don’t usually look for houses in the lead up to Christmas. Which means you have the pick of the lot. When it comes to actually moving, not only do you have a few days off work to get the heinous task of shifting your accumulated stuff from one abode to the next, but your friends and family are often free too. Which means loans of cars (thank you so much, Pauline), siblings hepling out with the move (thanks Lorcan and Peter) and Dads with van-like cars (that’s you, Eugene) at the ready to help. Which makes the process a helluva lot less painful.

But then of course, you have the psychological perks of starting a New Year in a new house. You’ve decluttered through the move. Well, you’ve certainly made an attempt at it anyway and have probably gotten rid of even a little bit of unnecessary junk. You’re in a new house in a new neighbourhood and everything is lovely and, well, new. It certainly brings a bit of oomph to the start of the year.

So not only have we moved, but we have been lucky enough to move from a lovely apartment to a stunning house. Of course, one of our main reasons for moving was to find a bigger and better kitchen. And by gum, have we lucked out.

I am a different cook in this new kitchen. Although I am very fond of my old kitchen because I learned how to cook in it, the difference in space between it and the new one is almost overwhelmingly amazing. It makes for an entirely less stressful kitchen experience. Which, as you may know, has always been the top aspiration for my kitchen life. Well, that and being able to make tasty food for friends, of course.

On New Year’s Day, we had one last brunch in our old flat. Niall made us some amazing baked eggs and I knew I wanted it to be the first recipe I posted from the new kitchen. So, it’s a dish that was perfected in our old place, but one that we’ve brought with us to the new place. Have a look after the jump for Niall’s recipe, as well as a few pics of our kitchens, old and new.

Here’s how our old kitchen looked through the instagram lens:

And here is our new kitchen, through the same lens. And yes, that is a double oven. *squeals with delight*

So you can see that I have a lot more space within which to tinker about with my favourite ingredients. I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending most of my time in this lovely room, and I’ll be archiving my advances and mishaps in it on this here blog.

Anyway, back to the baked eggs. This is Niall’s recipe and it is arguably the best brunch in the world. It’s cheap, easily vegetarianised (just leave out the bacon), and it has a bit of a spicy kick to it, which is great for those of us who may have overindulged the night before.

What you need for Niall’s Baked Eggs for 2 lucky people

Olive Oil

80g or so of pancetta lardons, or 2 or 3 bacon rashers chopped into cubes

1 medium white onion

2 cloves of garlic 

1 red chilli 

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

Honey (I used Skinflint’s Firebee honey which has a chilli kick to it – amaze)

Smoked paprika

Salt and Pepper

1 lime

4 large free-range eggs

Start by heating a drizzle of oil in a large frying pan over a medium to high heat. Once hot, add the pancetta/bacon lardons and fry for about 5 minutes, until golden brown.

Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and the garlic cloves. Deseed and finely chop the red chilli.

After 5 minutes, remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside on some kitchen towel to get rid of a bit of that fat. Now fry the onion, garlic and chilli in the same frying pan for 3 minutes, until the onions are starting to soften.

Put the bacon back into the pan and add the tin of tomatoes. Pour some boiling water into the empty tin until it’s about half full. Add this hot water to the frying pan. Use oven gloves because the tin gets hot!

Add one generous tablespoon of honey and about a teaspoon of smoked paprika to the frying pan. Squeeze in the juice of half of the lime. Season with salt and pepper and stir everything well. Give it a taste and adjust the seasoning if you think it needs it. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.

If your frying pan is oven-proof, you can make little spaces in the sauce and crack your eggs into the spaces, then bake the lot in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes. I used little individual tins and you could even use individual pie dishes, ramekins, or any large casserole dish.

For my method, I pre-heated the oven to 200C/fan 180C/Gas Mark 6. Then I divided the thickened tomato sauce into two pie dishes.

I cracked two eggs into each of the pie dishes.

Then I baked in the oven for 12 minutes, until the egg whites had cooked but the yolks were still lovely and runny.

Serve this up with some crusty bread and a large mug of tea for maximum enjoyment.

KITCHEN TUNE

The new house has seen the radio permanently dialled to RTÉ Lyric FM, which runs a consistent stream of fabulous music to cook to throughout the day. Here’s one of their favourite tracks, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody On A Theme of Paganini No 18.

Just one of the delicious things that have met my gob in the last few weeks, Nigella Lawson’s Choco Hoto Pots as prepared by Niamh Byrne-Poe (aged 2 and 8 months) with a little help from her mum Ali and Nana Pauline.

