Right now I have gorgeous poblano peppers growing in my garden so I decided to play around with them since they’re a relatively new ingredient to me. You’ll be most familiar with these peppers in Mexican food so what I came up with here was channeled through my inner “Irecan.” That’s Irish-Mexican, sort of like Rick Bayless affectionately known as Richie MacBayless.  Continue reading »

I see a lot of crazy & strange food while surfing the web but these were too brilliant to keep to myself.
I imagine these would make good camping or picnic foods don’t you tink? Here’s how my menu would look (it’s pretty romantic if I do say so myself).  Continue reading »

Pictured – kedgeree, or at least a form thereof, reheated in a break from gutting the new house. Freezing fog, zero insulation, single glazing, and wide open doors make this spicy Indian dish a perfect winter warmer.The new house will make posting….intermittent. Lots of work to do, but Autumn should see posts on recipes to cope with the expected fruit glut – we have three established orchards.  Continue reading »

Sunday Tribune – Lar Veale
1. Montana Reserve Pinot Noir, Marlborough 2008 (€14.35)
A suberb example of the quality and value coming out of New Zealand. Cherries, plums, combined with velvet and savoury spices. The winemaker spends a lot of time tending to his vines, and this care and attention shows in the glass.
With food? A wide range of possible matches: roast chicken, red meats, and mushroom risotto.
Available in Tesco and many other wine shops nationwide
2.  Continue reading »

Irish Times – John Wilson
Chardonnay, Domaine Couillaud 2008 Vin de pays du Val de Loire, 12%, €10.95 
The Loire Valley can produce some very tasty Chardonnay. This one is from Château de la Ragotière, one of the very best Muscadet producers. It is light and mineral, with subtle oak, racy green fruits and a crisp dry finish. Think Chablis in other words. Perfect with salmon or chicken dishes. Stockist : Terroirs, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.  Continue reading »

I hope you enjoyed the recipe from Sally’s book, The Secret Ingredient, last week, I’m really loving the book so far and the good news is, thanks to the lovely folks over at Harper Collins, I have a copy to give away right here on the blog! I will also be offering the chance to win a copy over on Facebook (Tag the photo) and Twitter (post your favourite healthy dish with the hash tag #sallybee) so head over there to increase you chances of winning!  Continue reading »

Special offers this week at Dunnes include:

Dairygold Spread – half price – now 97c
Dunnes Premium Crumbed Ham (260g) – half price – now €2.49
Nestle Honey Cheerios (375g)/ Golden Nuggets (375g)/ Almond Oats and More (425g)

Offers valid until January 30th. Click here to see them all.
Related posts:

Dunnes Gets Cheaper
Special Offers at Dunnes
Special Offers at Dunnes.  Continue reading »

And we’re off! We’ve only been talking about it since we launched the site but we’re delighted to finally launch our tasting videos feature.
Those familiar with our product pages might’ve noticed some changes over the last month or two as we’ve added discrete page tabs along the top, for tasting notes, reviews and now videos.  Continue reading »

Repost: This week’s specials at Tesco are the same as last week’s…
Special buys at Tesco this week include:

Marques de Leon wines – €4 per bottle
Any 3 meats for €10
Tesco Finest – dinner for 2 for €11.50

Offers are valid until Tuesday February 2. Click here to see them all.
I suspect that Tesco’s wine promotions are a loss leader, and that perhaps they’re happy to take the hit as long as they lure us in.  Continue reading »

Special offers this week at SuperValu include:

Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief (35ml) – reduced from €2.38 to €2
Pepsi/ Pepsi Max Cans (6 x 330ml) – reduced from €3.73 to €2
SuperValu rashers range – now €2

These offers are valid until Saturday January 30. I can’t say I’d be particularly tempted by any of this week’s highlighted specials, but you can download a pdf of much better offers here (large file).  Continue reading »

A cup of hot coffee with milk at Café Mai, 79 Le Van Huu Street, Hanoi. Dark, strong and very sweet – there’s a layer of condensed milk at the bottom of the cup – Vietnamese coffee is just the thing to get you going in the morning, and for the rest of the day.  Continue reading »

SUNDAY NIGHT WORK-OUT
On your own, maybe not, next Sunday? Why not liven it up with the second Irish Twitter-based blind tasting? You get your wine from Curious Wines but there will be no information on the bottle: no country, no producer, no grape variety.
 From 8.00pm onwards, you and all the other twitters that join in will have some fun getting in touch and working exactly what you are drinking. Have some fun and make friends at the same time – this is the second such event.  Continue reading »

In my experience, one of the best and most comprehensive series of cook books available are the “Cookery Bibles” published by Phaidon Press. Once you have these, you may never need another cook book again. I would highly recommend them for anyone who is a foodie at heart.  Continue reading »

It was a miserable wet afternoon in Düsseldorf and for some bizarre reason we went for a long walk along the grey banks of the Rhine, towards the big TV tower. We decided we’d had enough when we reached the wobbly Frank Gehry buildings and discovered that one of them had a bar. Meerbar is a blingtastic lounge-restaurant, big on chandeliers, soft furnishings and beautiful people smoking languidly.  Continue reading »

Don’t forget that Thursday sees the first meeting of the Bubble Brothers Wine Club at the Blackrock Castle. More info here

Cafe Paradiso is looking for a new chef. Send them an email via their website

Kevin Crowley from Fenn’s Quay is organising a wine tasting via Twitter with Curious Wine. Check out here for more. Not to be missed.  Continue reading »

As a companion series to our recipes, I decided it would be a good idea to take a look at some essential kitchen equipment that I’ve gathered up over the years, to try and explain why the pieces are so useful.
First up is saucepans and frying pans. We were lucky enough to receive gifts of Jamie Oliver by Tefal pans for our wedding which have proved to be of excellent quality.  Continue reading »

It’s often said that a cookbook is worth its purchase price even if you only make a few recipes out of it. I’ve had the River Café Two Easy book for years but have never really been excited about most of the recipes in it — except this one. This is a roast chicken worth writing home about. You roast it at a very low temperature for three hours, flipping it over once an hour, then jack up the heat for the final 30 minutes to crisp the skin to a picture-perfect golden brown.  Continue reading »

On a cold, wet, miserable day, there’s nothing better than coming home to a big bowl of piping hot, homemade soup. Pick from Chicken Noodle, Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato or White Bean and Cabbage Soups and make a meal of it with Caroline Hennessy’s recipes for pots of pleasure on SilverCircle.ie.  Continue reading »

Its all very busy around here these days but I had three fantastic things to say so before I forget:

The Clarence Tea Rooms have a great offer on at the moment of €29 for 3 courses. This is not a between 6:15 and 6:17pm kind of offer, its after 7pm and from what I can tell most days. I was there on Friday for dinner with a bunch of friends and they had jazz playing. Very civilized and very tasty.  Continue reading »

A.  Continue reading »