The latest set of special offers at Dunnes Stores, valid until Saturday February 27, includes:

Inversoft Eco-kind toilet tissue (12 pack) – half price – now €4.97
Denny Eat Healthy crumbed ham (240g) – half price – now €2.49

And, um, not a lot else that grabs my attention. Quite a lot of items are marked as “only €2″, but with only a few cents off here and there, I’m not tripping over myself to get Dunnes.  Continue reading »

Weekend breakfasts can be a real danger black spot when trying to lose weight! 
This recipe is one of our weekend favourites that really fills you up and keeps you going till lunch. The dish is a good mix of carbs and lean protein. Research suggests this combination can keep hunger pangs at bay for longer than a sugary breakfast. 

The following recipe makes a great breakfast for 2 people.

Ingredients

• 4 x crumpets

• 1 egg.  Continue reading »

This week at Tesco, you’ll find many wines half-price, 25% off a selection of fruit and veg, and:

Ken Hom Chinese dinner for two – two main courses, two rice sides, and one packet of spring rolls – €7
Napolina penne/ fusilli/ tortiglioni (500g) – reduced from €2.65 to €1.30
Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets – reduced from €12.10 to €8.10

Offer expiry dates vary: some are valid until Sunday February 28 and some are valid until Tuesday March 3.  Continue reading »

Convenience, choice, value are just three good reasons to buy your wine online. But what does a successful online wine shop require to be successful? A great range of wines is not sufficient to judge the merits of a website.
Like any ecommerce site, an online wine shop needs to provide easy access to its stock (if your customers can’t find it, they can’t buy it), whether that’s by country/region, grape, price, occasion or another category.  Continue reading »

WINE MYSTERY

Enjoy a little mystery on your Sunday evenings? Enjoy a little wine at the same time? Now you can combine both in the third Twitter Blind Tasting Event.

The wine will be delivered to your door but won’t have the usual labels visible. A bit of scouts honour is required here but remember this is a fun 90 minutes or so. Have a look, have a nose, have a taste – all at a leisurely pace.

You and your fellow drinkers will all the time be updating twitter with your opinions.  Continue reading »

More pics at http://corkandabout.blogspot.com/
BLACKROCK MARKET
It may be one of the smallest markets around but Sunday morning’s gathering in Blackrock is not without its fans. Some drive in, some stroll down, even spotted a pair roller skating to the venue today!And why not?  Continue reading »

O’CONNAILL’S CHOCOLATE
You never know where you’ll find O’Connaill’s Chocolates but everywhere wouldn’t be a bad answer.Not alone do this Carrigaline based company have their own outlet, well positioned in city centre French Church Street, but their products are sold by many top rate food outlets (such as O’Keeffe’s in St Luke’s) and, in addition, they never ever neglect a market space, being regulars in Mahon and Midleton.  Continue reading »

BOARDWALK BAR AND GRILL
Make a visit to the Boardwalk Bar and Grill to check out their inviting €22.50 three course early bird offer.Made feel at home straight way by the friendly staff who were excellent and on the ball throughout the meal in the busy buzzy comfortable dining room. The bar at the other side looked equally inviting.After sampling a tasty seeded bun, picked the squid from a choice of four starters.  Continue reading »

So I can report that the chicken, quiche and bread made it through Dublin airport security and I was safe from plane food for one of the 6 flights taken over my two week trip to the US. I definitely recommend doing the same if you are taking a long haul flight any time soon!  Continue reading »

I was delighted to see over the weekend that CheapEats.ie is longlisted for best Irish Food and Drink Blog in the 2010 Irish Blog Awards.  The Food and Drink category is sponsored by Bord Bia and we’re in some very good company there: a number of my favourite blogs are nominated, and there’s some very interesting ones that I haven’t seen before.  Continue reading »

Last week was my birthday and I invited Caz and Jan over to cook a lovely dinner – at least that was the plan. I wanted to cook something I haven’t done yet and decided on Quails. The English Market is normally a save bet – not this time. Aldi got some but they are frozen, so I had to put my ‘Quick-Think-Cap’ on and decided on the spot to cook pheasant instead.  Continue reading »

Special offers this week at SuperValu include:

Philadephia 200g range – reduced from €1.69 to €1
Hot deli chickens – €4
Daz 90 scoop – better than half-price – now €12.49