I trust you had a lovely holiday season, full of good food and cheer. I’ve been a little quiet round these parts and will most probably be back in 2012.

I am typing this in the living/kitchen room of my city centre apartment, surrounded by boxes and wondering how on earth I am going to pack away my over-flowing kitchen. For you see, myself and Niall are moving over to the southside to a lovely house in D8.

You’ll be delighted to hear that it has a wonderfully sized kitchen with a double oven and a dishwasher. And a full-sized fridge and freezer. And a Belfast sink. As you can imagine, I’m beside myself with excitement at the thought of cooking my first meal in this lovely new environment.

In the meantime, I will be lovingly packing away and saying goodbye to my old kitchen. We’ve been living here for three years and it was here that I started this food blog. This little city centre kitchen is where I learned to cook. And for that, it will always have a special place in my heart. And my stomach.

Wishing you all the very, very best for the New Year. If you’re feeling hungry in the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter for all food updates!

When I was approached recently by Kerrygold to design a Christmassy butter-based recipe, my thoughts turned almost immediately to Bread and Butter pudding.

One of the ultimate comfort desserts, it began its culinary life as a peasant’s dessert, a way of using up stale bread while providing the family with an after dinner pudding.

This version still delivers on the comfort, but in a slightly more luxurious way. By using ingredients such as Locke’s whiskey, Glenisk cream, fresh vanilla and Kerrygold butter, this classic has been taken right on up to another level of nomness. I’ve also paired the whiskey with ginger jam, as whiskey and ginger ale would be my Christmas tipple of choice.

This doesn’t take much effort to prepare but it needs a good hour in the oven, plus 30 minutes before-hand for bread to cream soakage.

What you need for Whiskey and Ginger Bread and Butter Pudding

8 slices of day-old crusty white bread, crusts removed

50g of very soft Kerrygold butter

4 tablespoons of Ginger and Orange marmalade, plus an extra 4 teaspoons

A handful of dried apricots, finely chopped 

300ml full-fat milk

250ml of double cream

3 large free-range and organic eggs

Seeds from 1 vanilla pod

4 tablespoons of golden caster sugar

1 tablespoon of whiskey 

Icing sugar, for dusting 

Make four ginger marmalade and butter sandwiches by buttering all the slices of bread. Spread 1 tablespoon of marmalade on each of them. Cut them into triangles. Don’t worry if they’re different shapes and sizes!

Butter a large baking dish. Arrange the marmalade and butter sandwich triangles in the baking dish so that there are no gaps between the bread. Scatter the chopped apricots over the top.

Beat the milk, cream, eggs, vanilla, sugar and whiskey together, and then pour over the bread. Leave it to soak for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/Gas Mark 3.

When the bread has been soaking in the cream for 30 minutes, top the pudding with the additional 4 teaspoons of ginger marmalade. Dust with a tablespoon or so of icing sugar.

Bake it in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it’s puffy and starting to caramelise. Serve hot or warm, with more cream or custard on the side if you like. Simple!

*Although Kerrygold provided me with the butter for this recipe, this is not a sponsored post. I didn’t receive any payment for coming up with this recipe and I was happy to do it as I use Kerrygold every day. Wouldn’t settle for any other butter. 

Most of us would agree that some ingredients inspire more than others. If I think of a butternut squash, at least five delicious ways of preparing one comes to my mind instantly. Or the versatile spud, for instance. There are countless delicious things to do with our friend the potato.

But cabbage…? Often seen as a rather discouraging player in one’s kitchen life, it doesn’t exactly exhilarate.

In a Twitter conversation with food writer and all-round-dude Joe MacNamee of The Swashbuachaill, we got to talking about cabbage, both red and green. It turns out there are (of course) quite a few flavour combinations to be had with these particular brassicas.

I took Joe’s suggestion of pairing chorizo with cabbage and found this recipe on BBC Good Food’s site, which led me to make a one-pot meaty red cabbage dish scattered with roasted apples.

All modesty aside, it was rocking.

This was a great winter’s lunch. If you removed the sausages, it would also be a delicious side dish. It would be lovely with almost any meat, and the chorizo really gives it a wonderfully warming kick.

