All posts tagged: cheese

Fiesta Friday #165 Aubergine Rarebit

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“Cheese has always been a food that both sophisticated and simple humans love.” ~ M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf (1942) Hello, fellow Fiesta Friday-ers! And everyone else who reads this blog – despite the fact I haven’t posted anything in weeks! Thank you for sticking with me because I certainly don’t deserve it. It only hit me this week (after almost a year of teaching) that I actually have more free time in the evenings than I’ve realised and more than I had in Korea. Even when I walk home and especially when I am teaching groups of teenagers because I tend to just need to adjust or adapt lesson plans rather than needing to completely start from scratch. I don’t know why it took me so long to realise this but it did. However, as a result, I’ve finally, properly, been testing a recipe. Until now when I was recipe testing I’d do a bit here, a  bit there and then nothing for weeks and then it would be months until I …

Warm Pesto Pasta Salad with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Brie

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“Cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman Happy 2016, everyone! May it be better than 2015 for us all and hopefully (in my case) without as much sadness. While Christmas may be my absolute favourite eating season, as well my favourite season in general due to Thanksgiving, Christmas and my birthday all happening in it, I will be the first to admit I went overboard in the eating department. We had turkey, spiced beef and ham sandwiches for days afterwards – I like mine with mayonnaise, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Incredibly delicious but a bit heavy! Add on to that all the desserts and biscuits that make the rounds (seriously, there are still 5 giant boxes of biscuits in our house – and we ate at least 3 boxes over the holiday!) and it’s amazing I’m not just a ball of food. Up until Monday, we were still in a Christmas zone as part of my sister’s present to us was a trip to the zoo and a lunch at Mary Ann’s favourite bar, …

Warm Cashel Blue Cheese, Avocado and Balsamic Roasted Tomato Salad

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“[Salad] freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.” ~ Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Well, it’s been two months since I last posted a recipe and man, has it been a very eventful two months. To begin with, as any regular followers of this blog would know, I was planning to leave Korea and return to my native Ireland in August 2015. I had been planning to return to Ireland for about a month before heading off on the Camino in sunny Spain. The Camino is a very, very long walk and the route I was going to take was around 700km. I was going to have some friends join me at different points for a few days. After that, it was going to be a winter of study preparation in order to do a CELTA course in the spring, plenty of cooking, and tons of walking. Unfortunately, my sister’s death meant that I returned home two weeks early and all my plans got a little topsy turvy. The unexpectedness of her death and the amount of time it took to get her …

Fionn McCumhail and the Salmon Blue Cheese Egg Muffins

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“A trout in the pot is better than a salmon in the sea.”

~Irish Saying

One of my favourite Irish legends is the story about Fionn McCumhail (pronounced Finn McCool) and the Salmon of Knowledge. In this legend, Fionn was the apprentice to a very wise poet who had been trying to catch the salmon of knowledge for years. It was said that whoever ate this salmon would have all the wisdom and knowledge in the world. One day, while Fionn was still living with Finnegas, Finnegas finally caught the salmon. He gave the fish to Fionn to cook, admonishing him to not eat any. When Fionn brought him the cooked fish, he noticed something different about the boy. The salmon had gotten a blister whilst cooking, and Fionn had popped it burning his thumb in the process. He had then sucked his thumb and consequently, without this knowledge, had gained the wisdom of the salmon. Finnegas realised that Fionn was the one who had fulfilled the prophecy and so he ordered the boy to eat the remainder of the fish. Afterwards, anytime that Fionn needed to gain insight or wisdom he would suck on his thumb.