February 2009 Archives

Birthday cakes are, almost inevitably, chocolate-based in my family. It is undoubtedly the default option, beloved by everybody, not least by the birthday celebrants. This year, however, we were to celebrate the mother's (January) birthday on an unseasonably bright February day and - unusually - I wasn't in the mood for chocolate baking.

After a discussion with my normal cooking-partner-in-crime, the Little Sister, and inspired by the amount of citrus fruit in the shops, I went down the orange and almond road instead, making a light but very moist cake. It seemed, at the time, to be the season for lighter cooking - an idea promptly destroyed by subsequent appearances of hail, ice and snow.

With things warming up this week in North Cork, it might be time for the cake to make another outing. Being so moist, it keeps well, not that you'll have too many problems with that. To serve it as a pudding, we scattered the top of the cake with the seeds of a pomegranate and drizzled it with natural yoghurt. Pomegranates may be out of season now but orange segments wouldn't go amiss instead. The tart freshness felt like a real antidote to the necessary heaviness of most winter cooking. With there being a real stretch in the evenings, it's time to start enjoying food for spring!

I have loved Pancake Tuesday ever since I was a child, standing on a chair so I could reach the cooker to make stacks and stacks of pancakes. It sometimes took a long time before the family was satiated! Since those crêpe-making days, the thinner the better, I've become a fan of fluffy American pancakes and I've yet to decide which way the pancake batter is going to go this evening. Maybe both - I've always loved two course pancake suppers and Ricotta and Spinach Pancake Bake is my default savoury option.

If you're going to make your own, my simple (Irish) pancake batter is below and you'll find the best American Buttermilk Pancakes here. Heidi over at 101 Cookbooks has a selection of unusual pancake recipes, including Whole-Grain Pancake Recipe with Blueberry Maple Syrup, Coconut Macaroon Pancakes and Poppy Seed Pancakes. There is a pancake special over at Great Food.ie, including a recipe for buckwheat crêpes or Galettes, and some ideas for Michelin-starred pancakes in The Guardian. If you have to go for a pancake mix - and it is just as easy to make them yourself - try Sowan's Organic pancake mixes with no added rubbish, unlike most of the rest of the packets on the market.

For anyone wanting more food blog reading, The London Times published a list of their top 50 food blogs which is well worth spending some time with. It's got lots of old favourites - Chocolate and Zucchini is in there, along with 101 Cookbooks, Chez Pim and David Lebovitz - but there are plenty more to discover. Make sure you check out Dorie Greenspan's baking, interior design in The Kitchn, step by step cooking on The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and amazing food photography from Cannelle et Vanille.

Congratulations to The Daily Spud who won the Best Food/Drink Blog on Saturday night's Irish Blog Awards - I had to leave a little early and was driving but it looked like an evening and a half was about to be had by many of the people who were attending! There's a full list of winners here.

Sabrina's Ladies' Tea Party was well attended, with plenty of wine (Curious Wines), nibbles (Look and Taste) and the most delectable chocolate and carrot cake cupcakes from Jo at Pinosa Cake. A big thank you to Damien and co for all the organising - what a great choice of venue!

If you're based in or around Cork and interested in growing your own food, take a look at the Cork Food Web. It's been described as "facebook for foodies" and is dedicated to encouraging and facilitating local food production, with a series of groups for members interested in poultry, seed saving, compost, growing vegetables and all things garden related. I missed their seed swap last weekeend but one of the very helpful organisers is going to send me some of the left over seeds, including my favourite pumpkins, as we try to get the garden up and running for 2009. With all the sunshine today, it really feels like a day for getting out and planting.

In a slightly related manner, RTÉ Cork are looking for people in Mahon and Blackpool who would be interested in running an allotment in Cork City. Richard Corrigan is on board for this programme - Corrigan's City Farm - which seems to be going down the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall route, showing city dwellers that they can grow their own food and also raise chickens and pigs. More information is available from the RTÉ website.

Congratulations to the five who are shortlisted for the Best Food/Drink Blog at this year's Irish Blog Awards. I'll be looking forward to seeing who walks away with the award on the Saturday night! Click any of the links below for lots of good reading and there's lots more in the other shortlisted categories over here.

Best Food/Drink Blog - Sponsored by Bord Bia

• tast.ie
• thedailyspud.com
• cheapeats.ie
• italianfoodies.wordpress.com
• sourgrapes.ie

Not having a television, I missed Peter Ward of Nenagh's Country Choice on the Late Late Show but fortunately was able to catch it online here. Peter is a passionate man - passionate about the food he sells, the quality of produce available in Ireland and passionate when talking about how he sees the supermarkets driving farmers away from the land. His idea of a national online farmers' market, linking the producer directly with the consumer, makes a lot of sense, but there will have to be some rethinking about the barriers of regulation first.

