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Posts Tagged ‘Mossfield Cheese’

Courgette Scarpaccia

Posted in All things food, Recipes, tagged , , , on September 22, 2015| 4 Comments »

Do you buy food magazines?  I don’t usually.  I have in my time subscribed to some, but after a year I find I get fed up of them, or find that I’m lucky if there is a recipe a month that I will try.

However, I like to ‘treat’ myself to an occasional magazine which is what I did when we were travelling to France.  I bought Olive magazine at the airport…. I hadn’t bought it in years.  Folks, I can honestly say that within half-an-hour of sitting down with it I wanted to try so many recipes.  I currently have a list of 15 from the September issue I want to try.

We’ve already tried the smashed cucumber twice…. verdict? It is delicious.

There are two courgette recipes to try.

Now courgettes…. people either love em or hate em!  Well that’s the way it is in the house.  I quite like them, but you know who is very very ambivalent about them.

This year, I was really good and only planted a single courgette plant, but, of course, it has been quite prolific…. giving us lots of courgettes!

This brings me to the second recipe that we’ve tried  – Courgette Scarpaccia.

Courgette Scarpaccia

Courgette Scarpaccia

We had very nice AirBnB guests who were willing to be tasters when I tried it first. Thank you Adrian and Lilli.  We all liked it, but felt it could do with something else, and the extra something we decided was thyme.

Never one to let the fact that I am entertaining strangers deter me from trying new recipes, I made it yesterday varying the recipe a little.  I hope the team at Olive magazine will forgive me!

Here’s my version.

Ingredients: (makes enough for 6 as a starter)

  • 450 g courgette
  • 3 scallions
  • Olive oil
  • 75 g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3 eggs
  • Splash of milk
  • Few sprigs of thyme
  • 4 tbsp. Mossfield Organic cheese – grated (or your favoured cheese)
  • Lots of Black Pepper
  • Parmesan cheese – shaved

Method:

Slice your courgette really finely using a mandolin.  Put in sieve, sprinkle with salt, and set aside to drain for about 30 minutes.

Line a swiss roll tin with baking parchment and oil well.

Heat oven to 200 deg. C/180 deg for Fan oven.

Put your flour and baking powder into a bowl, make a well in the centre and break in your eggs.  Using a balloon whisk mix flour and eggs together…. add milk should the mixture be too thick.  (You need your mixture to be like a yorkshire pudding mixture.)  Add the cheese and black pepper, mixing in well.  Add the fresh thyme, and most of your sliced courgettes.  Toss the remaining slices of courgettes in olive oil and set aside for a minute.

Slice your scallions and place on baking sheet with a good dollop of olive oil.  Bake in oven for 3 minutes.

Remove your tray and pour in your courgette mixture, spreading it out as evenly as possible.  Now arrange the saved courgette slices on top.

Bake in oven for 20 minutes…. until golden brown.

Remove from oven and add the shaved parmesan.

This is delicious served warm.  And is equally delicious cold as a ‘picnic’ next day.

Enjoy!

 

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The ＃MagicalMidlands

Posted in Undiscovered Ireland, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2015| 6 Comments »

That folks was the name (hashtag) that took over our lives when we had the bloggers here on a recent weekend trip.  I’d had a little bit of a rant about the organising of the trip, but ultimately I believe it went well.

This blog post is really going to be about ‘thank you’.  Thank you to all who were involved in one way or another.  It could not have happened without your support.

Thank you to Alfie who thought the idea of a bloggers’ tour was a good one, and who persisted with me in convincing Mid Ireland Tourism to go for it.  We love the area we live in, and want to help in any way we can to promote it and generate a better income for all others who live here.

Bridge

Bloggers:

Thank you to the bloggers who agreed to travel (at their own expense) and give of their time and expertise to promote the area.

Accommodation Providers:

I struggled a bit organising the accommodation but in the end “it all worked out on the night”.  Thank you to

Venues:

Perhaps I should have tried to visit less places – there were times when we were a bit rushed – but I was so enthusiastic to show off as much as possible!  I just wanted to give everyone a taste of what is on offer – and, secretly, hoped it would tempt everyone to come back and visit again!

