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Back when I was a teenager, I had to spend 2 days running a tradestand for Dad at an Udaras na Gailteacht trade fair in Connemara. Eyeball numbingly boring- handing out bumph on the company to disinterested passersby. The redeeming feature of the whole experience was the lady next to us cooking boxty samples. I don’t know what her company was called but these boxty were fantastic and me and the sister gorged on them all weekend.
I’ve tried for years to recreate them with varying mixes of cooked and grated potato -all in vain. Then last year I picked up a copy of ” Irish Food and Cooking ” by Bidddy White Lennon and Georgina Campbell and they had a boxty recipe using only blended raw potato. I figured it was worth a go and OMG it was so worth it. The recipe is so simple and it tastes like real Connemara boxty. The potatos don’t blend completely smooth so there is still a bit of texture but they cook very quickly. Excellent for both breakfast and dinner and still yummy when cold slathered in sweet chili sauce as a lunch or midnight snack. I guess they’d freeze pretty well too when cooked’ layered with greaseproofpapare.
Boxty
(amount is for 4 pancakes so we multiply up the recipe by loads.)
450 g potato peeled and chopped ( or if the skin is decent leave it on)
50 -75g flour approx
150ml milk approx
salt to taste
Whizz the potatos, until as smooth as you can get them, in a food processor or blender.
 Add the flour and enough milk to get a thin dropping consistency then add salt to taste ( we add about 1/2 teaspoon)
Butter a frying pan, crepe pan or griddle and pour about a quater of the mix on the pan if the consistency is right it’ll cover the pan.It takes about 5 mins in each side on a medium heat. Serve slathered in butter or with the filling of your choice- e.g. bacon and cabbage, smoked salmon and cream cheese or creme fraiche and raspberry jam.
Optional extras
I also added fresh parsley and a bit of leek to the mix when whizzing.Very Yummy- like champ in a pancake form .
I’d also try it with loads of cracked pepper in the mix and maybe some parmesan. Oohh!
 
 Last week I gave a quick ,yeast ,breadmaking demonstration to my ICA guild . Since we had the recipe all typed up nice for that I figure its time to finally do thepromised post for easy breadmaking.
We seldom buy bread anymore as it takes such little time to whip up a batch of dough. We use the same basic dough with slight variations for most of our breads. I know there are bakers throwing up their hands in shock at that blasphemy but really- yeast dough is very forgiving . I figure Life is too short for exact weighing of yeast and other additives. Lash it in .
Bread
Basic recipe
3 Cups flour
1 heaped Tablespoon yeast
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Cups water
More flour to knead.(approx 2 cups)
Method
Step 1.add 2cups of flour, the yeast, sugar and salt to a large bowl and combine.
Step 2. add the 2cups of water to the mixture and combine to form a spongy dough
Step 3. Leave the dough to sit until it doubles in size then add enough flour to make a dough that is stiff and knead it until it bounces back when poked
Step 5. Grease a baking tray or bread pan and place the kneaded dough into it and leave for a bit to double.
Step 6. place dough into a pre-heated oven at approximately 200 degrees C for 20-25 minutes depending on bread size. cook pizzzas etc for less 
Optional extras to add to dough
seeds, bran, porridge oats, other flours, herbs, cooked grains, dried fruit, fruit puree
Pizza
Stretch the dough thinly over a greased baking tray and pour tomato sauce and toppings of your choice over dough, before it is cooked.  
Calzone
roll dough into a thin circle, pour a pasta sauce onto one half and fold over. Crimp to seal edge.
Foccacio
Stretch dough thinly over a greased baking tray, dimple the dough with your fingers, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt and rosemary before cooking. Foccacio may also be made with sundried tomatoes, olives and fresh herbs etc.
Onion board
For onion board, stretch dough thinly over a greased baking tray, cover with thinly sliced onions and sprinkle with paprika and coarse salt before cooking.  
Flat breads
divide the dough into golf ball sized portions. Stretch each one into a thin oblong. Grill or bake for a few minutes until cooked.