There are always going to be supermarkets and people who think that the best value is found there but I prefer to buy my vegetables, dirt and all, direct from the people who grow them - they're not expensive and, being protected by clay, they keep much longer than any scrubbed-shiny supermarket carrot. I can get organic meat from Knockatullera Farm (selling at the Kilavullen Farmers' Market) at the same price - or cheaper - than I would pay in the supermarket for regular meat. But then again, for us meat is a treat, not to be eaten every day, or maybe to be used as a flavouring - Gubbeen chorizo in a tortilla, a few scraps of bacon to give depth to a soup, homemade chicken stock for risotto.

Peter - always a great promoter! - introduces several of his own suppliers, including Tipperary farmer TJ Crowe, Philip Draper of Coolnagrower Organic Produce and talks about Irish cheese, bringing Mossfield and Bay Lough cheeses into studio. Watch Peter on the Late Late here and read a more in-depth report of what he said on Le Craic.

After a relaxing, sunny weekend in Baltimore we've returned home with headfuls of ideas, lots of notes, a handful of mail order catalogues and lots of inspiration for our garden in 2009. Jean Perry, who owns the five acres and house at Glebe Gardens with her artist husband Peter, was our teacher for the two day course. They run a popular café on site, producing most of the organic vegetables, fruit and herbs that they use there from the raised beds and polytunnels in the gardens.

With just a dozen friendly participants from a range of backgrounds and locations, there was plenty to discuss and learn - our rabbit problem was a bit of a teaser but two of our classmates brought in a list of plants that aren't particularly tasty to rabbits and now we're looking at planting box hedges around this year's veggie garden. We're also hoping that the pair of tom cats that we got to replace our late lamented Puddy will soon go into action against the rabbits - although, judging by the look of them at the moment (asleep indoors), they don't seem to be getting themselves in shape for any serious rabbit action.

Jean uses the no dig method, with raised beds and plenty of mulching. I've read - with skeptcism - about this system before but it's much easier to get your head around it when you're standing in front of the beds and eating the produce (a delicious lunch of soup and cheese was provided, along with copious amount of biscuits that were partaken of at regular intervals to keep the brain active). I now know how to replant my seedlings properly (hold the leaves, not the stalk when moving them), the kinds of insects to attract so that the aphids don't eat most of my salad crops (ladybirds all the way) and that I can use a shredder and my left-over newspapers to make some extra bedding for the hens.

It was a great excuse to visit Baltimore and, particularly, the lovely Glebe Gardens once again, as well as getting energised about the coming year's gardening. Jean is running more courses in March - take a look on the site to see the dates - and the two days, plus your lunch (and lots of biscuits!), just costs €100. Time to dig out those seeds and get chitting seed potatoes!

Look at these, just waiting for something nice to be cooked in them! This Le Creuset set has to be one of the coolest wedding presents that you could ever get - very appropriate for this time of the year too. I have to say, though, that there's not going to be any cooking, romantic or otherwise, done around here this weekend as we're off in Baltimore, staying at Rolf's for a couple of nights while doing a two-day gardening course in the Glebe Gardens.

Having visited the gardens while on honeymoon in the area in 2007, I fell in love with their potager-style layout, vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit all mixed in together. I'm hoping to get lots of inspiration from these two days!

In yesterday's newsletter from the North Cork Organic Group one of the events flagged was a cookery demonstration. It will take place at the Killavullen Farmers' Market in the Nano Nagle Centre tomorrow, Valentine's Day, between 10.30 am and 1pm, using produce from the market itself. Geraldine Bass' Old Millbank Smokehouse smoked fish, quality organic meat from Knockatullera Farm Produce, a range of cheeses from Gudrun Shinnick of the Fermoy Natural Cheese Company, great vegetables and eggs from the Nano Nagle Centre itself are just a few of the foodstuffs that you should see represented. The entry fee for the demonstration is €5 and the market will be taking place at the same time.

One of my former Ballymaloe classmates, Mike Hanrahan, a great cook and a seriously talented musician (ex Stockton's Wing) was featured in the Irish Times earlier this week. Not only did we get to appreciate his food in the kitchens (and wit in the classroom!), but Sunday nights in the Blackbird was one of the high points of the week, Mike playing at the regular sessions and ensuring that the pub was always packed with students.

Read the piece here, try his food at P. McCormack & Sons bar and restaurant on the Mounttown Road in Dun Laoghaire, and keep updated on his unmissable gigs through mikehanrahan.com.

I miss Arbutus bread. One of the great advantages of working in URRU Mallow was having regular access to good quality bread - I used to eat the sesame seed-encrusted brown crusts for work breakfast (you can't sell them but I think they're the nicest piece of the whole loaf), regularly bringing home spelt or rye loaves or, for a particular treat, one of the tomato and basil breads or a couple of croissants, to be heated up for the following morning's breakfast.