What you need for Braised Red Cabbage, Sausages, Chorizo and Apple One Pot Wonder for 4 as a main course

1 tablespoon of butter

70g of chorizo (I use Gubbeen chorizo when I can, it’s mega flavourful) 

70g of bacon or pancetta lardons

1 red cabbage

2 apples (Granny Smith or regular red, whatever you have to hand)

30g of brown sugar (I used a light muscavado sugar)

1 cinnamon stick (or a teaspoon of ground cinnamon)

Salt

Pepper

1 large orange

4 tablespoons of red wine

2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

6 to 8 really good quality sausages (I used Ed Hick’s Boerewors sausages NOMAMAZE)

Start by heating the oven to 200C/fan 180C/Gas Mark 6.

Heat the butter in a heavy, large oven-proof pan or casserole dish over a medium to high heat on the hob. (If you don’t have either, you can do this first stage in a very large frying pan and then transfer it to a roasting dish before putting it in the oven.)

Chop the chorizo into chunks the same size as the bacon. Now fry the bacon and chorizo together in the warmed butter.

Meanwhile, half the red cabbage and cut out the core. Throw it away and then finely shred or slice the red cabbage. Put the sliced cabbage in a colander and wash it under cold water.

Peel and core the apples, and cut them into large chunky slices.

Using a potato peeler, peel the orange so that you have nice thin-ish strips of orange peel.

When the bacon and chorizo have browned and are smelling lovely, remove all the meat from the pan with a slotted spoon. Set aside on some kitchen towel.

Now put the red cabbage into the pan with all of the lovely bacon and chorizo fat. Now you want to start making layers with the red cabbage, the apples, brown sugar, bacon and chorizo, seasoning well as you go. Tuck in the cinnamon stick (or sprinkle the ground cinnamon over the top) and also add almost all of the strips of orange peel. Set aside some to serve.

Now pour over the red wine and red wine vinegar and bring the lot to the boil. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes. Then cover the pan with a lid or tin-foil and put into the oven for about an hour.

Check on it from time to time to make sure it still has liquid in it. Add a bit of water if it needs it, but it should be ok.

When the cabbage has had about 45 minutes, heat a little oil in a smaller frying pan. Fry the sausages whole until well-browned and just cooked through. Remove them from the frying pan and chop them into chunks.

Now check on your cabbage – it should be nearly done. For the last 5 minutes or so, you can add your chopped sausages to the mix and let them brown off a bit more in the oven.

You want the cabbage to be softened but still have a bit of bite in it, you don’t want it to be too sloppy or anything.

Serve hot with a sprinkling of finely sliced orange peel – this is totally unnecessary and in fact, the peel does not taste very good, so you can totally skip that flourishy nonsense bit if you like.

KITCHEN TUNE

I was down in Dingle last weekend for the recording of Other Voices. It was a fantastic weekend (I wrote a bit about it here) which was so much fun that it left me bed-ridden with Dingle Flu for most of last week. It was totally worth it.

Not least because I discovered Canadian-born but London-based Cold Specks. Here she is performing Lay Me Down on Jools Holland on November 4th.

Thanksgiving has an awful lot to be said for it. Here are my main thoughts on it.

1. It’s a secular holiday, meaning it’s all inclusive. That is very good. Leading to my next point…
2. Everyone can enjoy it without feeling pangs of hypocritical guilt.
3. It gives people an excuse, or a reminder even, to take stock and be thankful for the good things in their lives. Like family, friends, Marmite, etc…
4. It breaks up November. Which, as we all know, can be an unforgivingly dreary month.
5. It gives you a perfectly valid excuse to have two feast style-dinners a year. Hello?! That’s awesome.

This year, we were very thankful to be invited to our wonderful friends Ben and Anna’s for Thanksgiving. They live in Stroud, in the beautiful county of Gloucestershire, England and so that is where we spent the last weekend of November this year. Ben is American so has hosted a few Thanksgiving dinners since we’ve been friends. This year’s, however, turned out to be the most epic of them all.

We had wonderfully brined turkey, succotash, creamed onions, roasted vegetables, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, another pecan pie, lovely conversation and fantastic music, cuddled around a long table at Ben and Anna’s Stroud cottage, joined by Ben and Anna’s Gloucestershire family and friends.

There was a lot of chatter about the stuffing served with dinner. It turned out it was Anna’s grandmother Molly’s recipe. She was always known as Molly, rather than Granny, and Anna told us how she was a very independent and feisty lady who always did what she thought was right, however much society tried to tell her otherwise. Anna was very kind enough to share this recipe with me and you’ll find it after the jump.

