Lily's Blog

This recipe came from Roly’s Cafe and Bakery and was just gorgeous. Straight into the exceptional category.

I cut a whole chicken into pieces and put the chicken pieces in a large bowl with garlic, rosemary, thyme and chopped carrot. I covered this with half a bottle of red wine and left it for a few hours in the fridge. (recipe says overnight actually).

Olive oil (recipe called for 200ml, I used a tablespoon!) was added to a heavy saucepan to cook a chopped onion, then smoked bacon and mushrooms.

The chicken was removed from the marinade, dried, seasoned with salt and pepper, browned on a hot pan, then added to the pot with the onion, bacon and and mushrooms.

The marinade was supposed to be strained but I didn’t bother and added it exactly as it was, (with the carrots, garlic and herbs), to the pot with the chicken. I later extracted the rosemary and thyme stalks. If I followed the recipe literally, the carrots would never have been added.

I cooked the chicken in the oven, recipe says 200C for 1 hour. I slow cooked it for a lot longer.

Meanwhile I steamed peeled potatoes, then mashed them well, added butter and milk (instead of cream), salt and pepper and scallions.

The result was simply scrumptious

Well when I did get back to proper cooking, I had to make something chocolaty (that is a word!) for youngest mouse who had been off chocolate for the whole of 2009. This recipe came from Jim’s Kitchen. I’ve made a number of different chocolate cake recipes over the years. This recipe struck me as more healthy, (if chocolate cake can be) and very quick and easy. The dry ingredients, dark cocoa, plain flour, castor sugar, bread soda and baking powder were mixed together. The wet ingredients, eggs, sunflower oil and milk were mixed and then honey was mixed in. The wet ingredients were mixed with the dry ingredients, the mixture was put into a lined cake tin and baked for 50 minutes.

The icing was made by heating chocolate and cream. The cake was cut into three layers and each was covered with icing.

For the icing, I used dark chocolate. If, when repeating it for youngest mouse, I will use milk chocolate. Whilst I did weigh all the ingredients, I would probably add a little more honey next time.

This recipe goes into the ‘Definitely repeat category’.

Nyom, nom

I thought of this poem by Russian poet, Inna Kabysh as I was making marmalade at the weekend.

Making Jam in July

A woman who’s making jam in July
is preparing to be around for a while.
She intends to soldier on, to hibernate
through the discomforts of winter.
Otherwise, for what reason, and notice,
not out of any feeling of duty,
should she be spending the short summer
skimming residue off jam?

A woman who’s making jam in July
in all the chaos of a steamy kitchen,
isn’t going to be absconding to the West
or buying a ticket to the States.
That woman will be scrambling out of snowdrifts,
buoyed up by the savour of the fruit.
Whoever’s making jam in Russia
knows there isn’t any way out.

I like this poem.

Making marmalade isn’t part of my new cooking experiment as I used a recipe from Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe cookery course. It was only afterwards that I spotted that one of the books I’m using for my experiment, Jim’s Kitchen, has three marmalade recipes. Oh well!

I washed 2kg of marmalade oranges and put them into two pots with 5.4 litres of water in total. A lot of water and thus two pots because I don’t have one big enough for the full quantity. The pots were brought to the boil, transferred to the slow oven for about two hours and then left to cool.

Youngest mouse had borrowed my camera so I only took photos of the later stages, when he got back.

The oranges, soft at this stage were removed from the liquid, halved and the centres scooped out onto muslin cloth. I tied the muslin cloth into a bag and added it into the liquid. The orange skins were finely chopped and also added in. All escaping juice was collected and added back into the saucepan. The liquid was then boiled and reduced to just over a third of its original volume.

4.4kg of sugar was warmed in the slow oven and then added into the liquid now in one saucepan. I dissolved the sugar fully but then used a second saucepan to rapidly boil smaller quantities of the marmalade until setting point was reached. It was great fun trying to judge how far I could go without it all boiling over. I like living dangerously!

Judging when setting point is reached is really a bit of guess work, for me anyhow. Because I only make marmalade once a year, I never remember how long it actually takes. I try testing some of the liquid on a plate cooled in the freezer. If it passes the ‘wrinkle test’, it means it will set!

