Author: Maggie

Maggie’s Fried Onion Bits

Banish (the onion) from the kitchen and the pleasure flies with it. Its presence lends color and enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest delicacy to hopeless insipidity, and dinner to despair. – Elizabeth Robbins Pennell Onions are one of my favourite foods and, so, I completely agree with the above sentiment. It’s rare for me to make anything savoury without onions, and fried onions are a particular favourite. One of my favourite holiday dishes is Green Bean Casserole. I love the taste of the beans combined with the tang of the fried, salty, onions. I was only introduced to this dish when I moved to America in 2001. I couldn’t believe how good it was and when I would come home from college I would insist we make it. However, as mentioned previously, I have sisters who hate mushrooms which meant instead of using cream of mushroom soup, my mom made Cheesy Green Bean Casserole—which is even more tasty. When I came to Korea, I wanted to make my mom’s recipe, as I much …

Christmas Roundup

Hi all, Happy Christmas and a fantastic 2015 to you all. Here are my recipes for this season. There will be some more added for New Year’s Day but in the meantime checkout the below recipes. I will be making the mushrooms, fried onions and the refrigerator cake for Christmas. Although not technically a Christmas recipe, my refrigerator cake will be served on request from my friends. I hope you enjoy it as much as they do! Tomato, Lentil and Orange Soup Apple and Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms Maggie’s Fried Onions Bits  Decadently Delicious Refrigerator Cake

Apple and Bacon/Rasher Stuffed Mushrooms

Fat gives things flavor  – Julia Child Not long now! I can’t believe how close Christmas and my birthday are! I will keep this short this week as I know Christmas is coming and everyone (myself included) is busy finishing year-end projects and goals as well as trying to get everything ready for the festivities. This recipe came to me in a moment of inspiration the week of Thanksgiving. I was really sick, but trying to think of things I wanted to bring to our Thanksgiving dinner when this popped into my head. I ended up not having time to make it then, but I’ve been working on them since and I’m quite pleased with the result. These are easy to put together, and are based on the flavours and scents of this time of year—much like the Tomato, Orange and Lentil Soup from last week. I love the combination of rasher and apple mixed with nuts Every bite makes me reminisce of Christmas at my Mom’s with her mouthwatering stuffing. The apple, in it’s turn, evokes …

Tomato, Orange and Lentil Soup

Soup is the song of the hearth…and the home. -Louis P. De Gouy Christmas is here! I am so excited! After all, December is one of my favourite months—Christmas and my birthday rolled into one glorious wintry month! So, in honour of both those great events I have dedicated this month to Christmas inspired food. First up, things have been insane lately: before Thanksgiving even hit Korea, I had been sick almost a week. Now, it’s over two weeks later and this cold is hanging on with its icy toes. It doesn’t help that the weather has completely changed over the last week or so. Before Thanksgiving, the weather was a bit cold, but mostly decent and you could do things like go for an 8k walk. Since the 1st December, though, snow has hit on average 5 days out of 7. It’s much colder and this hasn’t helped me to recover at all—despite mostly staying inside, wrapped in a blanket, with the ondol (floor heating) and space heater on full blast. To top it all off, …

Breaded Fried Aubergine/Eggplant With A Kick

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. – O. Henry Despite the fact that I am Irish, I have always grown up with Thanksgiving as my Mam hails from Nebraska. While we never went all out for 4th of July, Thanksgiving was a sight to behold. Mam would have us on clean-up duty the entire week ahead of time, and, while we cleaned, she would bake and prepare tons of delicious food like her almond slices (to die for!), salad jelly (jello–which is one of my favourite Thanksgiving foods), and, particularly when we were younger, her homemade brown bread. By Thanksgiving day we’d be in a state of restless anticipation. Besides my own family, which numbers nine, over the years we’ve had several different guests, but some of the consistent ones include two of my Mam’s best friends in Ireland and my Dad’s cousin who is like an aunt to us kids. When the guests would arrive we’d usher them into the sitting room to chat …