Good wine, food and friends...

... what more does one need. Since living on my own I haven't cooked much (it is really boring to cook for oneself) so I was worried that I have lost my cooking mojo (I had Andrea and Anita over recently and made a boondoogle of the food) so I decided to grab the bull by its horns and give it another try. So I invited Caz, Jan, Anita and Andrea over last Monday. I wanted to keep it low key as it was the start of the week and I didn't want my friends to be overstuffed. I greeted my friends with a lovely Prosecco Colli Trevigiani from Treviso, light fresh and just the right tipple to get us started.

For a starter I made marinated goats' cheese (marinated in oil, garlic, rosemary and thyme) on a leaf salad with pears and walnuts. Plates were cleaned spotless (I could have put them back in the cupboard). For a main I opted for chicken thighs as I wanted to slow cook the chicken and was worried if I used breast that it might dry out (and it save me a buck as well). I pan fried the chicken until browned and put them into a slow cooker (trust me, it is an investment well worth), made a gravy out of the juices with flour and white wine and poured it over the chicken. Added pan fried button mushroom and slow roasted baby onions. Put the lot on high for about 1 hour and then turned it down to slow and left it in the cooker for around 5 hours. Just before serving I poured in double cream and let the sauce thicken a bit. I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and garlicky carrots. For dessert I made individual white chocolate cheese cakes with mixed berry coulis. It was a very rich dessert and I might have to tone it down if I want to make it again.

Since I had quite neutral food, I decided to stick to white wine and served La Chasse du Pape Cotes du Rhone 2008. A well balanced wine, slightly floral (but not overpowering) with a fresh medium long finish. This bottle was emptied quite quickly and since I had an Italian at the table (and I know Anita loves her Pinot Grigio) I opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio which went down nicely as well. A bit less impressive than the Cotes du Rhones but still going well with the rest of the meal.....

Thanks God, I haven't lost my mojo just yet. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos (seems my little camera is giving up on me now) and for the lack of the main course and the dessert.

Last Week

Last week was my birthday and I invited Caz and Jan over to cook a lovely dinner - at least that was the plan. I wanted to cook something I haven't done yet and decided on Quails. The English Market is normally a save bet - not this time. Aldi got some but they are frozen, so I had to put my 'Quick-Think-Cap' on and decided on the spot to cook pheasant instead.

Since Caz and Jan are mad about fish, I decided on a light seafood platter for starters and made sesame prawn toast, crabcakes and sushi. Rather than making the sushi myself I thought I give O'Connells in the English Market a try - taste wasn't bad but I will make them in future myself again.

Since Tuesday was a really cold day, I decided on a winter warmer soup (mainly to use up the rest of my Jerusalem Artichoke harvest). A drizzle of truffle oil and homemade bread turned this simple soup into something special - the empty bowls proved it.

So, the main course was meant to the highlight of the night.....and I failed miserably. I quartered the bird and pan friend the pieces until golden brown. I was very conscious about overcooking the bird. Anyhow, the meat looked good, I panfried some mushrooms and made a lovely gravy from the scratches in the pan. Potatoes Dauphinoise were my choice of side dish (mainly cause I love them). I served the food (which looked actually quite good)....and I was nervous - with good reason. Jan's bird was cooked perfectly while - and here is comes - Caz' was almost raw. Both pieces were the same size and in the pan for the same amount of time....and were completely different. I was mortified. Caz tried her best to make me feel good but I was beyond saving. So my poor lovely friends, I will have to try again and you have to eat.

Dessert was cheese cake New Yorker style and it seem to have made up for the disastrous main course.

Brighteyed me forgot to shoot photos again.....

The Good, The Bad and The Turks

I had a lovely weekend with friends, food and wine. Friday morning Wendy and myself went all the way back to Kenmare via Kilkenny to stop at Avoca where we spent a 'little' money and had lovely cake (the poor lady behind the counter wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier and got seriously mixed up - she charged us €33 for a latte, tea, scone and piece of cake) and we enjoyed the view.