Tomato bread
replace water with a can of cooked tomatoes or add herbs as well.
pumpkin bread
replace water with an equal amount of cooked pureed pumpkin or squash. Add cinnamon and nutmeg as well
Cinnamon roll
Enrich the dough using oil/butter/margarine(a few T), 1-2eggs and milk instead of water. Roll out dough and coat with brown sugar and cinnamon mixed together. Roll dough into a sausage shape very carefully. Slice in to pieces 1 inch thick and place on greased baking tray to cook.
This is now our households favourite comfort food which is surprising since it contains a stinky cheese children would usually turn up their nose at.
Last summer our french wwoofer Anne received a parcel from home with a very ripe Reblechon cheese in it and announced that she would make us a Savoie region speciality. The Reblechon was very, very ripe and almost beyond my stinky tolerance but I figured(hoped) she knew what she was doing. Anyway she proceeded to spend the next hour frying and chopping and roasting and at the end of it produced such an amazing dish.
Its creamy and potatoey and bacony and the stinky reblechon loses its strength and just gives it an extra layer of earthy cheesiness. Its like a rustic fondue in a casserole dish . We eat it almost every week ,winter or summer although the french eat it when they get home after a day on the piste.
Its a very simple dish with only a few basic ingredients but oh so fantastic. Give it a try.
Tartiflette
1kg potatoes
200g streaky bacon cut into lardons
200g onions cut into shards( we like the texture it gives the dish)
1 reblechon cheese 450 g
100ml cream
salt and pepper
olive oil for frying, a few tablespoons
Peel and cube the potatoes and fry them in a small amount of oil until brown and cooked through. Alternatively place in a baking traydrizzle on about a tablespoon of oil , toss and bake at 200degrees for about 40 mins until brown and cooked.We usually make so much that we need to bake two turkey roasting pans full of potatoes.
Meanwhile fry the onions and bacon in oil at a medium temperature untill they are dark brown and the bacon is crisp. You need to cook them this long as the carmellisation of the onions and the crispiness of the bacon are crucial to the finished dish .
mix the cooked potato , bacon and onion together season with salt and lots of black pepper.
 Place the mix in a shallow casserole dish and pour the cream over it. Then unwrap the reblechon and split it through the centre so you have two circles of cheese and then split each circle into about 3 pieces. Place these on top of the potato mix ,cut side down and bake in the oven for about 10 mins at 200degrees until the cheese has melted and the dish is bubbling. Yummmy!. Serve with a nice and crusty rustic bread .
Reblechon cheese is available at good cheesemongers and I freeze extra so I hopefully wont run out . I’ve tried replacing it with Brie, it doesn’t work as well as the brie rind doesn’t melt down but its still tasty. Therefore if you are substituting a brie or camembert remove the rind before cooking.
I’ve also seen a recipe using mature Ardrahan cheese which might be worth a try.
Its interesting that this isnt a traditional recipe as it was developed in the1980’s by the reblchon manufacturers as a way to sell their cheese . However it is now hugely popular and to be found throughout the Savoy region and beyond. The travelling French/European markets often have stalls cooking huge pans of it and you can even get it locally from the Fleur De Sel stall in the Limerick Milk Market every Saturday. I hope the recipe developer gets royalties!
 Onion Tart
I love this onion tart .We spent some time last summer playing with the recipe and we think we now have a great, simple, fairly fast and very tasty recipe. Even picky kids eat it.You can also substitute other veg such as spinach, courgette or mushrooms for the onion .Still fantastic
Our youngest Athene made an onion tart as her audition dish for RTE’s new “Pans on Fire “ kids cooking show and it got her a place in the show so its gotta be good.
Onion tart
ingredients
3 medium sized onions sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 very heaped tablespoons grated Cheese
1 free range egg and an equal amount of milk beaten together
Salt and pepper to taste
Pastry for one 9 in tart crust
sprinkle of fresh Thyme leaves
Line a 9 inch pie or tart pan with the pastry and bake at 180 deg for 10 mins until slightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to side
While the pastry is baking cook up the onions in the olive oil on a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until soft and dark golden brown. This takes 10 to 15 mins.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the cheese across the bottom of the pastry case . Then spread the onions across the top of this, sprinkle with salt and pepper and then carefully pour the egg and milk mixture across the onion The milk mix won’t cover the onion completely but its not supposed to as its just there to bind the ingredients together.
