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Mad few days...

Wednesday, 12 March 2014

You might have noticed I've been quiet on the blog, but quite active in (I love it, I'm totally addicted!). I lead a very busy life: a full-time job for a fabulous Irish charity , I run with my other half and partner in life Alan Foran, and I write this blog. In between, we fit life in: dinner with friends, family commitments, Alan's huge and household chores.

Last week's weekend and the beginning of this one, have been absolutely jammed packed with foodie life. So being short of time, but always attached to my phone, I try and use Instagram as a sharing tool to let you know that I'm not gone or have forgotten you, I'm just busy!

On Thursday, my instagram feed started to show my mad cooking stint with a pot of gorgeous (pork pibil)...

Thursday evening also saw me (but not sharing as I forgot amist the madness of the day) making my , a stunning overnight cooking of beef in onion, bay leaf and tequila!  I don't have a shot of the actual cooking, but fastforward to Sunday morning for a shot of the leaftover tacos we had before travelling to Cork.

Friday Morning I spent it cooking and shooting a recipe of chicken mole for the blog:

Friday afternoon was awashed with meetings. We spent some time with the fabulously creative team of designers and web genius at , our design and digital agency, then I went on to a couple of exciting meetings for a project I'm working on, but cannot share with you just yet (bear with me, it will be worth your while), but I managed to find time to grab coffee in and a fabulous cake from my mate Kate from . 

I was up bright and early on Saturday to visit the for a quick shopping trip (needed peacanuts and milk) and a quick meeting with the talented girls behind  (exciting, sweet news leaked out on twitter last night about this collaboration project with Nathalie and Karen as part of our Irish-Mex offering for the shop).

Back in the kitchen, I began working for a dinner with friends and lifestyle bloggers I was hosting that night. The pressure was on as I wanted a nice, generous Mexican spread. So I cracked on with the icing and base for a very nice Mexican Cake which is a sort of speciality in my hometown of Monterrey, Mexico: Pastel Mostachon (recipe to follow soon).

    

 

I finished the cake with a topping of from the shop, it's absolutely devine!

I also took the time to mark International Womens' Day with a tweet and a Picture of the Charity Partnership Special K (the Kellogg's cereal) had launched with . I always, always have time for a good cause. Knowing the plight of both, womens' rights in underdeveloped countries and the fabulous work charitable organisations do for worthy causes, I couldn't let the day pass without sharing the message. Thank you to my friend and fellow blogger and to Kellogg's for the lovely bag and the yummy granola! 

I made two salsas for the bloggers' feast: my old time favourite, , and one I will be blogging about soon: a chipotle, toasted peanut and tequila salsa.  Look at the close up shot of this salsa, it's so thick and delicious! 

   

I also cooked, but didn't share , , and . At this point I decided to just open a from the shop and use those... I also had a bowl of salad (which we didn't eat in the end) and a big tub of sour cream!

The evening flew between food, laughs and some heartfelt chats. No better way to spend International Womens' Day than with this bunch of talented women. The table was plentiful and we had a ball! I didn't go to bed until 2 a.m.!

   

I had such a fun night with these girls! , , ,  and my niece . The gorgeously retro polaroid above was taken by the super talented  so she's not in the picture and neither is  , who was a bit poorly (kudos for showing up) and sensibly went home a little earlier. 

Sunday had a sluggish, slow start: up by 9 a.m. and packing orders to leave stuff ready for the shop on Monday. We sat down to breakfast (more of a brunch really) around 11:30 a.m. and had some leftovers tacos of my drunken barbacoa from the night before.  

Since we knew we were going to Cork on Sunday, I made double the quantities of everything I cooked since Thursday to have things to bring to Cork. I left myself very little cooking to do for Monday. So we took a an hour to pack for a 2 night stay with friends in Ballinspittle, near Kinsale in County Cork. We were attending a Mexican Themed Pot Luck dinner party on Monday at the new home of Shannen, the gal behind the . We met her at the Theatre of Food in Electric Picnic a couple of years ago and this was a sort of reunion for West Cork and Cork foodie-Electric Picnickers with 2 blow ins (Alan and I).

It was lovely to see Caitlin Ruth (the amazing chef behind in Clonakilty) and the fabulous Bridget Healy (the force behind the place). Those empanadas and the chocolate pots Caitlin brought were to die for! She also made a salted bacalao dish that I found hard to stop eating.   and Connie McKenna are always a pleasure to chat to. Sally perfected her tortilla making skills ready for a challenge I'm planning for Electric Picnic this year. The night was fabulous. Full of chatter, catching up and a lot of food! This is only half the table and doesn't show the desserts!

John brought Rick Bayless' 30 minute mole with a meat and vegetarian versions. It was delicious! Shannen made a Tres Leches Cakes with her Diva twist: rum and almonds, I am only sorry I didn't take a picture of it, it looked stunning!   were in charge of Margaritas and they did a fab job! Taylor (head baker at Diva's) and Kevin had an amazing avocado and grapefruit salad as well as a chunky tomato salad with wheat tortilla crips. I brought pork pibil, drunken barbacoa, refried beans, 2 salsas and cooked cuitlachoche in salsa and white wine fresh there and then and I also had the pleasure to meet the lovely Rita Higgins.  