Now, it's a trek to get my hands on some decent bread. North Cork isn't exactly known for it's selection of bakeries and I refuse to buy or eat the chemical-infused never-goes-stale stuff that goes under the name of bread that's available. If I get to the Thursday farmers' market at Mahon Point for Arbutus bread or the bi-monthly Killavullen farmers' market where Tom's Bakery often has a stall I'm sorted but otherwise it's back to making my own again.

It's not a daily activity, by any stretch of the imagination. I normally make two large loaves at a time, cutting one in half for freezing (toast would always be a big favourite in this house), and I have a few different recipes in rotation. Despite being half-abandoned at the bottom of the fridge for the last year, my sourdough starter still has enough kick in it to keep me ticking over with sourdough loaves. Not having a fridge big enough to retard the rising overnight, these are normally most successful during the cold months of the year. Then it's time to switch over to the No-Knead Loaf or even the quick and easy Artisan Bread recipes that I've used with so much success in the past.

I'm playing around with a simple brown yeast loaf that you just mix, allow to rise in the tin (if the house is warm enough!) and then cook but my favourite bread at the moment is this version of a Spelt Loaf which I originally found in the Cornucopia cookbook. It takes minutes to mix up, is fantastic when it comes out of the oven (just try to cool it before cutting!), freezes well and - best of all - tastes amazing when toasted because of all the seeds.

I was never a vegetable fan as a child. Potatoes? Well, they were a totally foreign land to me - as were, to my poor mother's despair - carrots, cabbage, peas, parsnips and turnips. I did (sometimes) like Cauliflower Cheese, though. Broccoli was just making inroads into rural Ireland but as it was cooked like all the other vegetables, ie boiled to within an inch of its life to be served limp and tasteless, I didn't bother with it. The first time I had carrots that arrived at the table with some texture was a revelation and, gradually, I started to explore the mysteries of the vegetable world.

The Husband came complete with a major love for any kind of vegetable, the greener and leafier the better, especially if it resembled his favourite silverbeet (Swiss chard). While living in New Zealand I got to grips with cooking lots of silverbeet, pumpkin and kumara (sweet potato) and realised exactly how much you could pad out a minimal amount of meat with plenty of good veggies. The vegetable garden further concentrated the mind, especially last spring when it was 101 ways to deal with gluts of purple sprouting broccoli, kale and silverbeet. I knew times had changed when I sat down to a bowlful of shredded kale for supper, briefly cooked with no more than garlic, chilli and lemon.

This year there's little on offer from the garden but I've been able to visit a variety of farmers' markets recently so we're not suffering too much of a vegetable deficiency. My problem is that I tend to overbuy so we have stacks of root vegetables, in particular, to use up. Encouraged by talking to Carmel Somers of the Good Things Café for the Foodtalk: Spices programme (listen to the show here), I picked up my first turnip last week and it made its way into an hearty winter casserole, full of the sweetness of roots, sharpened with a little lemon juice and preserved lemon. It may look unpromising, like lamb stews often do, but the flavours sing in the mouth and you'll have plenty of gravy for mashing into potato on one of these chilly nights.

A quick trip to the first Killavullen Farmers' Market of the year last weekend produced an unexpected treasure. I pounced on a pile of just-scrubbed nobbly tubers on the Nano Nagle stand - Jerusalem artichokes. Also known as fartichokes (in my house anyway) they're not vegetables that you come across on sale too often.

We tried to grow them last year but, as with so many of the things that we planted, the rabbits thought otherwise. Having read a lot about how they are a virtual weed in many gardens, I have high hopes of them turning up again but, until now, it has been an artichoke-free winter.

They have a rather sweet, earthy flavour, both nutty and garlicy. I had wanted to try them raw in a salad but, with the intensely cold recent weather, decided to go down the soup path instead as they make an almost velvety, warming soup. Their nobbly-ness makes them difficult to peel so - always being one for a shortcut! - I just give them a good scrub (watch out for soil in the crevices unless you want a gritty, rather than velvety, soup), chop them up and threw them into the pot. At least that way you end up with more of the artichokes in the soup than in the compost bin.

Take a look over at Irish Blog Awards for the 2009 longlisted blogs, including Bibliocook! There are several rounds this year - nominated, longlisted and shortlisted - before the actual award ceremony at the Cork International Airport Hotel on 21 February. Check out the longlist for the Food/Drink Blog - with thanks to sponsor Bord Bia - below.