Usually I’m on a wing and a prayer, hoping I’ve boiled it enough to set it, but not too much to spoil it.

The end result was well worth all the winging and praying!

For the smell in the kitchen alone, it was well worth it!

Later on, Denis and I sat down and ate fresh brown bread and still hot, fresh marmalade.

A woman who’s making jam in July
is resigned to living with her husband.

I’m not sure if this counts though for marmalade in January!

I’ve been neglectful of the cookery experiment for a number of weeks. Various things, Christmas, busy at work, Young Scientist, etc all kept me from experimenting. Well normality now seems to be returning.

Though I’m always glad to get a break from cooking, I actually miss it a lot when I am away from it for any length. The break however helped me re-think my experiment. I’m going to change direction. Instead of doing all of the Avoca Cafe Cookbook, I’m going to emulate Kitchen Diaries Challenge and do about ten recipes from each of a number of books. It should be more interesting for both you, the reader and for me. I’m choosing books that have interesting everyday recipes. I’ll continue like before and serve them to whatever guinea pigs happen to be around and we’ll rate them using our new simpler rating system with just three categories:

The books I’ve identified for the moment are as follows:

Jim’s Kitchen by Jim Tynan

Eat Good Things Every Day by Carmel Somers

Roly’s Cafe and Bakery

Cornucopia at Home

Avoca Cafe Cookbook

I’ll finish ten from it, I’ve eight already done. I’ve posted a picture of this book before!

Please feel free to suggest others.

Let the experiment begin, I mean continue!

I’ve written a post before about Thalidomide in Ireland

Thirty-two people living with the consequences of Thalidomide in Ireland.

Thalidomide, a drug which caused birth deformities, sold to pregnant women between 1958 and 1961.

The story of Thalidomide in Ireland is devastating; a delay in banning its sale after it was known to cause birth defects, to this day paltry compensation and broken promises for the small number of people, the thirty-two people, living with its consequences.

On Tuesday, Carmel Daly McDonnell described very eloquently her struggle.

My mother took just two teaspoons of thalidomide when she was pregnant with me.

She took it once. Someone had recommended it for morning sickness. She would have taken more except it made her so ill.

When I was born with no arms and no legs she never thought of the drug which she had bought over the counter.

By the time she took it, doctors had already been advised not to prescribe it any more, but of course she did not know that. I was born in July 1962. I think the Government’s culpability is even worse in cases like mine because they knew, they had warned doctors, but they didn’t ban it and thalidomide was still sold in chemist shops over the counter.
…
My parents and brothers did everything to help me have as normal a childhood as possible. I have spent my whole life trying to be positive. And in many ways I succeeded. I have a great husband, two lovely sons.

But I am tired now. My health is getting worse and I am terrified. And I am angry that we are not getting what the Government promised our parents so long ago. If we were, my quality of life would be so much better. And things would be much easier for my family, my husband and my children.
…
Now my husband has to be with me 24/7. He cannot work or play golf. He cannot go for a pint with his friends in case I need to go to the toilet. My dignity is gone. I cannot do anything for myself. My husband has to lift me in and out of the shower. I did apply for a toilet which I could use on my own and which would cost about €4,000. I was refused point blank.

If I drop the key when I am trying to put it in the front door, then I am stuck there until someone comes along.
…
I cannot fight any more. I am too old, too tired. I cannot think about what will happen if my wheelchair breaks because I know how long I would have to wait for another one or for it to be repaired. I cannot spend all my time worrying about the future, about what happens if my husband is gone. I am worried all the time.

The full text of Carmel’s story is here.

Yesterday Thalidomide victims handed in a letter to the Taoiseach demanding a State apology for the 32 remaining Irish victims.

Finola Cassidy, spokeswoman for Irish Thalidomide Association (ITA) said the move followed two years of “stagnant” talks with Minister for Health Mary Harney … She said the Government predicted they would all be dead by now and there is no provision for middle age as mobility decreases and pain increases. Some of their members are on as little as €16 per day …

I feel very strongly for the people suffering because of Thalidomide. I am a mother of a boy with Cerebral Palsy (CP). There was nothing I could have done to prevent my son having CP, though I still feel guilty about it.

