CARROT AND CUMIN SALAD

Carrot and Cumin Salad, at our July picnic in Glasson - Bean Salad recipe soon!

Where has the summer gone? I promised salad recipes!

After a week in the States, followed by my 97 year old Granny-in-law's funeral (and so days and days away from home) my good eating habits have gone out the window. But I am back on track this week and doing my best to return to eating salads every day.

I had a rocket, pepper and avocado salad for lunch today, accompanied by this lovely lemony carrot and cumin salad. It's best made a few hours ahead so that the flavours can marinade nicely. This recipe serves two people.

INGREDIENTS
2 large carrots, finely grated
juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon sultanas or raisins
half teaspoon of ground cumin
quarter teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon rape or olive oil
half teaspoon of honey
pinch salt and pepper

METHOD
Mix the carrots, seeds and raisins in a bowl
In a jug, mix the lemon juice, oil, spices, honey salt and pepper
Pour the marinade into the carrot mix, stir well, cover and leave for a few hours or overnight.

CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE

Juno with the Chocolate Biscuit Cake - it's a real slab

I have become a chocolate cake fiend. I used to HATE chocolate cake but clearly I was eating the wrong ones. Lately, I can't get enough of good choccie cake and I had a craving for Chocolate Biscuit Cake this week (why!?). I haven't eaten it since my mother used to make it when I was a kid.

I've never used condensed milk in a recipe before - it is amazing, gloopy sweet stuff, I have discovered. Anyway, I adapted this recipe and came up with this cake: a rich, no-bake delight.

 INGREDIENTS

300g dark chocolate, broken up

100g butter/marg, diced

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

397g tin condensed milk

250g digestive biscuits, broken into quarters

METHOD

- Line a 2 lb loaf tin with cling film

- Melt the choc and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Stir until smooth.

- Remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the cocoa powder and salt, then pour in the condensed milk, stirring well to combine.

- Add the broken biscuits and stir

- Pour the chocolate biscuit mixture into the lined loaf tin, pressing it down with a spatula.

- Put in the fridge for about 3 hours, or overnight, until set.

Juno made these Monsters Inc buns for her and her cousin Lyra (special pack from Aldi):

VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE

Vegan choc cake

 I woke up this morning wanting to bake a chocolate cake and got started only to discover I had no eggs. (When Mammy goes away, nobody else shops...) Determined to make a cake, however, I googled egg-free chocolate cakes and found this simple, quick recipe on All Recipes.

The woman who posted this lives on the Falkland Islands where her parents own a traditional sheep farm. Cruise-ship tourists go to visit the farm and she makes this cake for her parents to serve to their visitors. Sweet :) I have adapted it slightly (more cocoa, less flour; I used soya milk, vegan marg etc.)

Juno enjoying the cake at our picnic

We brought the cake on a picnic to Glasson, Westmeath. It is delicious - really moist and chocolatey. I'm thrilled with how it turned out. A keeper recipe, for sure. (I also made salads for our picnic - will post on them anon.)

INGREDIENTS

170g vegan marg (or butter)

110g light brown sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

250ml soya milk (or cow’s milk)

2 drops of vanilla extract

150g plain flour

75g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

METHOD

- Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line the bottom of an 8" round cake tin.

- Melt the butter, sugar, syrup, vanilla extract and milk over a low heat. Stir to bring together. Pour into a bowl.

- Sieve the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb of soda into the wet mix. Stir well and pour into the tin.

- Cook for 40 minutes.

FOODIE DAY IN GALWAY - BOOJUM!

A trip into Galway always means good food. Yesterday we had a lovely time in the brand new - and much needed - Boojum, a burrito bar, which reminds me of Chipotle, an American chain I very much love.

Boojum did not disappoint - we had veggie burritos, stuffed with coriander rice, veggies and guacamole. Mmmm. They were only open a couple of days and so there was free beer and Mexican music and dancing. A mini fiesta on Spanish Parade.

From there we went to The Kitchen Café at the museum for tea and cakes - Tunisian orange cake and a raspberry bakewell - and we also took in the new ceramics exhibition.

I took some phone pics at the market where the very kind man at the Gannets Fishmongers stall gave me a single mussel for a special photograph (possibly part of the cover image of my next novel ... watch this space).