The rest of the day was spent in bliss as well - a cheese plate and a bottle of Costieres de Nimes helped a lot.

Saturday I was invited to Kate's housewarming party. We were supposed to paint the picket fence but we didn't want to disturb the natural beauty of the fence (if you need an excuse for anything, ask me.....I am pretty good in finding one :-). Kate's house is a lovely old farm house near Kilbrittain with a lovely view over the beach. It takes her and her two dogs, Wellington and Leopold, about 3 minutes walk to the beach. Am I jealous.....of course not.......grrrrr. She prepared a lovely BBQ with marinated salmon steaks, chicken and the old favourite - The Burger -. everyone tucked in and the wine and beer was flowing. The sun was shining and nothing really bugged us other than the bugs...(was eaten alive).

Sunday was Turkish Day as I invited a couple of friends around for dinner. I wanted to see if I can cook a 4-course dinner for under €30 (haven't calculated the costs yet so I am not sure if I have achieved the impossible). Anyhow, I decided to cook Turkish food. First of all, I used to live in Turkey when I was a spring chicken and loved it. I loved the food, the people and of course the sun. So I tried to keep the food as traditional as possible and as it is a habit of mine, made everything from scratch (just as I learned it when I lived in Izmir). The traditional meal in Turkey doesn't actually consists of several courses but of a loaded table. But being me.....I went the whole monty.

I started with a Meze Platter including stuffed vineleaves (totally out of practise rolling these little thingis), stuffed peppers, börek (filo pastry stuffed with Turkish cheese and herbs), olives, cacik (yogurt with cucumber and garlic) etc. The soup was a lentil soup - dead easy to make and on every menu in every restaurant that serves Turkish food. The main course was kadin budu köfte (ladies thighs - you have to love the poetic way the Turks name their dishes) served with couscous salad and green beans with tomatoes. With that I served yogurt. The dessert was an almond milk dessert sprinkled with pistachios. Jan didn't like the dessert and apparently I made the köfte too dry (should have used lamb instead of beef). But apart from that, I think the dinner was a success.

While interviewing Julian for this blog, we were chatting about new suppliers of Bubble Brothers and he was all excited about Domaine Du Haut Perron, Sonnemot 2008 - a rose that was full of flavour and promise of more to come which it fulfilled. Amazing wine and for €13.90 a bargain. This vineyard is also good for reds and whites...check out Bubble Brothers for more. But since I had only one bottle (yeah I know, very well thought through), I opened my last bottle of Costieres de Nimes and everyone loved the wine as much as I do. A medium bodied wine with a smooth finish. It was able to handle the garlic in the food quite well. But since this was my last bottle (I know I know...I am not getting better with the wine planning) I thought we try a wine that I got as a gift (I am not sure who gave me the wine) which was a bit of a mistake. First of all, it didn't have time to breathe and secondly it was a Cabernet Sauvignon - my pet hate. Ravendale Coonawarra 2005 needs a lot of time to develop - not that it improves the taste too much. It is a bitter wine from start to finish, very surprising for the Cabernet but that is the only way to describe the wine. So I offered the wine to my dad the day later and guess what.....he loves it but then, I am not sure if his tastebuds survived his last stew where he included 3 bulbs (yes, I am saying bulbs) of garlic and our homegrown chilli.

Music in the background was Sufi music (normally played for special occasions with the dervishes). Next dinner will be French (and no, I am not going to invite any French people.....;-). Watch this space for more tales from my kitchen.

Chocolate Anyone ??

