When I was doing my vegan month, back in November, I reached out to some friends who were vegan, or who had been vegan in the past, to get some recommendations. My biggest cheerleader, supporter and encourager was my baby sister. Not only did she give me lots of advice for surviving the month, she also gave me some recipes or referred me to several blogs that had helpful, delicious and quick but healthy meals.
Pasta doesn’t make you fat. How much pasta you eat makes you fat. – Giada De Laurentiis Years ago, I was visiting my sister who lived in Galway at the time. From my memory it was either late Autumn or early Winter. We had gone out the night before and had spent our day recovering by watching TV, chatting, and I believe she introduced me to the magic that was “G’s to Gents”. When we finally decided to eat she introduced me to what has become one of my favourite meals to make when I’m having friends over. All the vegetables and chicken smelled divine by themselves but adding the Dolmio® Creamy Tomato Sauce gave it that extra edge. My sister is one of those people who always ups her game when it comes to cooking and this recipe had already been given to her by another friend in it’s basic form of the Dolmio jar, chicken and pasta. My sister not only added vegetables, but she also stirred in single cream and added hunks …
There are few things I enjoy more than sharing good food with friends. Give me a bottle of wine and a story to tell, and there might be nothing I love more. When Maggie invited me to write a guest post after our Wine and Mushroom night, I immediately said yes. My eagerness may have been due in part to the wine buzz, but I was genuinely excited for the opportunity to do so many things I love at once. Cooking is one of my favorite ways to create and feel inspired. I love to experiment with ingredients and flavor combinations. Recipes are just a suggestion, for inspiration only, so I prefer dishes that lend themselves well to experimentation. Stuffed mushrooms were the perfect choice for our evening: they’re such a forgiving dish. As long as the mushrooms are cooked properly (which is just a matter of setting the right temperature), there’s not much you can do to mess them up. Even if you’ve had a few glasses of wine. After moving to Korea, I …
A number of rare or newly experienced foods have been claimed to be aphrodisiacs. At one time this quality was even ascribed to the tomato. Reflect on that when you are next preparing the family salad. – Jane Grigson Firstly, sorry for the delay. Last week was a bit exhausting – on Monday after a delicious dinner of donkatsu at a local restaurant, some friends and I were hanging out in the park and I suddenly felt ill. Cue the next three days getting as much sleep after school as I could. I had a wee temperature the first few days along with a scratchy throat and general “weak” feeling. Then on Friday and Saturday our local education office whisked us off to Jeonju, a city famous for bibimbap, which is one of my all time favourite foods here in Korea. Actually, it’s up there as one of my favourite dishes ever. So, …
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 …
Spoon in a Saucepan 