Sprinkle the remaining grated cheese across the top.
Bake at 180 deg for about 20 mins until the egg has set. Remve from oven Sprinkle with thyme leaves whilst still warm .
Serve warm or cool but not refrigerator cold
Note . If using new green onions only fry up the white part and add the finely chopped greens just before baking.
Optional twists
Add a few sprigs of chopped thyme to the egg and milk mix.
Toast some pine nuts and sprinkle these across the top before baking
Lay slices of St Tola’s goat cheese across the top of the tart before baking.
Spread pesto across the base of the case before filling.
 How fantastic is rhubarb. It sits there in the forgotten corner of the garden waiting for you raid its leaves.It never complains though you dont remember to feed it or weed it and it goes on producing for years and years .Its one of the first spring foods growing in your garden and it keeps going for months .It can be used in so many dishes both savory and sweet .It really earns its space on the plot.
We use rhubarb in so many dishes here. In rhubarb tarts,crumbles and meringue pies,in relishes, in soup,as a stuffing for mackerel and it makes a tasty cordial.
This however is one of our best rhubarb recipes. I found it years ago in one of my Grandma’s cook books and tweaked it and its become a favorite. It’s simple and fast and makes a good sized cake It was exactly what I needed for the local Altzheimers Society teaday at the start of the month and my girls made one on sunday to take to a barbeque. An excellent cake also for brunches.
Rhubarb Coffee Cake
1/2 cup butter
1/2cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla
1/2tsp salt
2 1/2cup flour
grated rind and juice of an orange
Mix up the above until smooth then add
3 cups chopped rhubarb
pour into a greased 13x 9 inch pan
then sprinkle
1cup brown sugar with 1/2cup chopped nuts
across the top of the batter and bake at 350 for about 45 mins.
Serve hot or cold on its own or with cream or custard
You can substitute ginger or coriander for the vanilla, leave out the nuts or the orange and use other fruits such as apples, plums or peaches instead of rhubarb.
Rhubarb can be grow from stools ( lumps of rhubarb root) or from seed. Most established gardens have a rhubarb patch so a good option to get your patch started is beg some pieces from a kindly gardener. My neighbour Matt very kindly gave me 20 stools this spring .The advantage of getting local rhubarb is that it should be adapted for your local growing conditions . Its too late to put in stools this year as they need to go in while the plants are dormant but check out the gardens of people you visit for the rest of the year so you know who to hit up for stools next spring.
You can also pick up potted rhubarb in most garden centers and plant them at any time.
Timperly Early and Glaskins Perpetual are the recommended seed varieties and available in most seed merchants . You can sow those all through summer and spring. Start them in seedtrays or small pots.
Rhubarb can tolerate a bit of shade and a bit of damp but dont let it get waterlogged.Prepare the area before hand by removing all the perrenial weeds and put in loads of well rotted manure before planting.
Now that the weather has started to warm up thoughts turn to barbeque.
I’m not a big fan of the under or overcooked meat you get at a barbeque and I’ve found that once you are feeding more than eight people quality control goes out the window . Gotta love those crunchy sausages and that samonella chicken.
Traditional barbequing also means somebody needs to stand at the barbi for hours instead of relaxing .
Our new outside summer meal has an eastern theme . Most of the food can be prepared earlier and it takes very little time to finish off (it looks very complicated though) . A well stocked garden will also provide most of the vegetables for this so you get kudos for that too.
 Alternative Barbeque fixin’s
Flatbreads /Pitta/Naan
We make flatbreads using our basic bread recipe and we cook them on the barbeque. It looks so good and they taste fabulous. Use whatever pizza/bread dough recipe you have and make breads brush them with oil and grill. Or buy some naan bread or pittas and toast them on the barbeque
Mixed salad greens
we use a mix of normal lettuce an more sharp greens like mustard and mizuna
salsa
See recipe
felafels
see recipe
kebabs/ chicken / spicy beef
Here we marinade lamb or chicken in a spicy yougurt mix ( yougurt and chili and cumin) and cook them on the barbi. Use whatever spices or sauce you like . For the spicy beef we fry ground beef with equal amounts of onions a touch of chili and cumin and then finish cooking it on a tray ( or doubled tinfoil)on the barbeque grill.
