Two weeks in America

So I can report that the chicken, quiche and bread made it through Dublin airport security and I was safe from plane food for one of the 6 flights taken over my two week trip to the US. I definitely recommend doing the same if you are taking a long haul flight any time soon!
Some of the highlights of the trip:

Coffee and Cake at Magnolia Bakery, this was a big thing when I saw all the lovely cakes but not such a fantastic idea when I was being sick in a New York flowerbed a few minutes later from the sweetness of it all. The had some very pretty cakes and cupcakes though (I think my poor jetlagged, hungover body just wasnt able for all the butter and sugar) after the flight over. 

I was grand by the next day though and was up early to have a lovely bagel  and coffee before heading off sightseeing. 

Next stop Chelsea Market for brunch and oh what a fantastic brunch of chips and eggs with minty hollandaise. The Chelsea Market is well worth the subway fare from wherever you are in New York. 

Did I mention that it was restaurant week when I was in New York? During restaurant week a whole load of New York restaurants put on a set lunch (24$) and dinner menu(35$), many of these places are the kind of places that you need to cut up your credit card after visiting normally. After a good 4 or 5 hours of deliberation I had chosen the wonderfully named One if by land, two if by sea where we had a very lovely dinner that was so great I didnt manage to take any photos before taking a bite first. The above was chocolate fondant with stout ice cream (not that you can really see it. Open table was right about it being the most romantic restaurant in New York, if romantic means dimly lit).

New York was also the first introduction to big American breakfasts and one of the first times that I have thought our Irish breakfast may be the healthy option! These were from Sarabeths near Central Park

From New York it was on to San Diego where there were far more breakfasts to be eaten and good friends who knew where to eat them. Above the amazing Mocha Chip Shake and Blueberry pancakes from the Mission in North Park. These were worth the cost of the flights alone!

We also had some very amazing pho in San Diego, and although the above doesnt look too appetizing I definitely recommend tracking down a pho place that closes early where the staff look at you strange if ever in  Vietnam/San Diego. 

The final place that I seem to have taken any pictures of food was on our way skiing somewhere near Los Angeles when we dropped into the very institution that is In-n-out. I was a little over excited at this stage, but how wouldnt you be when a lovely smiley fella takes your order, especially when you hear about a non-advertised sauce you can order by asking for your burger "animal style" (ok, so this was secret to me but maybe not to anyone who has ever been to In-n-out before.

Now allow this girl to be a little over-excited as its been a good half of my lifetime since I have eaten a hamburger in any fast food place. This was fantastic and while hardly anywhere near as intricately seasoned and perfected as some of the food I had in New York a definite highlight.

After all of this a few days in Vegas, no photos from Vegas other than buildings and booze (not surprisingly)

Plane food

Last night I went to see the film Up in the Air and it reminded me of all the awful things about spending a lot of your time on planes for work. One of the worst things always is the food and when you are stuck on long flight bored senseless its really the only thing you look forward to (especially if you fly with Virgin, although unlike the writer of this complaint Ive always found their food the best of a bad lot)

Im off to New York at the weekend and it looks like the airline only serves food at a cost and there is no way on earth Im paying for plane food. As a result all week Ive been trying to think of a few things to bring onboard (that wont be stopped by security), that I could make on a busy work night. After scanning through my bookmarked recipes I came across Carolines Leek and Cashel Blue Crustless quiche. With a little bit of modification (for the leftovers in my fridge) I made the following:

Ham and mushroom crustless quiche

• 4 rashers
• 200g mushrooms
• 50 cheddar cheese
• 3 eggs
• Milk - 300mls
• Cream - 75mls 
• Self raising flour - 125g 
• Salt, pepper

A 9.5 inch/24 cm frying pan or quiche tin.

Heat the oven to 190C/180 Fan

Cut the rashers into small pieces and fry up on a highish heat until crispy. Chop the mushrooms up and fry in batches on a high heat.

Whisk the eggs, cheese, milk and cream together. Add the rashers, mushrooms, self raising flour and season well (if youre not sure then fry a little bit to taste). Pour straight into the hot quiche dish/frying pan and cook for 35-40 minutes until brown, well risen and firm to the touch.

Im also bringing some homemade Fougasse and going to pop over to the lovely chicken man from Poulet Bonne Femme tomorrow to get myself a chicken to bring on board. If you hear of a lady being arrested at Dublin airport for not surrendering her chicken at the weekend, that will be me. 

