Currently Browsing: Food for Friends
Posted on Aug 15, 2009 in Bake, Food for Friends | 4 comments

Student treats: Caramel Squares

When we were in college, the Brother’s Housemate came from a catering household. His mother used to make hundreds of superb Christmas cakes and puddings each year, cook for parties and events and, most importantly to us, make the best Caramel Squares known to students. Living on an unbroken biscuit...
Read More
Posted on Aug 1, 2009 in Bake, Food for Friends | 6 comments

The best chocolate cake: Chocolate Orange Spice Cake

The best chocolate cake: Chocolate Orange Spice Cake
I’ve always liked to bake. As soon as I was old enough to co-ordinate reading recipes and using a wooden spoon, I was anxious for any cake-making excuse – and most of them involved copious amounts of chocolate. Over the years there have been many good chocolate cakes, from my early attempts...
Read More
Posted on Jul 14, 2009 in Food for Friends | 0 comments

Strawberries for not so sunny days: Strawberry and Peach Sundae

Strawberries for not so sunny days: Strawberry and Peach Sundae
Here’s a desert that’s perfect eaten outside in the late evening sunshine – or to cheer up a rainy day. There’s no real need for quantities as the amounts depend on how many people you are trying to make the strawberries stretch between, how big the glasses are and how greedy your...
Read More
Posted on Jul 1, 2009 in Food for Friends | 8 comments

Summer days at the lighthouse: Lighthouse Ling

Summer days at the lighthouse: Lighthouse Ling
Driving to Galley Head Lighthouse is a bit like a magical mystery tour. Although easy to see from a variety of locations along the West Cork coast, the lighthouse – like an ever-receeding mirage – seems to disappear from sight the closer you get. Eventually, however, after driving constantly...
Read More
Posted on Jun 4, 2009 in Food for Friends | 4 comments

Barbecue days: Marjoram and Lemon Chicken

Barbecue days: Marjoram and Lemon Chicken
A quick marinade to make, with herbs from the garden, while someone else is lighting the barbecue. Avoid chicken breasts – overpriced and tasteless pieces of cotton wool that they are – and grab yourself some cheap and tasty chicken thighs instead. I normally allow two per person or one if I...
Read More
Posted on Jul 28, 2008 in Food for Friends | 4 comments

Cooking in France

1 saucepan + 1 gas burner + 1 vegetarian + 2 omnivores (1 very much on the carni- side of omnivore) = very simple one-pot cooking in the campsite at night. It’s not difficult to do with a small store of non-perishable picnic basket perennials – olive oil, harissa paste, sherry vinegar, grainy...
Read More
Posted on May 26, 2008 in Bake, Food for Friends | 1 comment

Make-ahead Caramel Cake for Saturday barbeques

Make-ahead Caramel Cake for Saturday barbeques
Working Saturdays means that any weekend entertaining needs to be planned and organised well in advance, especially when it comes to Saturday night barbeques at the cottage. The Naas Cousin was coming to stay so I grabbed the opportunity to get a few of the cousins together. There wasn’t anything...
Read More
Posted on Mar 23, 2008 in Bake, Food for Friends | 2 comments

Chocolate for Easter: Chocolate Hazelnut Mini-Puds

Chocolate for Easter: Chocolate Hazelnut Mini-Puds
I think my mother has one of her legendary Pavlovas already in the works for the aftermath of the Easter family lunch but, if you’re not going to be as lucky, these Chocolate Hazelnut Mini-Puds, adapted from a Nigella recipe, are well worth trying. This mixture makes eight – serving our family...
Read More
Posted on Feb 25, 2008 in Food for Friends, Grow | 0 comments

Racing time: Roasted Squash and Puy Lentil Salad

Racing time: Roasted Squash and Puy Lentil Salad
It’s not exactly salad time yet but, when a gloriously sunny Sunday coincided with the local point-to-point races and the family coming round for a pre-race lunch, I couldn’t resist poking out an old bag of puy lentils (still working my way through two kitchen’s-worth of ingredients!) to...
Read More
Posted on Feb 12, 2008 in Food for Friends | 7 comments

Chocolate Orange Bread and Butter Pudding

Sunday was family dinner day. One of the advantages of living in the countryside in North Cork is getting to spend more time with my family – and getting to try out lots of new recipes on them! This time round I decided to go with something very simple – Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon....
Read More
Posted on Feb 23, 2007 in Food for Friends | 5 comments

By request: Ricotta and Spinach Pancake Bake

I have made this dish a couple of times for Pancake Tuesday as I love to have a pancake main as well as desert! One of the best things about it is that many of the elements can be made beforehand. This year I made the pancake batter on Sunday, the pancakes and tomato sauce on Monday, then assembled, baked...
Read More
Posted on Feb 20, 2007 in Cook, Food for Friends | 2 comments

Pancake Tuesday

Not being very clued in with dates, the first notice I received of the annual pancake flipping day was a display of bottles of squeezy lemon and pancake batter mixes at Morton’s in Ranelagh. Pancakes really are one of the easiest things to make so don’t bother with the mix – it’s...
Read More
Posted on Nov 3, 2006 in Food for Friends | 0 comments

Testing the new cooker: Coq au Vin, Cottage-style

Testing the new cooker: Coq au Vin, Cottage-style
To give my new cooker a good working test last weekend, I invited my family – Mum, two sisters, a brother and my Granny – to lunch on Sunday so, together with the Boyfriend and myself, we were seven. This, naturally enough, entailed several last minute phone calls home to see if they could bring...
Read More
Posted on Oct 26, 2006 in Cook, Food for Friends | 5 comments

Harira for bookclub

Our last Bibliofemme bookclub – for The Rum Diaries by Hunter S Thompson – was held at my flat on a rapidly-darkening autumn evening. The previous evening had been cold and dreary as I walked home from my webmaster course so I decided to start a soup, leave it sit overnight, and then finish it...
Read More
Posted on Aug 30, 2006 in Food for Friends | 4 comments

Dukkah by post

Dukkah by post
For the last round of European Blogging by Post, I decided to make some Dukkah to include in my parcel for Petula in Italy. An Egyptian blend of coarsely ground nuts, spices and salt that you eat with pieces of crusty bread dipped in olive oil, I had never come across Dukkah before going to live in New...
Read More

« Older Entries Next Entries »