hummus
see recipe
coriander pesto
here we whizz up 2 handfulls of fresh coriander with a few tablespoons of olive oil, juice of a lemon ,salt and pepper and enough wter to make it into a drizzle, gorgeously fresh tasting.
yougurt
There to mute the spices down, have a bowlful for the less spiceloving
roast courgette/ zucchini strips and roast pepper strips
cooked on the barbi and brushed with olive oil then sprinkled with rough sea salt
some sort of chili sauce eg. Nando’s peri peri or your own special recipe which you can leave on its own or mix a bit with some yougurt as another sauce.
For carbohydrate we have couscous with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil , baked potatos and/or fried potato slices with a sprinkle of spices.
For last years summer party here we fed 40 people with minimum effort this way. 
 Sometimes I get cravings for gorgeous rich garlicky hummus.The only problem is I never remember to restock on chickpeas and tahini ( hummus’s main constituents) and living out here in the boonies means I can’t just nip down to the local shop and pick some up.
Today is one of those days. No chickpeas and no tahini.What the shop did have was sesame seeds and I have chana dal in the cupboard. Chana dal is small split chickpeas Its readily available and you can get it in large bags from ethnic stores (we use it for felafels). You only need to let them soak for a few hours and they cook in under an hour. The consistency of hummus made from them is slightly softer than when using whole chickpeas but its still good.
 Tahini
So I figured I’d make my own tahini in the food processor from the sesame seeds.
I whizzed up about a cup of seeds with a tablespoon ofoilive oil and a 1/2 teaspoon of coarse sea salt. This took a few minutes and wasnt completely smooth but I figured that wouldnt matter.
Hummus
to this I added
about 3 cups of cooked chickpeas
2 lg garlic cloves
juice of 1 lemon
3 T of olive oil
a big big handful of coriander leaves
1T cumin seed
add cold water if the hummus is too thick and adjust the salt ,olive oil, and lemon to taste as every one has their own idea of how hummus should be. (Alex went to a Lebanese restaurant last year with his aunts and since then has been overly critical about my hummus. )
You can leave out the coriander and cumin, add basil or pesto, roast some red or yellow peppers and add those (very yum) or try adding chilis.You can also replace the chickpeas with butter beans if you are really stuck. Just play with it.
Once you’ve whizzed it all up put it in a bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Serve with pittas or salad ,use as a dip for veg or chips.whatever.
Hummus freezes well so we make lots and freeze batches for later.
 Choosing breakfast cereal for our family is a real pain. One person won’t eat weetabix and one will only eat it. Two eat porridge but only some days. Cornflakes or rice crispies soon lose their appeal and I have to make rice crispie buns to use up the end of the box. Many mueslis and healthier option cereals have the taste and texture of animal feed and if they don’t there is often so much hidden sugar ( check the labels. ) you may as well be eating super chocolate frosted sugar bombs.
One cereal that everyone here eats however is Granola. I know its not as healthy as a plain homemade muesli because you add oil and sweetener and then cook it, but at least people will happily eat it as it. I get the kids to help make it which is one of the reasons they like it but the other is that its just so darn tasty.
As I’ve said Granola is basically muesli with added oil and sweetener. In this recipe I’ve used marmalade as the sweetener but you can use ,honey ,date sugar, brown sugar , maple syrup/sugar whatever you like. You can vary the amounts and types of fruit and nuts to suit your palate and your cupboard. This is the recipe the kids made this week.
Granola
1kg oats
1kg dry fruit( I used 750g raisins and 250g apricots )
200g dessicated coconut
100g flaked almonds
100g sunflower seed
100g pumpkin seed
3big T linseeds
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
4 lg T marmalade
 Mix the dry ingredients together then add the marmelade and then the oil. Spread it about 2 cm deep on a baking tray .Put in the oven at about 160 degrees. Check it after 10 mins and stir it around as the granola at the sides cooks much faster and the raisins have a tendancy to burn. Keep checking and stirring every ten mins until its light golden brown. (about 40 mins) . Let it cool completely then place in an airtight container. It lasts for weeks.