Goody Bags and Tastings:

I really did ‘step outside the box’ for this, and major thanks must go to all the local producers who I asked and who without fail came up trumps.

A special ‘thank you’ to Ron Wise who came to my rescue and made a delicious birthday cake for Regula who was celebrating her birthday that weekend.

And lastly, but definitely not least, mega thanks to Siobhan and David at Le Bouchon Restaurant in Portumna who stepped into the breech and produced the most delicious picnic lunch for us to take on the mini-cruise on Sunday.

That’s it folks…. I will, of course, be sharing blog posts as others write them…. for more detail on what we did and how the weekend went check out

Of course, if you are in the midlands, and on social media…. we’d love to see you using the ＃MagicalMidlands hashtag…. let’s keep the momentum going 🙂

 

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Fish Pie

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on January 14, 2014| 7 Comments »

I cannot believe I’ve never shared this recipe on here.  I originally shared the recipe over on the Discover Ireland blog in November 2012, but here’s your chance to enjoy it too!  It is delicious.

No two ways about it, we love fish in this house!

I suppose that is not really that surprising especially when you think Alfie has spent most of his life at sea as a commercial diver… so fish is important to him.

When we moved to the Midlands, our list of priorities did not include sourcing fresh fish!

However, it wasn’t long before we realised it is virtually impossible to source fresh fish here.  Yes, you can buy a limited selection in supermarkets – but I don’t believe that fish is quite fresh.  

Our way to satisfy our longing for fresh fish was to purchase a little in-car travel fridge and everytime we go near the coast to stock up!  Our favourite destination for fresh fish is Ali’s in Barna.  Barna is so beautiful this is not really a hardship!

 

Barna Pier

Combine this view with the nicest Fish Shop ever!  If you are in Barna you must stop by and say hi to Connie who works there…. she really looks after her customers!

Ali's Fish Shop, Barna

 

We love any type of fish and a special treat of some tuna or swordfish for the bbq.

A mid-week favourite dish here is Fish Pie which I’ve adapted from the Essential Seafood Book 

The original recipe calls for white fish fillets, like ling or hake, but I use a seafood chowder mix which can contain pieces of smoked fish, prawns, salmon, white fish, or sometimes just opt for a mix of whatever fish is on ‘special’  it doesn’t matter, it is all lovely.

Be warned you use quite a few saucepans!  However, there is a silver-lining…. all the wash up is done before you sit down to dinner!! 🙂  And it truly is worth the effort involved.

As I said I’ve changed it a little bit from the original recipe!  We are so lucky here in North Tipperary – while we can’t get fresh fish handily – we do have access to the freshest raw milk  – we swap with our neighbours – we give them eggs they give us milk and we are lucky enough to have Mossfield Organic Cheese within driving distance, so rather than use cheddar I use Mossfield Gouda…. delicious!  

I now grow dill especially to have for this dish.

Fish Pie

Fish Pie (Serves 4)

Ingredients:

  • 500 g potatoes
  • 60 ml milk or cream
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 60 g butter
  • 60 g Mossfield Cheese
  • 800 g Chowder Mix
  • 375 ml Milk
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 2 tablesp plain flour
  • 2 tablesp lemon juice
  • 2 teasp lemon rind
  • 1 tablesp chopped fresh dill
  •  Salt and Pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 deg C/350 deg F/Gas 4.  Cook potatoes and mash well with the milk or cream, egg, half the butter and half the cheese.

Put the fish in a shallow pan and cover with milk.  Bring to the boil, then simmer for 2 – 3 minutes.  Drain the fish, reserving the milk and set aside.

Melt the remaining butter in a pan and cook onion and garlic over medium heat for 2 minutes.  Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.  Remove from heat and gradually add in the reserved milk.  Return to heat and stir constantly until the sauce boils and thickens.  Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Add the lemon juice, lemon rind, dill and salt and pepper to taste.