There was something the Irish government could have done to prevent at least some of the Thalidomide cases.

These 32 people deserve justice. Justice our government is denying them.

Our government – yours and mine.

This is the second book I have read by Hungarian author, Sándor Márai. This book, written in 1939 was first published in English in November 2008. It was translated by English/Hungarian poet George Szirtes, who writes an interesting blog. Esther’s Inheritance is really a long short story, only 148 pages in all. It’s such an engaging read that I actually started and finished it in a night. Frances O’Rourke reviewed this book very recently in the Irish Times. Eileen Battersby in an article in the same paper, listed Esther’s Inheritance as one of her top 25 (actually 26!) reads of 2009.

Esther, an unmarried woman in her forties has been living a quiet life when one day, she receives a telegram from Lajos, the great love of her life. Lajos abandoned Esther twenty years previously, and married her sister, Vilma, now deceased. The telegram tells that he is coming to visit the next day. Esther tells Nunu, with whom she lives. Nunu’s amusing reply was “Good … I will lock away the silver”. Esther has not forgotten that Lajos is a fantasist and a liar, nor has she forgotten that he caused her a lot of hurt, yet he still has a strange hold over her. The book tells of family secrets, love and betrayal.

Esther’s Inheritance is now also a film.

I was interested to read the Guardians review of this book which concluded with a broader interpretation of the story. Throughout the war, Márai opposed the Nazis and their fascist allies in Hungary’s authoritarian regime (his wife was Jewish). In his heroine’s trance-like capitulation, it is tempting to see a larger drama of mesmerised masses, swindled of their inheritance by charismatic fraudsters with false promises, sleepwalking into disaster. “Wake up, Esther!” Nunu scolds her for refusing to accept that Lajos swapped her mother’s jewelled heirloom for a fake ring. At the close, a dozing Esther, who has neglected to install electric lighting, finds an “end-of-September wind” tearing open the window and snuffing out the candle. The world is engulfed by darkness. But Esther sleeps on.

Márai committed suicide in 1989, so he never witnessed the collapse of communism. He also died before his large collections of books started to be translated and available to a much wider audience. I previously reviewed his book Embers here.

Roly’s Bistro in Ballsbridge has been on the go since 1992. In 1996 they added a bakery at the back of the building. It’s a great restaurant and one of the restaurants contributing to Zest cookbook, of which I recently wrote.

This year while at the Young Scientist, I discovered that the downstairs of Roly’s has now been converted to a café. It’s a great addition. They are open from early in the morning serving great food. Here are their menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and brunch at the weekend.

The food is gorgeous and fairly priced. They also do take-out food. My only very slight quibble was that service was a bit slow for take-out food, when youngest mouse ordered it to go.

Roly’s has a good website. I’m interested to see that it includes a blog but they haven’t got that off the ground yet.

They have recently published a cookbook, Roly’s Cafe and Bakery. I bought a copy, because I liked what they had included.

I’m not a Young Scientist
I’m a Middle-aged Scientist
A Middle-aged Scientist and Parent who has huge admiration for the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.

This competition is a great example of ‘walking the walk’ when it comes to Ireland’s knowledge-based economy.

For students, this is a great week. The hard work is largely done by the time they arrive at the door of the exhibition and whilst concentration is very much needed to articulate their project with the judges, there’s still a lot of time for fun. Many friendships are formed at the YS.

The main sponsor of the exhibition is BT.

However BT don’t just write a cheque to fund this event. BT run this competition with great professionalism and efficiency and with the enormous volunteer effort of their staff. Dressed in red uniforms, BT staff man and woman every aspect of the competition in a friendly and fun manner. Coming here over the years, many faces are familiar, as many staff volunteer, year on year for this event.

An important aspect of a competition such as this is the judging. Each project is individually judged by three judges from a large panel of judges, 15 in Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences, 10 in Technology, 29 in Social & Behavioural Sciences and 21 in Biological & Ecological Sciences. In all there are 75 judges who take on the mammoth task of judging the 520 projects, on a purely volunteer basis. Again most of the judges return year on year. There is a great sense of fairness and consistency in the very important task of judging the projects.