Anita invited me over tonight and so I was thinking what to bring...I know she loves chocolate so I decided to try something new....a chocolate mousse terrine....For that I roasted and skinned some hazelnuts and processed them together with a tablespoon of flour and some caster sugar until well combined. Eggwhites were whisked with Creme of Tartar and some more caster sugar until stiff. Folded the nut flour into the eggwhites, poured it all into a square tin and baked it for about 20 minutes. White and milk chocolate was melted separately and each was mixed with dissolved gelatine and an egg yolk each. I added some vanilla extract to the milk chocolate. The meringue was cut into slices and then put on the bottom of a loaf tin (I used individual ones) and then layered with the two types of chocolates - separated by another slice of hazelnut meringue). All that was put in the fridge to set and this morning a very attractive terrine smiled at me....hope that Anita will love this type of mousse
Anyhow....I have no idea what else is on other than that the Crosshaven Week and the Arts Week in Kinsale are at their height this weekend and that I will cook dinner tomorrow night for Lorraine, Jill and Wendy (still owe Wendy a proper dinner since the last time, she had to eat between piles of fabric for hand puppets ;-) . So watch this space for a review of the weekend.

All of you out there.....have fun at the weekend....and enjoy good food and wine...

Great British Menu Final

The judges and the British public have voted about 2 weeks ago who will be cooking for Heston Blumenthal and his guest in the Gherkin in London and the winners are:

Starter: Jason Atherton's Bacon, lettuce and tomato with Croque Monsieur for London and the South-east
Fish course: Stephen Terry's Organic salmon and smoked salmon with crab fritters and cockle 'popcorn' for Wales

Main course: Jason Atherton's Dexter beef fillet, ox cheek, smoked potato purée and marrow bone for London and the South-east

Dessert: Glynn Purnell's Marinated strawberries with tarragon and black pepper honeycomb with burnt English cream surprise for Central

I am thinking if I should cook this menu for the next dinner party but not sure if I can get all the ingredients. For the ox cheeks I will have to ask the O'Flynn brothers in Marlboro Street and it will be a lot of work.....but I think it will be a challenge.

If we were going for the Irish Great Menu.....what would that involve? Bacon & Cabbage??? What else....let me know your dream menu and I might cook it for the next dinner party.... :-)

Fishy Fishy - Dinner Party 08th March 2008

Let's eat more fish.....and that's what we done last Saturday...Our bi-monthly dinner party had a very fishy theme indeed. Caz loves fish sooooo much that she was almost begging that we have fish and seafood this time. And I always try to make the girls happy. So we started off with Sushi (I got a very good book 'The Complete Guide to Sushi' @ Waterstones). I didn't use raw fish as I think Caz would have been the only one with a smile on her face. I used crab sticks instead and they tasted nice (although Claire from Brennan's would have fainted seeing my poor excuse of sushi, sorry honey ;-). And of course Caz needed an extra helping of Wasabi paste. with the sushi I served a Lime & Lemongrass refresher. We then moved to the dinner table where I tried my luck with a seafood starter platter which included crab cakes with homemade tartar sauce, sesame prawn toast, Parmesan Plaice Goujons and Prawn Tempura with sweet chili dip. It was a joy listening to the hms and ahhs. As a soup I served an Avocado Soup and may I say.....it was yummy (simply bring 4 cups of chicken stock and 1 cup of cream to the boil, mash up 2 Avocados, mix it all up and serve)...the soup was accompanied by homemade bread. The main course was ray wings with Tom Yum Sauce and rice. The recipe for the ray is from Seamus O'Connell of the Ivory Tower...and according to 'Fish-Expert' Caz...it was cooked to perfection...which put a smile on my face...Last but not least, the dessert made an entrance and I loved the look on the girls faces.....it was a summer berry ice bombe which was filled with vanilla parfait and drizzled with a fruit coulis....Wendy even took a photo of it as it looked so good....And Sabrina wanted to faint.....what more does a hostess want....;-)...Anyway I had a great time and I hope the girls will be back for the next dinner...

Did I mention the wine??? We enjoyed a very nice Chablis Vieilles Vignes.....and of course it was from Bubble Brothers....where else am I going to get my wine...;-) although Tesco is doing a nice Chablis as well....

Let me know if you would like any of the recipes. I will email them to you.