Lily's Blog

Marian suggested to me to try the Milk Market for Duck confit legs and other ingredients. I’ve gone to this market a bit, but not regularly.

Limerick’s Milk Market, (which dates from 1852), is on every Saturday morning in the city centre. Val did a review of it here. Another interesting report is here.

I have to admit I’ve never had the same affection for Limerick’s Milk Market as I have for Cork’s English Market, the few times I’ve been to the latter. I don’t know if it’s the amount of, as Val puts it ‘Stalls spill out into the streets selling the usual suspects (very suspect) of black sweatshirts for teenagers …’ that kind of puts me off.

Anyway I went to the market this Saturday morning.

At my first stop

I got my smoked tuna

and duck confit legs

There is a great array of food stalls

Tommy don’t worry, they had toppings other than chocolate!

Flying the Tipperary flag

There was music adding greatly to the the atmosphere

And mime

And the garden isn’t forgotten

I’ve always liked Mari’s cheese shop.

There after buying cheese, on previous visits, I’ve had great chocolate apple cake with coffee. That gave me an idea of adding chocolate to my apple cake recipe in the past. Can’t do it now though with the non-chocolate eater in the family!

I’ve made a new years resolution … in October. I’m going to try to go to the market more often. Thank you Marian!

Now the only ‘difficult to get’ ingredient left on my list is Pomegranate syrup. I need a teaspoonful!

I’ve had an idea … I’ve looked up and found a recipe to make pomegranate syrup.

The challenge continues!

It was great to wake up this morning to news that the two kidnapped Goal workers were released this morning in Darfur after over 100 days in captivity.

Sharon Commins from Dublin, and her colleague Hilda Kawuki from Uganda, were abducted at gunpoint when armed men stormed their compound in early July. I had written before here of their kidnap.

According to reports, the kidnappers, members of a nomadic tribe in North Darfur, had made a ransom demand which the Sudanese government refused to pay. The Sudanese officials negotiated with the kidnappers through tribal elders and eventually secured their release. They say no ransom had been paid.

The government jet is due to fly to Khartoum this evening to bring Sharon home.

After all the recent stories of expense scandals, I’m glad that today anyhow, we still have a government jet!

I know … it was chicken two nights in a row, but you saw how many chickens I caught!

The other ‘two in a row’ was the weather being good enough to eat outdoors, again last night.

Christmas dinner outdoors, is beginning to look like a distinct possibility here in Ireland!

We do get carried away with a bit of good weather.

Anyway back to Marinated Asian chicken and noodles.

The chicken was combined with sweet chilli dressing, garlic, chilli, ginger, soy sauce and fish sauce. This mixture was left in the fridge for a few hours. (I nearly wrote ‘years’ there!)

Noodles were cooked and mixed with beansprouts, red pepper, scallions, mangetout, coriander, sesame oil and sesame seeds.

The cooked chicken was served, on top of the noodle mixture.

I have to admit …

I don’t really like noodles.
I don’t really like soy sauce.
I didn’t really expect to like this recipe.

I loved this recipe.

The three of us (Denis, Tommy and I), each separately voted it 4.5/5 and no one was more surprised than me.

Scrumptious.

The count in the Julie & Julia experiment is twenty seven recipes done now. Fourteen recipes to go.

Going to friends for dinner tonight so ‘Julie’ will have a night off from her pots and pans. One of the friends cooking tonight is a ‘bleader’, (Julie’s term for her blog readers!).

Bleader John, I hope you are not too busy in the kitchen.

Well on second thoughts, I hope you are!

First I had to look up to see what ‘panzanella’ meant.

‘Panzanella or panmolle is an Italian dish originating in the regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Marche and Lazio. The dish is a bread salad popular in the summer months.’

Well summer and winter are much the same, here in Ireland!

This version of the recipe included ciabatta, (soaked in cold water until soft and then squeezed gently), added to cucumber, red onion, tomatoes, olive oil and red wine vinegar and then left to stand in the fridge for few hours.

That was the panzanella taken care of.

I was then off to catch a chicken, preferably free-range!

The chicken was marinated in sun-dried tomato pesto for a few hours and then supposedly grilled. I pan-fried and finished it off in the oven.

Basil was added to the salad at the end with the chicken.

We both voted Chicken panzanella 4.5/5. Win. The chicken and salad were great. We both felt however that the ‘wet’ ciabatta wasn’t great. Next time I’ll try it without pre-soaking the bread.

One thing I love about Stephen Pearce pottery was that each year he chose a new signature for the underside of his pottery. One year it was a smiley or . Whoever was working on the piece could choose which, depending on their mood.

One year, (the year of the signatures), I bought a whole lot of Stephen Pearce pottery in a seconds sale, (not only seconds but also a seconds sale, great value!) At that time, I didn’t know of the ’signature’, otherwise I would have checked and only bought happy pieces. We need as much happiness as possible!

When the boys were small, they ‘fought’ over who got the happy plates. This entailed lifting up their full plate without spilling to check!

I was sorry to hear of of the closure of Stephen Pearce’s pottery in the last year.

Guess who got the happy plate last night?

Classic Nicoise was on the menu.

And Ber was one of the ‘guinea pigs’.

Thinking it was going to be a ‘normal’ cold October evening, I baked scones and made Celery soup, to serve before the Classic Nicoise, to be followed by hot Apple Crumble. (I do need an experiment on desserts to broaden the desserts repertoire …)

It wasn’t a normal October evening.

It was so lovely that we ate outside, only coming in when it grew chilly, to have dessert in front of the range.