We spent the whole of Monday from 10 a.m. till about 5 p.m. exploring the beautiful town of Kinsale, which for some odd reason, I had neglected to visit before. The place is really pretty. Although the town was still a little sleepy (season doesn't start until this weekend), we managed to fit in a visit to for lunch, a fab breakfast in and a piece of cake from ! (see some fab photos of Kinsale at the end of the pots). Then headed to Shannen's place to party! 

  

On Tuesday we got up as early as we could (Alan hit the margaritas hard) and headed back to Dublin as we had another party to attend! This time with our dear friends . The Gunters were organising a retro menu themed party to celebrate Bill's stint in the Irish version of MasterChef. The idea behind the viewing party with the retro theme came after a fab night out with Sharon and other blogger friends two weeks before, so we couldn't miss that for the world! Unfortunately, we got stuck in a traffic jam outside Cork City and we didn't get back home till 5:30 pm! The party was at 7, so I lashed two retro dishes and got to the party around 7:30 pm! 

  

I made a quick mostachon cake again (I had all the ingredients handy) but this time I used strawberries and blueberries. I aslo made a rather hideous looking 'sandwichon' (gigant yellow sandwich on the top, right corner of the photo) a 1970's possibly-Nestle-sponsored-recipe which tasted pretty good, despite the fact that it had no time to set at all. The cake arrived to the Gunters' unassembled and still hot, but I put it all together during the last ad break! It was such a fun thing to do. Everybody brought a retro dish. We had spinach dip, a cheese ball, onion dip, sushi, sausage rolls, pretzels, cruidites and my favourite Rotel Queso (a cheese dip with rotel tinned tomatoes). Super proud of Bill, he did an amazing job!

On Wednesday afternoon, my back and neck seazed and this weekend all I plan to do is spend time with my family, resting! Thanks for reading this far! 

 

Avocado Green Salsa...

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Today I was feeling a little run down and tired. I've been struggling with a headcold for a week and I couldn't hack it any more. I headed to the kitchen determine to make something tasty that would make me feel better.  I reached for a pan, some tomatillos and avocado and made some glourious corn tortillas from  into freshly made to accompany the ultimate Mexican comfort food for me: Avocado Green Salsa.   

I've been meaning to share this recipe with you for a while. It's simple, tasty and the crowning glory of one of my all time favourite Mexican 'antojito' dishes: flautas! Although I'm not blogging about flautas yet, this salsa makes me totally happy.  It's basically a creamy, fresh salsa we cook at home to pour over fried chicken tacos. 

The addition of the avocado gives the salsa a gorgeous creamy texture and a delicate flavour. I used fresh fresno chilies that came in a pack, but you can use jalapeno or any other type of fresh green chilies. If you find the sauce too hot after you made it, mix a little bit of sour cream (1-2 tablespoons) through it to fix it. Either way, it is a delicious salsa, perfect for any tacos and fabulous as a dip with . The perfect snack for a homesick girl.

Cuitlacoche Sauce with Seared Beef

Friday, 14 February 2014

This is the continuation of a post I did last week on the challenge of with the super talented and maybe the result of a lot of testing, tasting and hard work... yes, sometimes testing and tasting recipes is hard work! Imagine eating the same thing 4 nights in a row just to make sure you tweak a little bit more of one single thing in the recipe.

A lot of the times what we do sounds very glamourous, but as many food bloggers would tell you, there's little or no glamour on working on planning a new recipe, shopping for ingredients and cooking a dish in your spear time, with only the promise of cold meal at the end and a good enough photograph. We do it for the love of the kitchen.

Nothing screams more my love for the kitchen like this recipe. The recipe is quite simple, the styling, not so much.... I recommend you first read my original post on to learn how this post came about. Hope you enjoy the recipe, I leave you here with a picture of its main ingredient: the faboulsly delicous and unactractive looking Cuitlacoche. 

 

Valentine's Dash...

Monday, 10 February 2014

For those of you who read the blog regularly, you all know by now that I'm a bit of Valentine's Day dreader (almost hater)... It's way too much pressure and a lot of expense. I believe in showing my love every day of the year and not only one miserable, most likely rainy day in the middle of February, when one can hardly find a table for two free anywhere or flowers that are not sold at exorbitant prices. The last two years we've gone and stayed home and cook beautiful meals eaten in our pyjamas watching our favourite TV show! Last year was fabulous, we had and a luxurious dessert.

This year and for very personal reasons, we wanted it to be special and with the best will in the world we had a plan. I told Alan I would do all the arrangements for a change and that he would relax and enjoy. Having very little experience at arranging this sort of thing for Valentine's Day, I sported a very naive attitute towards booking a table at a very fancy restaurant we have both been meaning to go to. When I rang today I was nearly laughed at over the phone when I requested a table for two for Friday or Saturday... in desperation I rang another place and another place and all three were booked out!