What you need for Molly’s American Stuffing for about 6 people

1 finely chopped onion

6 rashers of bacon (streaky is best)

1 tablespoon of flatleaf parsley (curly parsley has no place here)

4 cups of white breadcrumbs

1/2 lb cooked sausages (use the yummiest scrummiest ones you can find), cut into 1-2 cm pieces 

1/2 teacup of olive oil, plus a glug for cooking 

• In a big pan, cook the onion until soft but not brown.
• Add the bacon and fry for 5 mins on a low heat until cooked but not crispy.
• Add everything else (including the oil) and season.
• Either stuff the bird or cook in an oven dish for 25 mins.
• Double the recipe if cooking for 6 or more.

The weekend didn’t just stop at dinner. There were walks on windy hills, pints of ale in Ben and Anna’s local, Sunday lunch at Anna’s parents’ house (which included Yorkshire puddings), Saturday trips to vintage and charity shops as well as Stroud Farmer’s Market. Here are a few choice pics from our weekend!

We arrived on a Friday night to find a festivally steamy kitchen…

There was a good balance between kitchen calm and kitchen crazy, with Ben and Kate in charge of the stove as their assistant chefs shouted out recipe notes and chopped and peeled around them…

The roast turkey…

Molly’s American Stuffing…

Thanksgiving dinner…

Pumpkin and pecan pies…

The dinner table…

Wonderful music by Martha…

Amazing after-dinner magic tricks by Julia…

Saturday saw us wandering through Stroud, taking in the Farmers’ Market…

…where we had to have a few bacon butties and sausage sandwiches, all made with local and free-range pork…

We met Rupert Burdoch, the local foraging expert, who is a fellow mushroom fan…

Then it was to Saturday second-hand and vintage shopping…

We weren’t quite sure about the “Humorous” tag either…

We found some stellar Mills & Boon novels…

…were delighted to find not one, but two Phil Collins vinyls in the charity shop…

…I got a beautiful new necklace in Stroud’s amazing vintage shop Strangeness and Charm…

…outside which we all had a good pose.

Here is Ben, aka The Accidental Hipster.

Lovely Anna looking lovely.

Then it was to the hills that surround Stroud for a bracing walk in the wind.

We met the most awesome puppy, who was almost too excited to stay still for a photograph…

Then we wandered around a bit more in the wind…

…where Kate proclaimed herself Queen of The Hill…

Then it was time for home and for a delicious Leftovers Dinner. Anna made Succotash Pancakes with the leftover succotash hom nom nom.

After our leftover dinner, we headed to The Prince Albert for a few pints of ale and a smoke of a pipe…

We also met the pub’s pup, Fernando. Almost too cute, he was.

Tom trying to figure out what shampoo Fernando uses.

Anna looking unsure about committing to a full on face lick from Fernando.

Saturday night ended with a game of Kilbeggan-fuelled Consequences.

Sunday morning brought the English countryside walks…

Myself and Ben catching up…

Niall, Mia, Tom and Ben did some promo shots for their new band The Stroud Shakers.

They are going to be huge.

After our lunch, it was on to Anna’s parents’ house. Ingela and Chris (that’s Anna’s parents) hosted a fabulous lunch, which included the most amazing Beef brisket cooked in blackcurrant and stout. Definitely featuring that recipe on this blog asap! We also managed to eat 36 yorkshire puddings between ten of us. Anna ate most of them, though.

Our lunch was finished off by a superb mincemeat and almond cake by Ingela.

Thank you to Anna and Ben, The Jacobs, Katie, Mia, and all of the other lovely people who made our Stroud weekend so much fun. Hope to see you for next year’s Thanksgiving!

I’ve remarked on this blog how cauliflower and broccoli were vegetables I struggled with, due to their mistreatment by the cooks at the boarding school I ate in for four years. It was often a case of “Please sir, don’t give us any more” when it came to the sodden mush formerly known as vegetables served up every night.

(It should be noted that we had lots of lovely food in the school, too. Some mornings we had warm croissants and honey, and about four times a year we got strawberries and cream for dessert. There was a pretty much constant supply of Coco Pops and lots of relatively fresh salads on Wednesdays. So, we did quite well, really. It was just the vegetables that seemed to suffer the most.)

If I’ve made one food discovery this year that I will take forward with me throughout the rest of my cooking days, it is that roasting is more often than not the best way to cook vegetables. The roasted broccoli pasta dish is now a firm favourite in this house.