3 very fantastic things

Its all very busy around here these days but I had three fantastic things to say so before I forget:

1. The Clarence Tea Rooms have a great offer on at the moment of €29 for 3 courses. This is not a between 6:15 and 6:17pm kind of offer, its after 7pm and from what I can tell every day. I was there on Friday for dinner with a bunch of friends and they had jazz playing. Very civilized and very tasty. In case anyone is interested I chose the scallops (next time Id take the oysters), the cod with parmesan and herb crust and because Im a complete sucker for chocolate the chocolate fondant. I mention it here only because the taxi driver on the way in was so surprised that he wanted to come as my date and because it was fantastic value
2. Fresh yeast - you can buy it from the lovely bakers in Superquinn. It took me months to get around to asking for this but now that I have there is no shortage of great bread in my house (and yes I do think its much nicer than the dried stuff)
3. New York Restaurant Week starts tomorrow and Im going to be there for a few days. So very excited I dont even know where to start with looking at booking a table! Recommendations?

Leftover Irish breakfast pasta al forno

This is about as un-italian and non-gourmet as you get when it comes to pasta dishes but when the paths are very icy and your neighbour cant even manage to get his car out of the drive (nevermind down the road) its good to use up what you have rather than venture to the supermarket. I also find that theres something about a baked dinner that is so much more satisfying when its freezing outside. Its always worth having some pasta, a tin of tomatoes and a few rashers in the house for this!

Ingredients (should serve 2 hungry people after a long trek home through the snow):

• 180g dried pasta such as penne or shells but tortellini will work equally well
• 1 tin plum tomatoes (I always go with whole tomatoes and stick a knife in to chop them in the tin as the chopped ones often seem quite scrappy)
• 1 heaped teaspoon of sugar
• salt, pepper
• a pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 2 dessertspoons cream (optional)
• parmesan
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 3 rashers
• 2 breakfast sausages
• some chopped thyme and rosemary if you have it

Preheat your oven to 200C or 180 if you have a fan oven.

Boil up a big pot of water for your pasta and add some salt. Put the pasta on to boil.

Chop the bacon and push the sausagemeat out of the sausages into little balls. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the bacon and sausagemeat. Fry for a few minutes and then add the tin of tomatoes. Immediately add the sugar, some salt, pepper, chilli, cream and chopped herbs if you have them. Simmer away until the pasta is cooked

Drain the pasta and put in a gratin dish. Pour the sauce over and grate a thin (or heavy) covering of parmesan over before putting in the oven.

Wash your dishes and keep an eye on the oven, it shouldnt take any longer than 10-15 minutes for the cheese to be melty, crispy and the sauce to be bubbly. Take out and eat.

2009, the year that was

A review of a year where I gave up posting in August? Why not? Maybe it will help explain the lack of white noise from these parts.

I resolve to come here more often in 2010, to remind myself to cook new things more often and to eat in some of the places Ive been dying to eat for years (el bulli is open for reservations if

anyone wants someone to come with them)

Some of my food related highlights of 2009:

• Travel, lots of it - Barcelona (mmmm the hot chocolate), Paris (pastries!), India (amazing street food), New York (pizza), Munich and Berlin for the gluhwein at Christmas
• Living in Granada and eating tapas on an almost daily basis in the lovely Bodega Casteneda
• Travelling around Spain and eating fresh fish and the most amazing tapas and wishing I could learn enough Spanish to move to Cadiz
• 3 months in Ballymaloe cookery school which sometimes feels like it was a dream until I decide to make croissants for breakfast or whip up bearnaise to go with my steak
• Steak! I didnt even eat steak this time last year. Lamb,Pork, Chicken livers - all new!
• Rather than reviewing mince pies as I did last year making bucketloads of mincemeat and mince pies (best pastry recipe) and then spending a whole month feeding them to neighbours,friends and family
• Putting up shelf after shelf in my tiny kitchen for all the cookbooks that have come my way and the files from Ballymaloe
• Getting a shiny new Kenwood and a food processor (which I never thought I would need and now cant live without)
• Eating at The Cliff House hotel which was fabulous even if the head chef wasnt too keen on my use of words for him
• Fishing!
• Meeting some amazing artisan producers from around Ireland
• Getting to know my local butchers on a first name basis
• Convincing people I know to grow veg on their balconies and apartment rooves
• Growing beetroot although not very successfully
• Deciding to keep hens and half building a hen house (more to come on that this year)
• Being inspired over and over again
• Almost completely removing processed foods from my diet (and introducing a lot of butter)
• Catering and working in a restaurant kitchen

2009 was a year of making things happen. I left my job and spent 6 months following my foodie interests and had the time of my life. I then came back to reality with a thud and returned to office life, but somewhere out there that may all change again in future.