I used raisins and apricots as my dried fruit because the kids are picky but you can add your fruit of choice , figs, prunes, banana chips etc. The same goes for the nuts and seeds. Tailor it to your familys taste.
My kids eat it with milk and chopped apple.I like chopped banana or strawberries and yougurt with mine and Ive seen people eat it with apple juice so its also a great way of slipping in a bit of extra fruit into your day.
 We were having a heated discussion on Facebook with a canadian friend over the culinary merits of Putine ( which is basically chips covered in gravy and cheese, surprisingly yum). In defence he put up a link to the wiki page on putine and there I discovered a new ( to us ) culinary joy : Persillade.
Persillade is a mix of parsley and garlic which is added to dishes, whilst being cooked for a mild flavour ,or at the end for a herby, garlicy oomph. Its a French thing as you might have guessed and widely used in french derived cuisines.
Actually to be honest I’ve never really cared for parsley, a bit to school dinner garnish for me. I grow it, as parsley is the only abundant herb available during the spring and winter in our temperate climate, but didnt love it the way I love my oregano or basil.
That has now changed thanks to persillade. When I saw the recipe I thought Id give it a go as there was still a bit of parsley in the garden after the winter and Oh My God Im so glad I did. So simple and yet such a wonderful addition.
I made Pommes Persillade. which is basically fried potato with persillade mixed through it after its cooked.
This is the rough recipe
Pommes Persillade
about a handful of chopped parsley ( I used curly)
equal amount of garlic
about 2 tablespoons of butter
About 2lb potatoes cubed then fried in oil
Salt and pepper to taste
mix the parsley ,garlic and butter together and then mix through the cooked potatos. Done!
According to our french wwoofer Anne, its great added to casseroles , frogs legs, snails and mussels.
You can use oil or butter to bind the herbs and garlic and apparently replace the parsley with other herbs such as oregano or marjoram.
Im now planning out the huge bed of parsley I need to put in keep me in enough persillade for the year.Yippee!
 There isn’t a lot growing in my garden at the moment . A couple of of parsley plants, some sprouting broccolli (which isn’t yet sprouting), a few varieties of oriental salad greens, a bit of swiss chard, and kale, lots of kale.
I thank the garden gods for kale. All through the winter and early spring its there , providing a much needed source of fresh greens. Its extremely versatile and has a delicate an almost perfumed flavour. Just dont overcook it . We add it to salads , cook it with cream and garlic, use it in stir frys, make soup, bake it into pies and quiche and my favorite ,turn it into Colcannon. The market stalls are full of kale at the moment so get out there and get some.
Colcannon
I know Colcannon is the traditional Halloween dish but I love it so much we have it all the time. I dont have exact measurements for this as it depends on how much kale to potato you like . As a rough measure we add twice as much uncooked kale as potato. So one colander of potatos to 2 squashed down colanders of kale .
Potatos(we dont peel them for this but you can)
Kale (twice as much as potato) chopped roughly
Onion or leek (optional) finely chopped
milk
butter
salt and pepper to taste.
Put the potatos in a big pot cover with water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 15 mins until almost completely cooked then add the kale to the top of the pot a handful at a time.When it has all wilted drain the pot and mix up the potato and kale and add the leek then roughly mash, adding milk butter and seasoning to taste. Voila ! all done. (You can also cook the potatos and kale seperately then mix together , also you could prefry the onion or leek)
We eat it on its own with lashings of butter. Sometimes we put the colcannon in an ovendish , make some egg sized holes ,crack some eggs into them and then cover the whole lot with cheese and bake for about 20 mins. Yum!
Last week we had some left over so I made colcannon cakes . I just rolled the left over colcannon onto fat sausage shapes and fried them in a butter and oil mixture. The reason for the sausage shapes is because you can fit more on a frying pan in that form than in flat cake shape and it saves so much time.
Not all kales are created equal. Some varieties have been bred for cattle fodder and the taste and texture show that. So dont buy rough coarse leaved kale .The varieties we grow are Black Tuscan Kale, Irish Seedsavers variety ” Raggedy Jack” and Dwarf green curled.
Sow seeds in April and May in seed trays and plant the seedlings out June or July. 18 inches apart. Kale is much hardier than other brassicas and will grow in any reasonable soil.
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