I feel I must start this post by apologising for the very late update on what I now call my Market Challenge. A couple of weeks ago I posted an entry on the blog called "Taking the Super out of the Market" where I pleadged to go cold turkey on my supermarket shopping for three full months and give Dublin's many food markets and local shops a go, however like Julia Child used to say (anyone who saw the Julie&Julia movie should get this joke): one should never make apologies.

I set up March 15th as the start date for the challenge, this gave me enough time to use up all my groceries and larder contents and leave me ready to start; however, this was right after the fabulous InishFood Fest weekend, which was not so good an idea as the market I was planning to go to is only opened on Saturdays, so on the long drive home I was worried about coping for a whole week without food! Panic set in until the other half gently reminded me that we had a boot jam packed with Inishfood goodies: McCarthy's pudding samples (which made two beautiful breakfasts), a wonderful hamper that I won on the InishFood Charity Raffle full of Glenilen Farm products and smoke trout from Goatsbridge farm, a generous piece of pork that I cured, 6 bottles of rasberry and chocolate conserve that I bought from the Green Appronness lady, a bag of fresh coffee beans, a good size bar of honey and lemon zest butter that I made at the butter demonstration and a few other yummy things we bought during the trip...

So my frist week in the market challenge went quite smooth while I used up all my InishFood goodies. The highlight of the week was breakfast on the first day of the challenge, which had to be the beautiful black puddings and Haggis samples from McCarthy's from Kanturk, a butcher shop with award winning products. They were absolutely delicious and since I had no time for a full fry, I came up with this, my version of a breakfast roll! tosted poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and haggis. How am I going to make this you ask? Don't despair, McCarthy's has an online shop, they're worth a try; their black puddings are legend!