More recently, I discovered a stunning recipe for roasted cauliflower on one of my fave food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. I’ve made it a number of time since, but, in an unintentional bout of selfishness, have neglected to share it with you until now. This is such a simple yet outstandingly satisfying dinner, that you I must simply insist you to try it for yourself!

The recipe makes a good sized lunch or dinner for one. I would imagine this would work just as well doubled. It also makes for a gorgeously unusual side dish.

The first time I made this, I stuffed it into to a steak sambo and it was fecking amazing. I stuffed the bun with rare steak and used the cauliflower as a topping, getting a good dollop of harissa yoghurt in there too.

I’d be inclined to pair it with roast chicken or beef, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t go with most roast meats.

What you need for Roast Cauliflower for 1 to 2 people as a main

1 head of cauliflower (get a good big one so you can feed two!)

Olive Oil

1 teaspoon of whole cumin seeds

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

50 to 100g of feta cheese, crumbled (you can decide how much you want)

A few sprigs of fresh mint leaves

1 pomegranate

Greek-style natural yoghurt (use Glenisk’s if you can, it’s the best)

1/2 teaspoon of harissa paste

Start by pre-heating the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas mark 7.

Chop the cauliflower into bite-size florets and give it a good wash. Put onto a baking tray or into a roasting dish and drizzle with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle the cumin seeds, salt and pepper evenly over the cauliflower florets. Roast them for 20 to 30 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender and starting to crispen up.

Meanwhile, crumble your feta and chop your fresh mint leaves. Half your pomegranate and remove the lovely seeds. Set the seeds aside for serving.

Transfer the cauliflower into a serving bowl. Sprinkle with the crumbled feta, remembering that you can decide how much or how little you want – some people find feta over-powering so you don’t want to distract attention from the lovely cauliflower. As you may notice from the photos, I completely forgot to add it when I made it that particular time. It’s optional but it does add another dimension to the dish, so give it a go.

Top with a sprinkling of those gorgeous pomegranate seeds and some freshly chopped mint.

Finally, mix 3 tablespoons of lovely greek yoghurt with the harissa paste. Dollop the cauliflower with the spicy yoghurt and serve hot.

KITCHEN TUNE

As you’ve read your way through that recipe, no doubt you’ve remarked on my beautiful new plates. These were a thoroughly thoughtful for-no-reason gift from my pal Alan, who write the Bitzl R music blog. Here’s one of his favourite music videos of late, which is the track Hey Sparrow from California husband and wife duo Peaking Lights.

Locally smoked kippers with poached eggs at Inchydoney Lodge & Spa

“I’m going down to Indochiney this weekend.”

“What?! Where?!”

“Indochiney. You know, in Cork.”

“Inchy-DON-ey, Aoife, you lunatic.”

So went a conversation with a friend a fortnight ago. She was right. I did mean Inchydoney.

I had been invited down for a complimentary stay to Inchydoney Lodge and Spa by the good people at Conway Communications, to not only sample some of the food and service at the hotel, but to indulge in one of their spa’s treatments. When a day of seaweed foraging on a kayak with Jim Kennedy from Atlantic Sea Kayaking was thrown into the mix, I was halfway out the door before I could say “I’m not sure what a kayak is.”

Ah, so that’s a kayak!

Years ago, the thought of going to Inchydoney from Dublin for the weekend would have probably been considered about as mental as going to Indo-China. As in, it took bloody ages to get there. My mum Pauline, who was to be my guest for the weekend, and I arrived in Inchydoney on Saturday afternoon after a three hour drive from Dublin. Not too long a drive to really feel like you are far, far, FAR away from it all. “It” being stress and negativity and stuff, obviously.

The lodge is beyond Clonakilty and when you pull into its drive, you have literally come to the edge of Ireland. It sits on a gentle cliff, over-looking beaches to each side which were filled with surfers, dog walkers and horse-riders throughout our weekend stay.

My itinerary was slightly different from Pauline’s, as her agenda was to walk along the beach and chill out in our beautiful hotel room.

Our room at Inchydoney, which looked out over the sea

I, on the other hand, was to spend the rest of the day with Jim Kennedy of Atlantic Sea Kayaking, looking for edible seaweed in Castlehaven Bay about a 40 minute drive from Inchydoney.

Castlehaven Bay

Jim Kennedy has been an avid kayaker for most of his life. He set up Atlantic Sea Kayaking twenty years ago doing kayaking trips around Cork city. His team of kayak enthusiasts has grown to include his wife Maria and Sally McKenna, among a few others who bring different expertise and skills to the various trips the company now offer.

