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Posted on Jan 17, 2012 in Food for Friends, Lovely Lunches | 2 comments

Taste #5 Umami Paste, Lentil and Bacon Soup

Taste #5 Umami Paste, Lentil and Bacon Soup
Parmesan, tomato puree, garlic, balsamic vinegar: all kitchen staples that we use, almost unthinkingly, every day when cooking. They are also four of the ingredients in Laura Santtini‘s intriguing Taste #5 Umami Paste. Named after the delicious savoury taste common to these foods, along with the others...
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Posted on Aug 19, 2009 in Kitchen, Life, Lovely Lunches, Travel | 5 comments

Have spork, will travel

Have spork, will travel
Last year, on a trip to London, I picked up a spork – a light plastic utensil which features a spoon at one end, fork at the other and serrated knife edge on the fork side – in a kitchenware shop and I’ve rarely been without it since. The last quarter of 2008 was taken up with train trips...
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Posted on Feb 2, 2009 in Eating Out, Lovely Lunches | 0 comments

Lunch in Cork: Crawford Art Gallery Café

Lunch in Cork: Crawford Art Gallery Café
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...
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Posted on Oct 22, 2008 in Lovely Lunches | 5 comments

Warm Chickpea Salad with Parmesan

Warm Chickpea Salad with Parmesan
One of my major perks, on days I work from home, is having the opportunity to make myself something really good for lunch. If those days also happen to feature me making chicken stock or reconstituting a big bag of dried pulses – these things happen in the kitchen without me having to think about them –...
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Posted on Feb 21, 2008 in Cook, Grow, Lovely Lunches | 0 comments

Leeks from the garden: Minimalist Leek and Potato Soup

The veggie garden is looking a little sad at this stage in the year. Just a few scraggly kale plants, as-yet-unformed purple sprouting broccoli – but we still have some leeks, when we remember to cook them! We’ve recently been having a cold snap so I’ve been making lots of soups and, one...
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Posted on May 8, 2007 in Cook, Lovely Lunches | 5 comments

A Taste of Yellow: Spiced Mushroom Pilau

A Taste of Yellow: Spiced Mushroom Pilau
Barbara at Winos and Foodies is currently holding a once-off food bloggers event called A Taste of Yellow in support of LIVESTRONG Day 2007. LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer...
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Posted on Jan 26, 2007 in Cook, Lovely Lunches, Storecupboard Specials | 0 comments

Simple Tomato Sauce

This is the most useful recipe to have in your repertoire. I use it – sometimes with the addition of broccoli, chorizo, bacon or chilli – with gnocchi, pasta, cannelloni and polenta, as a topping for pizza and even when baking pancakes. If you can track down some decent Italian plum tomatoes,...
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Posted on Jul 15, 2006 in Cook, Lovely Lunches | 0 comments

Ingredient experiments: Spicy Carrot Dip

Spicy Carrot Dip This is especially good with a Bulgur and Cauliflower Salad, some crisply toasted pita breads and a bowl of natural yoghurt. Carrots – 500g, chopped into 3-inch lengths Extra virgin olive oil – 4 tablespoons Sherry vinegar – 3 tablespoons Garlic cloves – 2,...
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Posted on Jun 17, 2006 in Cook, Lovely Lunches | 2 comments

Magic mushrooms: Mushrooms in Olive Oil

Magic mushrooms: Mushrooms in Olive Oil
When the weather is good no one wants to spend time in the kitchen and, when the Boyfriend arrived home from the supermarket the other day with a large box of button mushrooms, I didn’t much feel like frying them or using them in an omelette strognoff or making a mushroom stroganoff or risotto or any...
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Posted on May 7, 2006 in Lovely Lunches | 2 comments

Salad lunches for work: Puy Lentil Salad with Balsamic Dressing

Salad lunches for work: Puy Lentil Salad with Balsamic Dressing
When the days get brighter and longer, a girl’s thoughts turn to salad lunches. Based about 15 minutes walk away from any shops or cafés and blessed/cursed with a sloppy canteen, I bring my lunch to work year-round. Brown Bread and a fridge in the office are my lifesavers – the bread for...
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Posted on Apr 14, 2006 in Cookery Books, Eating Out, Lovely Lunches, Travel | 1 comment

Books for Cooks, Notting Hill, London

Books for Cooks, Notting Hill, London
In London there is a wonderful shop called Books for Cooks. A bookshop, filled with – what else – cookbooks, it is situated at 4 Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill and is the kind of place that Sunday supplements wax lyrical about. As does anyone who visits the shop. It is small, not so very...
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Posted on Mar 15, 2006 in Do, Eating Out, Lovely Lunches, Travel | 2 comments

Une vacance surprise à Paris

Une vacance surprise à Paris
Last Friday, over a glass of wine and some nibbles at a city centre tapas bar, the Boyfriend – after WEEKS of mystery – handed me my passport and…a guidebook for Paris! He had told me that we were going away for the weekend, we would be spending time in a city and that I had to pack for...
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Posted on Dec 21, 2005 in Eating Out, Lovely Lunches, Return to Ireland | 0 comments

Ladies who lunch @ Café Paradiso, Cork

Ladies who lunch @ Café Paradiso, Cork
After my appetite had been well whetted by Denis Cotter’s A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking, I decided that it was time to return to Café Paradiso itself and last weekend I went down to Cork. All my nights were tied up but Saturday lunchtime was designated Paradiso-time and who better to...
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Posted on Nov 6, 2005 in Cook, Kitchen, Lovely Lunches | 0 comments

Flatbreads from the Breadmaker

Flatbreads from the Breadmaker
Even though I haven’t been mentioning the Breadmaker very much recently, it does get a regular workout. Every so often we’re out of Brown Soda Bread and it’s just too much hard work to go down to the shop so I just throw ingredients into the Breadmaker bowl and it makes one of its little...
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Posted on Oct 21, 2005 in Kitchen, Lovely Lunches | 6 comments

A self-sufficient lunch: A Simple Goat’s Cheese

A self-sufficient lunch: A Simple Goat’s Cheese
Last year, while still in Ireland, the Boyfriend and I attended a cheese-making weekend workshop at Rossinver Organic Farm in County Leitrim. My knowledge of cheese-making had previously been limited to a school outing during primary school. A schoolmate’s father, Glenroe’s Matt O’Brien,...
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