Put fish in 1.5 litre ovenproof dish, and gently mix in the sauce.  Spoon the mashed potato on top and sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake for 35 minutes until golden.  

Serve with some fresh peas or beans from the garden.

Enjoy!

 

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An Irish Minestrone Soup…. almost

Posted in All things food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

The weather has been so grey since yesterday….. yes, I’d say there are 50 shades of grey out there…. DEFINITELY!

This is just reminding me that only last week, I was still harvesting (granted from the polytunnel) but there were delicious tomatoes, peppers, and my hugely proud of aubergines! Yes, for the first time ever I managed to grow aubergines (egg-plant to non-Irish folk).

I am not going to let this greyness get in on top of me!!!!

So last week we had the end of harvest mixed bag of vegetables that needed using.

aubergines (eggplant) tomatoes

I thought a variation of Minestrone Soup???

So that’s what it started out as…. but it didn’t end up as soup!!!!

You are probably wondering about the strange mix of vegetables?  I hate to see waste and there were a few bits and pieces lingering that just needed to be used up.  Hence the potatoes went in there too!

Ingredients:

  • 1 onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • Olive oil
  • 1 medium aubergine (egg-plant)
  • 1 large courgette (zucchini)
  • 6 or 8 fresh tomatoes
  • Handful of runner beans
  • 1 pepper
  • 2 or 3 small potatoes cubed
  • 1 lt of chicken stock
  • 1 tin of tomatoes
  • Pasta – quantities will be explained in a bit!!
  • Selection of fresh herbs – I used oregano and basil
  • Salt and Pepper

Method:

Finely chop the onion and garlic.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently colour the onion and garlic.

Chop your other vegetables into cubes and add these into saucepan with the stock and the tin of tomatoes.

Bring to the boil, then simmer gently (about 20 minutes) until the vegetables are almost cooked through.

At this point I added in about 2 ozs of Penne pasta with the herbs and seasoning and cooked for another 5 – 10 minutes.

And that was (I thought) my Minestrone Soup ready for lunch the next day!!!!  So you could just stop here!!!!

We did not!

When himself came home….had a taste and smell….. and suggested that it would make a nice pasta bake.  Yes, the carnivore himself, suggested a vegetarian pasta bake!

So next day, I added in a further tin of tomatoes.  About another 4 oz pasta.  Topped it all with Mossfield Cheese.

Baked in the oven for about 25 minutes.  Sprinkle with fresh basil.

Pasta Bake

Comfort food at its best!

And healthy 🙂

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

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A thank you letter

Posted in Home, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2012| 20 Comments »

Well, if you missed it, and it is such a pity you have…. we had the “burgerton” here on Sunday.  You might well ask what’s a burgerton?

Well, it started with late night tweets as to who makes the best burgers!  You can see what happens…. arguments and counter-arguments as to the best mix…. and next thing there is a challenge and a date set for the battle.

So, Sunday 26th August was the date…. and the chefs and cooks lined up to do battle.

bbq's all fired up

The weather favoured us…. it was a beautiful day.  Friends and family arrived.  It was all really about having fun…. and eating, eating an awful lot!!

Tables and chairs set up on lawn

So here’s my list of thank yous….. in no particular order!

Colette & John

Thank you for all the pre-burgerton help.  For the lovely foodie gifts from Co. Louth.  We love the Stockwell Port Berry 🙂  And John you make the best Mojitos!  They were delicious!

Mojitos

Mona & The Chef

Well, I have to say, having abstained from our own burgers… my favourite on the day was The Chef’s turkey burgers with blue cheese butter! Yum!  We both also loved the lentil salad…. must get that recipe (and purchase some of the secret ingredient!) Thank you too to the Wise children for all the help with clearing up.

Lily & Alan

Thank you to Lily and Alan for adding to our pig paraphenalia collection 🙂 and for being my Dublin shopper!  And, of course, special thanks for being brave enough to be the judge!  And her winner was….