Best Food/Drink Blog - Longlist 2009

• Italian Foodies
• iFoods.tv
• Littlebird Eats
• A Food Journey in Korea
• Well done Fillet
• Ice Cream Ireland
• The Good Mood Food Blog
• Sourgrapes
• The Daily Spud
• Just Add Eggs
• Cully and Sully
• Cheap Eats
• Tast.ie
• Bibliocook
• Food and Drink in Ireland
• Bubble Brothers
• Val’s Kitchen
• Robert Frances Wine
• Curious Wines
• Messy Chef

Check out the Lar Veale's Sour Grapes wine blog for his entertaining entries on matching wine with Irish Blog Awards Food/Wine nominees. This piece has the first 13 blogs nominated and this one finishes off the list. Fortunately, as the Husband and I both went off Malborough Sauvignon Blanc last year (that's what happens when you order too much wedding wine and decide to finish it off for yourself!), Bibliocook gets matched with Pinot Noirs from Central Otago or the Waipara Valley and, in the whites side of things, Riesling, Pinot Gris or Chardonnay. That'll be a bottle of Babich Marlborough Riesling and Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir, please. I wish...

If you're interested in listening back to any of the Foodtalk shows that were broadcast on Newstalk over the last six weeks (no more sending text alerts online - my Sunday nights have suddenly gotten very quiet!), they're now all available as podcasts from the Newstalk website. You can see them all here and full details of the interviewees are below.

• Programme 1 MP3: Livestock - Jacque Barry from Jacques Restaurant, Cork and Fingal Ferguson of the Gubbeen Smokehouse, Schull, West Cork.
• Programme 2 MP3: Seafood - Tony Daly from The Lime Tree, Kenmare, and Paul Kelly, mussel farmer and goldsmith, from Kilmackillogue.
  


• Programme 3 MP3: Spices - Carmel Somers from The Good Things Café, Durrus, Co Cork and Arun Kapil of Green Saffron, Midleton, East Cork.


• Programme 4 MP3: Wild Food - Áine Maguire from Kueppersbusch and Seamus Moran of LoTide Fine Foods, Westport, Co Mayo.


• Programme 5 MP3: Dairy - Aoibheann McNamara, Ard Bia, Galway and Kieran Murphy from Murphy's Ice Cream, Dingle.
  


• Programme 6 MP3: Garden - Henry Stone from The Sha-Roe Bistro, Clonegal, Co Carlow and Ultan Walsh of Gort-Na-Nain Organic Farm, Nohoval, Cork, who grows the veg for (among others) Denis Cotter of Café Paradiso.

I've had a sneaking fondness for the Crawford Art Gallery Café ever since I spent a Saturday working there while on the Ballymaloe Cookery Course and have returned several times since. The Husband and I were on a rare Saturday trip to Cork at the weekend, made all the hungrier for lunch by some cheese nibbling at our local Killavullen Farmers' Market, courtesy of Gudrun at Fermoy Natural Cheese. Despite the crowds in the café, we got a table quickly, which was just as well as I had already spotted lamb's liver on the menu.

Brought up in a house where liver and kidneys were a much-loved supper (I wouldn't touch potatoes but put a plate of liver in front of me and there was no problem!), I'm always delighted to find it in a restaurant, especially as the Husband wouldn't be an offal fan and we don't have at home very often. Being more orientated towards seafood, he chose the Crab, Ginger and Coriander Tart (€10.95), which came accompanied with organic salad leaves, a couple of slices of tomato which actually tasted of tomato and some pickled cucumber. My beautifully seared liver, topped with a couple of crispy bacon slices and a rich, peppery gravy, came on two slices of buttered toast, accompanied by the same selection of salads (€12.95). It was a substantial plateful of food - perfectly cooked liver, still pink inside - the accompaniments ensuring a good contrast of texture and flavour and so good that the (liver-hating) Husband tried a piece and came back, several times, for more.

Despite the temptation of plates full of shortbread biscuits and orange cake on the counter, not to mention the homemade ice cream on the menu, there was only time for mains on this trip (our afternoon tea date was coming up soon in the Natural Foods Bakery) but, after a dish like that, I wasn't left wanting too much more. When running at full speed, the Café can get noisy, especially if you're sitting in the central area, but anyone familiar with the Ballymaloe ethos knows that you're paying for what you're getting - immaculately sourced, well-produced raw ingredients, cooked well. All that, and a whole gallery's worth of art to spend the afternoon exploring. Make sure you don't miss the Harry Clarke room, right up at the top of the building.

Crawford Art Gallery Café, Emmet Place, Cork City. Ph: 021 4274415.

If you're heading to the 2009 Irish Blog Awards in Cork, it's well worth your while turning up a little bit earlier for the Ladies' Tea Party, hosted by Sabrina Dent from 4pm at the Cork Airport Hotel. There are only thirty places available at this pre-event event for the lady bloggers of Ireland so, if you're interested, find out more and register at http://www.sabrinadent.com/2009/01/31/ladies-tea-party-and-knitting-circle-2009/ sooner rather than later. Refreshments will be provided by Curious Wines, iFoods.tv and Pinosa Cake.