Here’s a random tip for secret snobs, courtesy of a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. The conversation went like this:
“I was just in your toilet. Them’s some hand washes and lotions to spend money on. They smell nice.”
“They’re not fancy. I just pour Tesco Value handwash into an expensive bottle. I’ve been doing it for years.  Continue reading »

O’MAHONY BUTCHERS
O’Mahony Butchers can be found at the Grand Parade end of the English Market. Had been alerted that they had good vale in bavette, the type of steak you might come across in French bistros.
The helpful courteous assistant cut five of them for me and they cost eight euro. The equivalent in fish would cost between €12 and €15. They went down very well that evening with four out.  Continue reading »

Rhyelysgranny with her prize (Photo by Grannymar)

Back at the start of this month, Elly announced the winner of our first competition, if you remember the prize was “Easy Entertaining” by Darina Allen and a Ballymaloe Cookery School apron and the winner chosen at random was Rhyelysgranny.  Continue reading »

My run-in with Dogfish Head’s Raison D’Être a while back left me a little suspicious of the Delaware brewery’s abilities to make nice beer with fruit. So it was with some trepidation that I opened the cap on Festina Pêche, a self-proclaimed “malt beverage brewed with peach concentrate” which doesn’t claim to even be beer. Oo-er.
The pour gives lots of dramatic sparkle, champagne-like, subsiding quickly to a pale orange cloudy body with no head whatsoever.  Continue reading »

A bottle of 1825 Perrier-Jouet was the previous record holder for the world’s oldest Champagne. That was until earlier this month when a group of Swedish divers discovered a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea containing at least 30 bottles of Champagne produced between 1782 and 1788. Some samples have been sent to France to confirm their age, after which it will be official.
Incredibly, with the corks still intact, they are still drinking well.  Continue reading »

 
The lovely English Mum is very kindly hosting a Big Bake Off over on www.englishmum.com and all and sundry have been invited to submit their best baking efforts with the most fabulous prize of a Green & Blacks hamper on offer.  Needless to say the competition is fairly stiff… just pop over to EM’s and take a look. My son and I put our thinking caps on and came up with these fun cupcakes… we figured if the summer won’t come to the west of Ireland then we’d just have to create our own, and what could be better than a Mr Whippy on a misty, drizzly Sunday afternoon in doors?  Continue reading »

Gosh, it feels like absolute ages since I’ve last blogged! Ever have one of those weeks that seems to disappear in a flash?
Last night I made a very special cake that I’m itching to tell you about – I’ll blog about it very soon. Let’s just say it was inspired by one of my favourite female sleuths…
Here at Adventures in Veg I usually blog about food but I wanted to tell you about something a little different today – make-up!  Continue reading »

So, another aeon has passed us by since my last post. Things have been pretty hectic around here – Joe finally got the keys to the house he’s been trying to buy since January 2009 and so is busy clearing it out and tearing it asunder. Meanwhile, he got word that he got his college place, and will be going back to school in September.  Continue reading »

I’m in a non-recipe mood today & instead thought I’d ramble on aimlessly about stuff (i.e. food) I’ve had this week that I loved or loathed.  It’s been more love than hate thankfully, otherwise this would just be a whingefest!  Continue reading »

My new favourite potato thing: oven-dried crisps

Fond though I am of a proper bag of crisps, I don’t mind telling you that I am more than a little excited by these.
Paper-thin slices of potato, soaked in salt and vinegar, then dried to a crisp in the oven.
Yep, that’s dried, not fried.
I’ll grant you that these are not likely to usurp their fried-in-oil cousins anytime soon, but they do make a good case for themselves as a light and crispy snack in their own right.  Continue reading »

Fionn doesn’t exactly have a nervous disposition, however he has a tendency to express concern over random television programmes such as shows on Nick Jr featuring children singing. He runs frantically out of the room until the t.v is switched off. No reassurances from us will get him watching these programmes but then suddenly one day he’ll see whichever show that had been bothering him and he’ll decide to watch it again.  Continue reading »

I’ve been looking for a solution for where to keeping my decorating equipment for a while now. It was in various small cardboard boxes and (clean) stork margarine tubs. I tried tool boxes from DIY stores and lusted after the Wilton 101 piece tool caddy before finding this in a craft shop. It has small compartments for those fiddly things and a larger bit in the bottom for cutters etc… I love being able to find things more easily now and it being all organised.  Continue reading »

Well mini muffins, I forgot to buy the larger paper wrappers. I did get 20 though instead of 12 muffins.
I bought some raspberries recently and wasn’t sure what to do with them and then I remembered this receipe. They include buttermilk so have a really rich flavour. I found though as last time, it’s hard to make sure the berries are evenly in the cases, some ended up with 2 or 3 and some with none. I suppose it’s the luck of the draw!  Continue reading »

Photo courtesy of willowireland.com
On my recent staycation in Kerry, I made it to the picturesque town of Kenmare. While there I met up with Alain Bras, proprietor of Vanilla Grape on Kenmare’s Henry Street.
I’ve been in plenty of wine shops. In Kenmare, nestled amongst galleries, craft shops and cafés the term “wine shop”, doesn’t quite do Alain Bras’s premises justice.  Continue reading »

This was one dessert offering from our recent dinner party.  There were plenty of “mmmmmm”’s and “ooooooh”’s as people dived in and any slices that were not finished were requested to be wrapped up to be finished the next day.  I am a very accommodating host so I obliged of course and they were either demolished following breakfast the next day or with a cup of tea when our guests were nestled on their sofa at home recovering from the previous nights over indulgence. 
I have just entered this pie into English Mum’s Big Bake Off competition, wish me luck.  I need the Green & Blacks hamper to complete my life.  Continue reading »

The first time someone saluted me on the road it actually startled me. You see, it was one of those pointy, fingertip salutes whereby the person wags their finger a wee bit as if, in my mind, to say, “hey, you shouldn’t do that”.  I immediately checked to make sure I was driving on the right side of the road, which I was (for a change) and then I tried to mentally devise what I could have possibly been doing wrong.  Continue reading »

Luckily I didn’t have too long to wait for the next chance to sample great wines paired with excellent food in Ireland. The following evening in Dublin was another event organized through the Wine-Pages Forum. A number of participants from the Belfast dinner came down for a second night of fine wine/food in Dublin
and were joined by a few Dubliners to round out another 16 person feast with 2 tables of 8.  Continue reading »

Yesterday I was in Lidl and I was delighted to see beautiful, healthy basil plants for 99c. I love basil, it’s a really versatile herb. It is great in soups, as a main ingredient in pesto, scattered over a homemade pizza and in many pasta dishes, basically anywhere you use a tomato, basil can be introduced as tomato and basil a real winning combo.  Continue reading »

Preparation Time
30 minutes
Total Time
45 minutes

This is the last of the cookies that I made for the Twookie Party. This is also the recipe that I think might be slightly wonky, but it does still work and makes pretty tasty cookies.

I’ve modified it again a little from the original version in the Best-Ever Book of Cookies by Catherine Atkinson.  Continue reading »

MOLLY DARCYSMolly Darcys, on the Muckross Road, was the Black and White Pub of the year in the dim and distant past. Many tourists have been back and forth that road since then but the pub, attached to a hotel, is not doing at all badly, though you’d have thought the maintenance work, which put the outside benches out of commission, going on this week would have been done at the start of the.  Continue reading »