Wishing you all a fantastic 2010.

Vive España - vivo en españa

There are times that I feel this blog should come with a bit of a health warning. In fact there are people recently who mentioned that I should come with a health warning. My love for cakes and posting recipes here aside, my last 4 months have not been what most intelligent adults would recommend during the current times of economic crisis.

Now as I sit having a beer outside after 11 at night in sweltering 33 degree heat I feel even more that I should put a bit of a warning out there. If your sole aim in life is being sucesful in your chosen career then you should stop reading now and not even consider giving up your job for 3 months of cookery school followed by some time learning Spanish in Granada and more time eating around Spain.

I feel its only fair to announce that it will be a while before these posts are at all sensible again. Im enjoying the heat, wine and food far too much. I will be back with photos sometime soon.

Ballymaloe 12 week cookery course review

I decided that I would love to do this cookery course years ago, but one day last September after visiting a friend in hospital at lunchtime and coming back to a job which I wasnt enjoying I booked the course and put down the deposit. The only person I asked for advice on whether I was being crazy was a friend of mine who thought, he told me afterwards, that I wanted to do a week long course and not potentially give up my job to move to Cork full time for 3 months.

When I started telling people there was this constant echo in response - "your job, that well paid job, are you crazy?". There were very few people who straight up said to me that they were envious, or wished me well or even said that I should do what I want to do when I have the chance to.

Not far off one year later and I am so glad I took the plunge and asked for that sabbatical and then handed in my notice when a sabbatical wasnt possible. Im glad I did something I have wanted to do for years and years, something that was ultimately just for me and threw caution to the wind in these crazy recessionary times (one good thing about Ballymaloe is that the "r" word is never mentioned!).

So what did I get from my 3 months in Ballymaloe?

• Lots of visitors - even those who thought I was crazy in my cookery quest came to visit


• A love of meat again - fillet steak is my friend

• A trip mackerel fishing where I scored on two counts - didnt vomit and actually caught some fish (not that I could gut or eat them due to seasickness)!
  

• Lessons on how to cook lobsters - yum if not entirely scary
  


• A weeks work experience in Ballymaloe House and Cafe - where I cooked for a Michelin starred chef and made more cheese biscuits than will be needed for the coming 3 months


• Lessons on how to skim a stone - failed this one miserably


• A jump from the cliffs into the sea and many beach swims, with jellyfish - I am your hero


• Many, many cuts and burns on my hands. When I am 90 I will point at some of these scars and have some bloody fantastic tales to tell though


• At least 7 pounds of lard deposited on my body - not bad given that we are meant to consume a pound of butter a week


• A schedule of a good 5 weeks workouts to shift said weight from my body before I next see a beach


• A love for butter, softly whipped cream and herb garnishes and an understanding that it will be difficult to survive in a city without those herb garnishes at hand at all times.
  


• A desire to never eat sliced pan again - it will be homemade bread all the way


• Chats with the empire building Darina Allen and her husband Tim who are truly inspiring


• One on one bread making classes with the fabulous Tim


• A sourdough starter called Peggy which will no doubt last a lifetime making amazing breads (of whose offspring I am currently eating while typing)
  


• A new collection of jams, candied peel, stock and kitchen bits and pieces to bring home with me along with 4 over flowing folders of recipes


• The promise of 2 hens to arrive in September for daily fresh eggs


• To insult a famous chef and then eat in his fantastic restaurant and have him apologise however quietly


• A visit to an amazing cheesemaker who makes the cheese that has given me at least one of these pounds on my hips.


• Demonstrations and talks from some very inspiring food producers

• Quite a few lovely photos
  

• My first A in an exam in years - 89% in my wine exam (which I wasnt planning on taking at all as was feeling like I knew nothing)

• Fear in most of my friends about choice of restaurant and wine!
  

• To meet and befriend such a varied group of people including a 3 time World Champion and Olympic rower (and yes I got to touch thse medal and god knows youd need to have some neck to be able to carry it), a surfer who surfed for Tahiti, a possible squillionaire eating his way around the world and some very cool wasters like myself.

I dont regret my decision for one second despite the slight insanity it has caused in the food.ie household. I am now given to things like waking up in the middle of the night and making bread rather than toss and turn myself back to sleep and have planted enough pots of herb garnish for my neighbours to think it may be a new business idea. It was all worth every pound and every penny.