Deli chickens usually cost around €6, so the chicken offer is worth a look. These special offers are valid until Saturday February 27. Click here to see them all.
Related posts:

Special Offers at SuperValu
Special Offers at SuperValu
Special Offers at SuperValu.  Continue reading »

Friday saw me in Galway where one of the ICB lads had arranged a visit to Ireland’s newest brewpub, Oslo in Salthill. Straight off the train my first stop was Sheridan’s on the Docks – a cosy watering hole where the beer list is conscientiously chosen and the macro taps are overshadowed by huge fonts for Budvar, Staropramen and Galway Hooker. It was a pint of the hoppy local that quenched my thirst before I moved on.
Destination two was a new pub for me.  Continue reading »

Image by Scandic Hotels via Flickr

In truth, it was largely down to a wee lad by the name of Jamie Oliver. When his first series “The Naked Chef” aired one of my friends started to rave about him.  Continue reading »

I have mentioned Leila Lindholm on this blog quite a few times at this stage, she is my baking hero, plus I think I might have a little bit of a crush on her!  Leila is from Sweden and I was given a present of her book “A Piece Of Cake” in Swedish last year by Sofie’s dad.  I have been hooked on her delicious recipes ever since.  She has been in the kitchen since the age of three helping her grandmother and still remembers the first batch of muffins she ever cooked.  I love hearing about those sort of stories when you read other cooks books, it gives a much more interesting sense of where the recipes come from. 
Leila is extremely successful in her native Sweden and has released 3 cookbooks there, including my favourite “A Piece Of Cake”.  I speak a good bit of Swedish, enough to read a cookbook, and having worked over there in a restaurant, my Swedish food vocab is pretty up to scratch, so I have worked my way through a good few recipes in the book.  However I recently got sent a copy of her book in English, as it has just been released in the UK and it has rekindled my love for her recipes.  The ones without pictures, which I may have skipped over in Swedish, I am now salivating over and reading properly!  It’s all very exciting, so I have decided this is going to be Leila Lindholm week here on the blog, featuring a recipe everyday from her fab book “A Piece Of Cake”.  The first recipe I have chosen for today is these fantastic Peanut Butter Cupcakes”.  As you might have noticed I have a bit of a weakness for cupcakes and I have been meaning to try these ones in particular for so long!  Enjoy!  Continue reading »

In a recent blind tasting of 64 Champagnes, renowned wine critic Jancis Robinson scored the Lallier Grand Cru Champagne 17.5 out of 20. Only 3 of the 64, which included Lallier, received this exceptional score, the other two being vintage Champagnes.
Lallier shrugged off competition from all the big boys – Bollinger, Moët & Chandon, and Roederer to name just a few.
The full tasting note in Purple Pages:
Lallier Grand Reserve Grand Cru NV “Ay. Quite a deep straw.  Continue reading »

I’ve sworn off high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) for a few years now. My HFCS ban is one of the reasons I started cooking more of my own meals. At least in the United States, it’s pretty difficult to avoid HFCS in processed or convenience foods. Soda — or pop, depending on where you live — was one of the easier HFCS products to cut. I had already succumbed to the Diet Coke craze during college, like so many other calorie-conscious co-eds.  Continue reading »

In our most comprehensive and fascinating interview yet, we talk to the man behind Gordon Ramsay’s house wine.
As it turns out, he’s a bit of a celebrity himself after being featured on BBC 2’s Big Wine Adventure alongside James May and Oz Clarke. Gavin Quinney, head winemaker at Chateau Bauduc, tells us all.
1. We understand that you were hit by some freak weather last May. What’s the outlook for your ‘09 release?  Continue reading »

Prior to my current employment in international espionage, I spent years working in hospitality. The objective standard by which a workplace was judged was dictated by one thing: the quality of staff meals.  Continue reading »

Today, please allow me to present the egg-in-a-spud-shell.
I do not know:
(a) why I never thought of doing this before (and I’m clearly not the first person to have had this idea)
(b) why it should have occurred to me today
No matter, really. Better to come late to the egg-and-potato party than not at all.

Egg baked potato, simplicity itself

The idea is just a simple variation on twice-baked potatoes – bake your spud, scoop it out and use as an edible container for baking an egg.  Continue reading »