Lily announces winner on Twitter

Daili

What can you say about this? I asked Daili would she make a pinata…. look at what she made!  Is that girl talented or what?

a piggy pinata

Fiona & Garrett

Thank you to Garrett for taking up the challenge and for bringing such an array of burgers – there was a huge selection!  And they even brought their mini-egg too!

Jonathon & Jessica

As if the desserts weren’t enough Jonathon and Jessica brought a selection of delicious Mossfield cheeses, yoghurts and milk.

Catherine

Catherine introduced me to Kimchi…. and brought the most beautiful sunflowers.  I love them!

Sunflowers

Brid

Made sure we had plenty of wine…. and even a special bottle to have when everyone was gone!  Thank you!

Karen

Brought a delicious berry tart and other foodie treats… but the biggest hit of the day was baby, Tadhg!

Maggie

was the only female contestant in the ‘best burger’ category and she brought a gorgeous selection of lamb and beef/pork burgers and salads…. and a rather nice Jerk Pickle!

And there were even people who didn’t get to come along but still sent things!

Major thanks to A Room Outside for the loan of the mini-egg!

And even bigger thanks to Peter at Arun Bakery for all the delicious vlaas and breads… I love your sourdough bread!

Delicious vlaas from Arun Bakery

The day ended with a late night natter and tweeting huddled around the chiminee!

With overnight guests sitting over breakfast for 5 hours the next day!

So what shall we do for the next challenge?  Any ideas?

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Cornbread Muffins

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

Like almost everyone we seem to be having a major glut of courgettes (zucchini) this year.  Trying to find inventive ways to use them can become a seasonal nightmare!

I love watching what other people are doing with courgettes.  I must try this cake from Dee over at Greenside Up

I’ve made bread, soup,  and chutney for later in the year.  I’ve made salads and cooked them as accompianements for now…. but they’re not too popular that way with the other half!

So last week I tried the muffin option.  They went down a treat with visitors, especially the American ones…. but himself is still not convinced!

The cornbread idea was inspired by my old reliable book Soups by Tania George which has some lovely bread and scone recipes at the back.  I’d not tried baking using cornmeal before…. it used to be so difficult to source but now I can get it whenever I want from our friend Lily over at My Mexican Shop

Cornbread Muffin

Recipe:

  •  2 medium courgettes
  • 125 g cornmeal
  • 200 g spelt flour
  • 50 g Mossfield Organic cheese
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons caster sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 75 g melted butter
  • 300 ml buttermilk
  • about 6 tablespoons regular milk

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients together.

Grate the courgettes and cheese into dry mixture.

Mix the melted butter, buttermilk and egg together and add to dry mixture.  Add the regular milk a tablespoon at a time until you have right consistency.  (Consistency should be almost like porridge but not quite!)  Don’t over beat, just mix gently.

Dollop into muffin tray – this amount made 18 muffins.

Bake at 180 deg. C for 30 minutes until golden.

Let me know your verdict!

 

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Cheese & Tomato Tart

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 25, 2012| 6 Comments »

If you’ve been watching along you will know that life here in Redwood has been busy this summer.  We’ve had people coming on day trips, visitors for the weekend, and even for longer stays.  Now I could say that I’m the hostess with the mostest… but to be honest sometimes I totally struggle to try to produce something different when people come to stay!

My friend, Mary, is the true ‘hostess with the mostest’…. she will always remember peoples likes and dislikes, will remember what she served on their last visit….. me I struggle!

Two weeks ago we had the lovely Daili staying with us (she is responsible for the great photo of the tarts), and then Mr & Mrs. Katzwizkaz came to stay too.  So while dinner was sorted… what to serve for lunch???  And then the gods inspired me!  Thank you, gods!

I had been planning (but had forgotten about it) to try the Chef’s Cheese Tart.

And then a new book, A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan, arrived in the post and flicking through it… what do I spot a recipe for a Tomato Tart.  (I’ve only today started to read the book, and I know I am going to so enjoy it!)

