It’s been a few days of unconventional methods. Yesterday I bribed the children with chocolate and lollipops to get them to stay quiet for a few minutes for an important interview. I had limited success and it’s not a regular occurrence. The Mammy Police can stand down!
Today I’m advocating adultery.
Not in the conventional sense of the word.
I want to you to cheat on your oven and make my microwave bakewell cake. It serves 2 people, not that you’re going to want to share.
When I’ve no time to bake, this is my fall back quick recipe. No need to heat an oven, it takes 20 minutes start to finish plus chilling time and the basic mixture can be changed to suit your store cupboard ingredients.
I’ve been working on this recipe for a while. Toffee can be difficult to perfect but with a few quick tricks this doesn’t take long to make up. For these lemon meringue toffees less is more.
Halloween is just about a month away now and my mind has turned to treats that I can make with the kids. I may make some of these to hang around the house but I’m not sure they’ll last long enough to be viewed.
I have a range of eaters in this house. From the “dustbin” who will hoover up everything in their path and who will try any new flavour at least once, to the “bird” who will eat small amounts of power foods and what they can hold in their hand.
If like me you’ve picked up a crispy slice made by a well known cereal company, eaten it and then thought afterwards it wasn’t that great then this is the slice for you. Personally I find the manufactured bar can be too sweet and compressed tightly to get it into the packet. The kids love them but they are hideously expensive to buy and if you have 2 children who like to eat them along with a husband who is partial to bringing them to work for a snack you could easily bankrupt yourself in no time trying to keep them in stock. Read More →
The hour went forward in Ireland this weekend and the change in daytime brought a run of incredibly sunny days with it. Everyday since Sunday we have been treated to temperatures of up to 20 degrees celcius (and sometimes more) and glorious sunshine. I live in County Dublin so while I’m close enough to the city centre to be able to get there within 1 hour’s journey, I’m also beside farmland, and the seaside. In fact if I open my windows on a quiet day I can hear the waves crashing on the shore and/or the cows in the next field over. Yes, that close.
With the sunny weather it has heralded the arrival of the ice cream vans. Not just the odd one hoping to get a bit of business on a chilly day (I spotted a van here over the Christmas holidays), but sometimes more than 4 vans in the one day. If we were to buy ice cream from these vans even once a day we’d be broke and at this point I hang my head in shame. This is because this very mean mammy has been known to inform the toddler with much confidence that ice cream vans only make music when they are empty. But there is something about the tinny sound of “O Sole Mio/Just One Cornetto” being piped through the tannoy along with the chug of the diesel engine that powers the vans that makes me feel like I want something cold and sweet straight away. Read More →
Okay I admit it, I have a bit of an obsession with Rhubarb. It is one of my favourite fruits and because it’s in season at the moment it’s very easy, and cheap to get a hold of. I will do some chutneys towards the end of the season but at the moment it’s so tender there is very little cooking to do with it. The only ingredient in this recipe that isn’t Irish is the fruit sugar that I used to poach the rhubarb, however if you can get your hands on a decent Irish apple juice then that would be perfect instead of sugar.
Since January close friends and family of mine have been on a health kick. Not in a New Year resolution sort of way, more in a life-changing way. Himself has lost nearly 2.5stone at this stage and his pals and my two gorgeous friends, A & S, aren’t too far behind. Their diet can be restrictive when it comes to sweet treats. Since they started this journey towards a healthier self when I cook or bake something particularly bold I get admonished, just a little bit, but all the same it’s very unfair of me to taunt them when they are doing so well. Read More →