A friendly dog at Castlehaven Bay. I think he was trying to tell me something with that stick…

Jim was kind enough to take me out on a very quick kayaking trip, to give me an insight into what they do on their day trips. I was out on the water for about an hour and a half, but usually the day trips start at 10am and finish up at around 4pm.

On these trips, you spend the morning learning how to kayak safely and then you get out into the water in search of different varities of edible seaweed. For lunch, the group stops on a known dry shore and a meal of freshly caught fish is prepared desert-island style over a portable BBQ. This is where Sally McKenna’s culinary skills come in, as well as being a kayak instructor she brings along pre-made seaweed snacks like seaweed scones to help the kayakers see the yumminess in seaweed.

Jim’s wife Maria also talks the group through the cosmetic benefits of seaweed, and how to use its oils for skin care. The afternoon finds you back in the water, where Jim and his team can show you more of the stunningly beautiful and untouched landscape around West Cork.

Jim Kennedy of Atlantic Sea Kayaking

Kayaking in the mist

A whole day might seem a long time to spend kayaking. I was out on the water for, as I said, about an hour and a half. I could have stayed out there for another 6 hours, no problem. This was my first time ever on a kayak, but it was a kayak-for-two and Jim is a very chilled dude, so I felt 100% comfortable. It was gloriously misty when we got out onto the water (what is it with me and the sea and mist?!) and so calm and still.

The kayaking is a good upper body work out but it’s not as tiring as you might think. We were gliding through Castlehaven Bay, the cliffs on either side disappearing and reappearing in the mist, not another soul in sight. I listened as Jim told me about the company and about seaweed and I thought how lucky I was to be able to enjoy such a relaxing and inspiring experience so close to my doorstep.

I only spent 2 and a half hours with Jim but have a look at his website for all of the different trips they offer. It seems his night-time kayaking is becoming the stuff of legend. But there are all sorts of trips catering for different age groups and kayaking experience. I can’t recommend it enough.

Me looking very pleased with myself, kayaking in the mist. 

Atmospherically abandoned old trawler appearing out of the mist

Turns out kayaking builds up an appetite, and luckily for me, myself and Mum were booked in for a complimentary meal in the hotel’s Gulfstream Restaurant.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. Hotel food can be pretty crummy. Not so with this spot. A five course meal was laid out, and it sang the praises of local and seasonal ingredients, with plenty of choice for vegetarians. Everything from my crab starter to my fillet of beef main course was excellent, with the wonderful staff advising me wisely on which wines to pair with my food. A special mention must go to the Gubeen salami and rosemary bread, which was one of four home-made options offered throughout the meal.

Residents’ Lounge

After a nightcap in the Residents’ Lounge, it was off to bed, for there were walks on the beach to be had in the morning.

I started my Sunday with a swim in the salt water pool of the hotel, followed by a delicious breakfast, where I enjoyed the not at all Fawlty Towers-esque Smoked Kippers with a Poached Egg.

Locally smoked kippers and a poached egg for brekkie

Then it was time for a walk on the beach. To be able to step out of your hotel and to be faced with the sea, cliffs and long beaches is pretty spectacular.

We were already feeling relaxed and re-charged before we had even gotten into our spa robes for my Chocolate Treatment and my mum’s Sunshine Treatment. I mean, to be able to go from the beach to a spa within minutes and be scrubbed with a cocoa and seaweed mixture, then exfoliated with soft and warm sponge gloves, and then slathered in a chocolate and seaweed mousse, only to be wrapped in a giant heated blanket, then wash it all off in a hot shower and finish with a mandarin oil massage…well, let’s just say if you are still feeling stressed when you leave Inchydoney, you should probably go to a doctor.

We were like jelly babies leaving Inchydoney on Sunday afternoon, and it felt like we floated all the way back home on the motorway. Keep an eye on the hotel’s website for special deals and definitely keep it in mind when you’re in need of a weekend away.

Thanks again to Rachel at Conway Communications, as well as the staff of Inchydoney Island Spa and Lodge who made our stay such an enjoyable and memorable one.

Below are a few more photos of the beaches of Inchydoney.

Inchydoney Island Spa & Lodge

Clonakilty 

West Cork

Ireland

+353-23-8833-143

Atlantic Sea Kayaking

The Abbey

Skibbereen

West Cork

Ireland

+353-28-210-58