For this salad, olive oil and white wine vinegar were whisked with crushed garlic. Prepared vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, radishes, scallions and beans) were added and tossed well. Eggs, tuna, anchovies and olives were arranged on top and the salad was served with lemon.

The three of us voted it 4/5. Only change I’d make in future would be to add more garlic and anchovies.

When the boys were small, they had a book by Pat Hutchins, ‘Don’t forget the bacon’. Here’s a picture of it from Amazon.

The title of last night’s recipe was Mushroom, French bean and bacon.

Except Avoca forgot the bacon!

Photo owned by andypowe11 (cc)

The only reference to bacon was in the title. Neither the ingredients nor the method included bacon.

Babe would have been so disappointed with Avoca.

No come to think of it, he probably would have been so happy with them!

Anyway back to the recipe. It consisted of beans, small amount of harissa, sun-dried tomato pesto, chilli, garlic, sauteed mushrooms, parsley, flaked almonds and bacon!

I decided Tommy needed a break and gave him a previously ‘done to death’ dinner of Spaghetti bolognese. I was the only one eating ‘Mushroom, French bean and bacon’. I voted it 2/5! Basically it was a very uninteresting spicy, tomato coated mixture of mushrooms, beans and bacon. I realise now I used fine beans instead of French. I don’t think the precise bean would have made any difference.

Just as well Denis was away for recipe number 24. Definitely a non-runner.

Boy is (even a small amount) of harissa hot stuff! I looked up wikipedia to see exactly what it is.

Harissa is a North African hot red sauce or paste whose main ingredients are chili peppers (often smoked or dried) and garlic …
Harissa often contains coriander, caraway, or cumin, and usually olive oil. It may also contain tomatoes. It is used both as a condiment and as an ingredient in recipes

Only one out of the forty one recipes require harissa. With the amount I now have, I could probably burn down the house!

People often comment that Darina Allen’s recipes contain a lot of butter and cream. I feel Avoca’s recipes contain a lot of olive oil. Whilst olive oil is a lot more healthy than butter and cream, it still contains lots of calories.

I’m beginning to put on weight with this experiment.

Though come to think of it, Julie ran into the same problem …

Last night’s recipe was a case in point.

Last night’s recipe contained the following and using a calorie guide:
4 tablespoons olive oil = 60ml = 493 calories
13 tablespoons creme fraiche = 195ml = 439 calories
2 tablespoons mayonnaise = 30ml = 215 calories

Total = 1147 calories/4 =287 calories per portion. (I’ve discovered from re-reading the introduction to the book that each recipe is for 4 people).

Salads indeed can be fattening!

I took the photos quickly and forgot to throw a sprig of dill as a garnish on the salmon – hey pretend it’s there!

The potatoes were steamed and while still hot, tossed in olive oil, white wine vinegar and wholegrain mustard. When cooled, they were combined with red onion, dill, chives, creme fraiche and mayonnaise.

Flaked hot smoked salmon was mixed with crème fraiche, dill, lemon juice and grated fresh horseradish.

I just wrapped the sliced smoked salmon in tinfoil and placed it in the oven. I’m just not sure why the smoked salmon is heated – it’s combined with cold ingredients. In addition, the potato salad is served cold.

Interestingly the picture beside this recipe in the book, shows the salmon served with brown bread and rocket!

Artistic licence, I guess!

Anyway the verdict. Tommy’s opinion was ‘meh’, I’ll interpret that as bad. I wasn’t mad about it either. However it wasn’t the calories that were putting me off – I only did the calorie count after I’d eaten it!

I’d vote for the picture in the book. I feel the salmon prepared as in this recipe, would be much nicer served with brown bread and rocket.

We’ll go for 3/5

I am now officially over halfway. 22 recipes down, 19 to go and I’m still standing!

I decided to approach the second half more methodically, to make life easier for myself. I drew up a master list of ingredients for those recipes. (A friend jokingly asked me to supply a shopping list for each recipe! T’was she who put the idea in my head.) I wanted to try and source the more ‘difficult to get’ ingredients in one shopping expedition. This would only leave only ordinary ingredients, fresh vegetables/fruit/herbs and meats to get, as I went along.

Armed with the master list of ingredients, I went to the Avoca shop/delicatessen itself, the Rathcoole branch.

I did get some ingredients.

However a number of key ingredients aren’t to be found there. Things like pomegranate syrup, five spice powder, smoked paprika, cannellini beans, saffron strands, walnut oil, fish sauce and duck confit legs, (Avoca does sell some specialist meats). Even though Avoca had a good range of smoked fish, it didn’t have smoked tuna. The Limerick fish-monger couldn’t get the latter for me.

I’ll be able to get some of them elsewhere but I was surprised, it being the Avoca deli and this being the Avoca salads book.

So another of my (Ms Picky) criticisms of the book – why include ‘hard to track down’ ingredients?

Having said that the staff was really very helpful.

I did get Nigella seeds, even though they aren’t needed for the second half, but curiosity got the better of me!

Here are the first 22, divided into the the runners and non-runners. 18 that I’ll definitely be using again and only 4 which I wont.

John said to me the other night that it was a good experiment, because by the time he comes home, I’ll be finished and only cooking the good ones!

The 18 runners

Coronation Chicken 5/5

Tabbouleh 4/5

Fig, goat’s cheese and pine nuts 4/5

Chicken Caesar Salad 4/5

Chargrilled asparagus 5/5

Broccoli, cherry tomato, feta and hazelnut 4/5