So I am not left with 4 days to go and very little time and brains to organise something beautiful at home. Wish me luck!! I'm going to need it!

To do List:

  • Plan, shop and cook a fabulous dinner for 2 that won't take all day
  • Decorate the table with a fabulous theme
  • Find the most perfect gift for my Valentines
  • Get a nice bottle of bubbly
  • Look gorgeous on the day (another miracle needed here with all the stress of the last few weeks!)

I've been drawing inspiration from my to see if I can pull something off at home and still make it special.

How about you? what are you plans for Valentine's weekend? 

 

Food Styling Challenge...

Friday, 7 February 2014

As a food blogger, I am often challenged by the technical parts of the job. Developing a recipe, cooking it until it is just right, testing it several times to make sure it works, writing the recipe so that anybody can use it... all that is easy for me. I can even present my food in a way that looks appetizing enough and take a half decent picture... but when I come across something very dark or something with refried beans, I struggle. 

I blog my dinner. Every time. When the last photo has been taken, the pretty (and now cold) plate of food gets reheated and eaten rightaway. We don't use artificial lighting, all is taken in the pure, unadulterated and unforgiving, north-facing light that my Dublin kitchen provides. I use props to make my food beautiful and as a rule, the last photo must show the dish as I would eat it, as if I had cooked it just for a family dinner and not to be blogged. If it's not part of the finished dish, ie not going into my tummy, it's not going on the plate for the picture.   

I work alone... well apart from the camera help I get from my nice , a bubbly young, aspiring photographer. I normally cook the food and decide what plate, which background, where and what props go on the table. Daili checks lighting issues.  At the end, we both take pictures of the finished dish. We manage well together and although lighting is always an issue, particularly during the winter months, we soldier on.

Now a couple of weeks ago I sourced Cuitalcoche for the shop. Cuitlacoche is also known as Corn Truffle. Go on google it. It's bloody hidious looking! I absolutely adore it, but to be honest, when I opened the tin (and believe you me, I've seen it looking worse than this), I panicked! But what's to be panicked about - says you-

Ok, take one of the most unappetizing Mexican food ingredients, like the Cuitlacoche below, and turn it into something, never mind beautiful or even appetising, but that at least looks edible...

 Not so easy after all, right? I tried several times to slyle it or present it in any way that would not resemble the inside of a very sick person's toilet bowl! Eventually I gave up and put a desperate call on twitter for all my food styling friends. 

 

So last Friday, the very talented , a brilliant up and coming food stylist, came to the rescue and man what an experience it was! For the first time I had someone I couldn't boss around in the kitchen, I was a little anxious to find out how the whole thing would work. It was such a great experience! I took a step back and watched Ajda work. She gave brilliant direction to Daili, she went through my props and found something lovely to show the food off. She had great ideas for someone who had never, ever seen or tasted Cuitlacoche, no wonder why I've heard so many lovely things about her!

When I tried this dish a few times before, I enlisted the tasting buds of my friend , I was struggling with texture on the final dish, so she brilliantly took me out of my thinking box and suggested to serve the cuitlacoche on crunchy tortilla chips, rather than the traditional way of presenting it as a sauce on the plate (which I seemed obsessed about doing). We stuck to Kate's suggestion and Ajda and I discussed the merits of adding some colour to the finish dish... 

Here, poor Ajda stumbled across my kitchen photo rule. She wanted to add sour cream, coriander & some chilies on top and I was reluctant because the original dish didn't have them. We struck a compromise and made a sample one to taste. We knew it would look beautiful, but I was concern about the taste... well, I was entirely wrong!

The whole thing worked! It tasted fresh and it toned down the flavour of the cuitlacoche very lighly and in a good way. She showed me how to enhance the food without having to throw it out after: we added shine to a salad with a little brush and some cold water, she show me how to position food on the plate, how to use the juices of the meat to add shine to it and make it look even more delicious. She even helped me decide on how to cook the stake, as I eat mine medium well and we needed this one only seared and pink.

The whole experience was great. I learned to be a bit unconventional when it comes to presenting food, I learned that only because 'we don't eat it like that in Mexico', doesn't mean it won't taste good, I found how incredibly important is to have someone who looks at food from the perspective of the camara and not from a 'I'm going to eat it as soon as I finish' place and above all, I found out that working with someone else in the kitchen is great fun!! Thank you to Daili for helping witht he photography, to Kate for pushing me to think outside the box and to Ajda for all her styling advise and her help in making this horrid looking Mexican ingredient look beautiful on a plate. 

Check out and her , but I warn you, prepare to drool over incredibly gorgeous photos! The recipe we shoot on the day will be published in the next day or two! In the meantime, I'll leave you with some of the behind the screen photos we took on the day.

 

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