Market pics:

APRON STRINGS LAUNCH

Apron Strings: Recipes from a Family Kitchen

We went to the launch of Nessa Robins's début cookbook Apron Strings: Recipes from a Family Kitchen (New Island) in Moate last night. It was a fabulous launch: cake galore, a beautiful venue in Dún na Sí and warm speeches. When you bought the book you also got a goodie bag with the rather excellent Shamrock and Sour Cream crisps from Keogh's, chocolate and Glenisk vouchers.

Nessa Robins signing my copy of her book

The book is a work of art - beautifully photographed (by Nessa herself) and with matt pages and clear, interesting layouts. It is a mix of memoir and recipes and I can't wait to get stuck in to read it and try out some of the cakes etc. This is the first book of its type from New Island and it's a joy to see what a great job they have done on it.

Dún na Sí was a perfect venue: large and quaint, in the best possible way: it has the biggest fireplace I have ever seen and the room was large enough to hold the 150 or so people who turned up to support Nessa.

Nessa had spent the day baking and there was not a scrap left at the end of the iced buns, brownies, cookies, bread, strawberries, fruit tarts, wine etc. etc. that were laid on for the lucky crowd.

Millie & Juno

Juno hit it off with Nessa's daughter Millie, also three, and they had enormous fun running about the hall.

Caroline Hennessy & Kristin Jensen of the Irish Food Bloggers Association

Justin Corfield & Eoin Purcell of New Island

Eoin Purcell and Justin Corfield of New Island had travelled down from Dublin along with PR maestro Gráinne Killeen. Sunday Times food writers Móna and Ron Wise were also there, and Kristin Jensen and Caroline Hennessy of the Irish Food Bloggers Association launched the book.

Apron Strings is available from New Island here at €22.99.

BLUEBERRY & ORANGE CAKE

Blueberry and Orange Cake

I have a tendency to see what I've got in the press, then bake with it. Even for important things like my sons' Dad's birthday cake ... Still, blueberry and orange sound like a good match, don't they? And, it turns out, they are. This cake has a lovely childhood taste - sweet in all the right ways.

Ingredients

125g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour

75g spelt flour
125g butter or marg

pinch of salt
zest of 1 orange
50g blueberries

2 eggs

2 tblsps cow's or soya milk

juice of 1/4 of an orange (2 tblsps)

Drizzle

30g icing sugar
juice of 1/4 of an orange (2 tblsps)

Orange drizzle

Method

·        Preheat oven to 180˚C

·        Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin
·        Zest and juice the orange

·        Cream the butter and caster sugar

·        Add the eggs and zest and beat well

·        Add flour and salt and fold in completely

·        Mix through the milk and OJ
·        Mix through the blueberries

·        Pour into the cake tinand flatten the top

·        Bake for 55 minutes or so, until golden on top, make sure it is cooked through with a cake tester/skewer
·        Make the syrup while the cake is cooking by gently heating the orange and icing sugar until the sugar is melted

·        Using your skewer, puncture the top of the cake and pour the syrup evenly over the cake

·        Cool completely in the tin. Serve on its own, or with plain yogurt or ice-cream. Yum!

BLUEBERRY AND WALNUT MUFFINS

Tesco had an offer on blueberries, which I haven't baked with in ages, so I snapped them up and baked some bun-sized, healthy muffins.This recipe makes 12 small muffins/buns.

139 calories per bun, 6g of fat.

INGREDIENTS

125g wholegrain spelt flour
125g self-raising flour
75g light muscovado sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
150ml soya milk or milk
1 beaten egg (or 1tsp NoEgg mixed with 2tblsps water for vegans)
50g of blueberries
40g chopped walnuts
2 tblsps vegetable oil
12 small muffin or bun-sized cases


METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180˚C
• Put muffin cases into bun tray
• Mix the flour, spice, sugar and baking powder in a bowl
• Beat egg or make up the NoEgg as per pack
• In a jug, mix together the soya milk, oil and egg/NoEgg mixture
• Make a well in the flour and beat in the milky mixture
• Mix in the blueberries and walnuts until you have a sticky dough
• Divide the mixture between the muffin cases
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes