All posts tagged: gluten free

Nepalese Spiced Tea (Chiah)

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Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.                                                                                                              – Sydney Smith I love tea. I drink at least 2 mug-fulls (500ml each) every day. I normally drink Barry’s or Lyons tea which are Irish brands of tea. I grew up drinking them from a young age at my Granny O’s house. Originally, I drank my tea with lots of milk and loaded with sugar. However, this ended when my Mam discovered how much sugar we drank in our tea, and she cut us off from it then and there! To this day, I don’t take sugar in my tea unless I have a really bad headache, and even …

Kale and Rasher Stuffed Mushrooms

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You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird A couple of weeks ago, there was a three-day weekend starting on the Friday. As a result, I invited some of my teacher school-friends to come for dinner on Thursday—no school the next day meant I could be lazy with the clean up! I decided to introduce them to some Irish food, and some Irish inspired food. For starters, I had a cheese board with Edam, Smoked cheese and Brie (I know, I know none of those cheeses are Irish but we DO love cheese!).  I made that quintessentially Irish dish, Shepherd’s pie, using beef as the main ingredient and I chose to serve some side dishes using traditional ingredients of rasher, kale, cabbage, celery, onion and leek. I made my Kale Baked Beans and Stuffed Mushrooms. Everything was a hit with my friends, but the Stuffed Mushrooms stood out as a clear favourite! Mushrooms are one of those …

Vegetable Fried Quinoa

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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. – J.R.R. Tolkien. I recently bought a bag of quinoa. While, I have eaten it before, until last week, I’d yet to actually cook this fantastic little grain. I was trying to figure out what to make with it when I was flipping through Extending the Table and came across one of my favourite recipes from that cookbook called Vietnamese Fried Rice. A quick skim over the contents, a look around my kitchen and I came up with the below recipe. I liked the recipe so much that I made it again this week for my lunches. While this recipe does borrow heavily from the original recipe (coming soon), substituting quinoa for rice was not the only change that I made. I hope you like this recipe and that you find it an easy one to make when you are craving something a little different. Vegetable Fried Quinoa serves 2-3 Ingredients 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa,* 1 dried …

Kale Baked Beans

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Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart                                                              -Schoolyard chant So, I’ve mentioned before how I love baked beans on toast. Everytime I have them, whether they are jazzed up on some fantastic bread or just a tin of Batchelors on Brennans‘, they evoke memories of staying with my Granny during World Cup 1990 while my mom was away. At night when my dad got home, we’d drink really sweet, milky tea and feast on beans on toast. Maybe we didn’t have them everyday, but I was under 8 years old at the time, and that’s what my memory is telling me! While the bread is certainly important, for example, a nice Vienna Roll or Brennan’s Batch loaf would do the trick, getting such high quality bread in Korea sadly doesn’t equate to a quick and easy meal. I’d have to trek to Daejeon, which is 30 …

Chicken Rice Salad

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He that sups upon salad, goes not to bed fasting -Thomas Fuller While I love winter and winter eats like hearty soups to rich curries, there is something about spring and summer that makes my heart sing. Spring also tends to alter my desire for making Shepherd’s Pie into cravings of salads, avocados and black olives. Consequently, I made a Chicken Rice Salad this week which spanned those three criteria. Truth be told, years ago, when I was on holiday in Nebraska visiting my mother’s family, one of my aunts made a Chicken Orzo Salad. That salad had black olives and scallions and was dressed in garlic mayonnaise. I don’t have the recipe, nor do I know what cookbook it is from, but the below recipe is inspired by my memory of that tasty dish. Light and fresh, it pairs well with my Kale Baked Beans (coming soon). Chicken Rice Salad Serves 6-8 Ingredients 2 cups uncooked rice, washed and rinsed 4 pieces boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped into bite-size chunks 1 yellow pepper, washed and diced 15-20 scallions/spring onions, peeled, washed …