Even in the heady days of the Celtic Tiger, largesse in spending never fully penetrated the classroom. Now shortage of funding is very much back on the education agenda. The Young Scientist competition brings a different feel. At this competition students are competing for the most generous of prizes. There are 36 prizes for individuals and 36 prizes for Group projects. These consist of awards, rosettes and cheques, (€300 for first, €225 for second and €150 for third). In addition the overall winners and runners-up in the individual and group competition get very generous prizes. There are a further 25 prizes approximately, sponsored by various companies and organisations including three travel awards for educational trips to the US for students and teachers sponsored by Analog Devices and Intel.

The Awards ceremony on the Friday evening is an amazing experience. It’s like what a nuclear reactor must feel like with all the particles colliding except here all the generations are colliding. Students, parents, judges, sponsors are all in attendance at this energy-filled, noisy and very exciting evening.

This is one week where students get a clear message that science and technology is important. The message comes across loud and clear in many ways; the sheer size and organisation of the competition, the generosity of the prizes for their efforts, the many politicians visiting, the extensive media coverage of the event.

As a parent I’m hugely appreciative to Dr. Dr. Tony Scott and the late Fr. Tom Burke for themselves being true innovators. True innovators back in 1964, in devising a Science competition for students in Ireland. This competiton is now recognised as ‘one of the world’s finest showcases of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and a platform for fostering home-grown innovation and entrepreneurship.’

My awareness of this competition goes back to that first year, 1964, when a neighbour of ours at home, Francis Monaghan because the first Irish Young Scientist.

This is the tenth year of BT’s sponsorship of the competition. I sincerely hope they continue to do so. It’s not just about the money, it’s about the great heart and soul their people put into running this competition. At this stage, I’m not sure it would be the same without them.

My only request … maybe arm chairs in the centre of the exhibition hall for us middle-aged … The exhibition is exhausting ☺

No, whatever about me technically being middle-aged, I still feel young. Forget about those arm-chairs!

I’ve referred to this book before.

Well ‘my family and other animals’ are odd.

I like the ambient temperature cool. Patrick likes it freezing. Well it appears the animals like it sub-zero.

Our dogs are strange creatures. They have a bed in the garage. They choose to sleep in their kennel outside. (I’m feeling so sorry for them, I’m heating all their food!)

Here they are like in the Queen song, Lazing on a Sunday afternoon

I can’t capture it on camera, but one of them is wagging his tail.

My snow babes!

Well maybe re-order that title.

Not surprisingly I got some cookery books for Christmas.

Amongst them were two copies of Zest. Zest is a collection of recipes from 62 top Irish restaurants in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation. At this stage of my life, I’ve eaten in about a dozen of them over the years. If I keep going at the same rate, I won’t get to even half of them in this lifetime!

Each restaurant provided a starter, main course and dessert recipe accompanied by photographs. 186 recipes in all. This is a good book but not for everyday cooking. It’s a special occasion cookbook. As the foreword states Zest is an extraordinary cookbook, which represents a gourmet trail around Ireland. It is a vivid and vibrant showcase for all that is good about Irish restaurants today. It is also designed for those who want to create fine foods in their own homes.

To give you an idea, I just picked Rathsallagh House in Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow, where my niece had a wonderful wedding reception recently. Their three recipes were:

Tartare of tuna spiked with lime and sesame, with lime crisps and mango-basil vinaigrette

Lime, honey and soy marinated chicken supreme with pak choi and coriander sauce

Ginger pudding with banana sorbet and chocolate sauce

Rathsallagh likes lime!

Recently when I was trying to choose a cookbook to experiment with for everyday cooking, Steph suggested this book. I had looked at it but discounted it. Steph made the very valid point that a cookbook for everyone would have been more in keeping with the ethos of the Irish Hospice Foundation.

At €20 this hardback book represents good value for money. The Irish Hospice Foundation is certainly a good cause. The cheerful yellow cover is great, yellow – the colour of hope.

I’ll review the others shortly.