A Pig in Provence - book

Decision made on menu for lunch – Cheese Tart with Tomatoes.

I combined the two recipes.  We took lots of photos before the tarts went into the oven BUT forgot to take some when they came out….. chatting too much!

Rather than making one large tart, I got a bit fancy and made individual mini tarts.  🙂

Ingredients:

  • Pastry – I used this recipe as I had some already made and in the freezer!
  • Mustard – we used Dijon
  • A couple of different types of cheese, grated
  • Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
  • Few sprigs of thyme
  • Drizzle of olive oil
  • Sea Salt

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 deg. C

Line your tins or flan with the pastry.

Apply a dollop of mustard and spread about.

Pile in a mix of cheeses.  I used some Mossfield Organic and Glebe Brethan

Top with tomato halves (or you could just use slices of bigger tomatoes).  Sprinkle in the thyme leaves, drizzle some olive oil.  Season with a little sea salt.

Cheese & Tomato Tarts ready to go into oven

Bake in oven for about 15/20 minutes.  I had to watch carefully as I was doing the smaller version.

Serve with a nice salad from the garden and enjoy! 🙂

 

 

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Trying to work from home…

Posted in Home, tagged , , , on January 28, 2010| 4 Comments »

Today has been a day of fun, mystery and intrigue!

I started the day with the plan to spend the morning at the computer sending mails and texts promoting our next batch of free-range pork.  The morning started well with emails and texts coming back and forth; making many telephone calls and taking bookings.  We have been really pleased that we are now at the stage that we are getting repeat orders, and also to welcome some new customers.

I should explain that my day is timed by radio programmes!  I know if I was working away from home I wouldn’t be able to listen to the radio, but hey, that’s one of life’s pleasures when you are at home!  I am an avid radio person… I’ve been listening to the Archers for a million years (the longest running soap on radio).  Now before anyone comments NO I haven’t been listening from the very beginning…. I’m not quite that old!

So at 12 o’clock today I did as I always do and switched over to Lyric FM to listen to Marty Whelan’s programmes. Those who listen to Marty’s programme will know that he runs competitions… one being the Common Denominator… and today I figured out what the answer was.  Sent off an email to the programme, and continued working away.  Next thing, I hear my name on the radio, and Marty plays a request for me, at the same time teasing me, as I had mentioned in my mail that “I was supposed to be working”.  Marty played Andy Williams (I am not an Andy fan), but I do know that he and I share a birthday – just one of those silly bits of information one retains!

I couldn’t resist emailing thank you…. Marty came back at me… teasing again about how could I be working.  Then he plays the theme from Pride & Prejudice… my favourite DVD (Anne-Marie and I had had a lovely girly evening watching the whole lot recently).  Then he plays Van Morrison… again I have many cd’s.  At this stage, I am beginning to think Marty is downstairs going through my music collection!  I email back at him that this is getting spooky!  He definitely doesn’t believe I am working now! But I assured him I was!  The final ‘small world’ bit… his other competition today was won by an old friend of mine from Malahide…. now how intriguing is that!!!

After all that excitement I just had to escape to the garden.  Did some more cleaning up, there is an awful lot to be done.

One of many barrowfuls!

While I was in the garden, I also took the opportunity to plant some garlic.  It was while I was doing this that I solved a mystery!  Our dog, Buddy, has been, well there is no other way to say it, STINKING, these past few days.  We just couldn’t work out why. Well today I figured it out!  I found half a rather large round of Mossfield Cheese that he had obviously buried some time ago and dug up recently!  Boy the stink!

I should explain that we have in the past fed the pigs ‘reject’ cheeses from Mossfield. So obviously Buddy had hidden one of these for another day!  The pigs didn’t mind that it was particularly smelly cheese, but I’ve had to put planks over the garlic to stop Buddy going digging them up!

Me! Bury Cheese... Never!

Doesn’t he do the innocent look really well?

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