We were treated to several different forms of alcohol, all of which I can’t remember. Then came their Dine in Dublin menu, a full 3 course meal for only €25! I will admit however, the €25 menu is fairly limited, as sadly nearly half the menu have supplements attached. However that aside, it’s still a lovely menu, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I opted to start with the Crisp pork belly with caramelised apples, celeriac and cider butter. For mains I got fairly overwhelmed with choice and ended up ordering the Baked fillet of halibut, potato puree, creamed leeks and baby spinach,clam vinaigrette, and finishing off with a Banana and toffee parfait, buttered pecan ice cream. Overall the food and service was top-notch, if you’re looking to spend a bit more then I’d highly recommend trying to get a booking before Dine in Dublin is over.

Please excuse the poor & lack of photography. I was hungry, what can I say..

Being a huge fan of Italian cuisine, when I found out Carluccio’s had a Dine in Dublin special for €20 – Starter, Any Pasta Dish & dessert – I really couldn’t resist. It’s been quite a while since myself and Kevin had last been so I thought we might as well pop in. I managed to nab a table on twitter on Monday morning for a rather early dinner at 6pm Tuesday. I went with my usual Bruschetta, Lasagne and Tiramisu combo, which was fantastic as usual. Being fairly traditional I opted to have a bottle or two of Peroni, something that I only seem to drink either in Italy or in an Italian restaurant. Service & Food in Carluccio’s was outstanding. They have an amazing team of staff, who enhance the whole experience. If you’re looking for great food, €50 for two including two bottles of Peroni then certainly try make time for Carluccio’s.

The post My Dine in Dublin Experience appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

Until the other week I couldn’t tell you what a Sachet D’Épices was. Albeit a technical term, most searching for recipes wouldn’t expect to stumble upon – It’s something I’d should have some idea about, considering it’s basically just parsley, thyme, bay, peppercorns & some garlic if you’re into it.

Taking this into account, I’ve bought myself a digital bookshelf full of books, including “The Professional Chef” – Which I plan on eating my way through, cooking most dishes and getting my head around all the techniques. Of course this means I’ll be blogging about nearly everything, hopefully weekly with a recipe or two!

However there will still be an eerie silence across the blog for the next few weeks as everything is stepping up over at The Purple Pantry. So naturally all efforts will be going into that until it goes live very soon!

The post A Change of Direction appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

New & improved blog with added vegetarian and basics coming in the next few days

The post Happy New Year! appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

Two weeks ago, I got a sample of teapigs tea in a magazine and I’m now a fairly regular tea drinker, drinking several cups a day. I’ve been blogging normally since the boxes of tea I ordered arrived, so maybe it’s giving me back my blogging mojo? We’ll revisit this theory in another month or so to check if it’s true.

Today I got my hands on three little samples of teapigs spiced winter red tea. Not being the biggest fan of mincemeat or mulled wine, I didn’t have the highest expectations for this tea hitting the mark with me, but in the name of food this tea must be sampled. I was seriously mistaken. Upon opening the bag, I was hit extremely hard with the Christmas stick. It has a very strong Christmas smell to say the least, so much so, that I’m half tempted to put the remaining bags around the house as smellies.

I then began to wonder how exactly is one ment to drink this tea.. With milk? Sugar? Plain? and then I seen the words ‘Brandy‘ on their site. Within seconds there was a bottle of Hennessys opened and a good glug was poured into a mug, followed by the water and then a tea temple. Timer set for 3 minutes, I set off to turn on the lights on the tree to further enhance the Christmas mood. A lovely spiced tea, followed by a hit of brandy. But I couldn’t leave it at that, I had to see how it tasted without the brandy – So I brewed another mug, this time with just a little bit of honey. A sweeter taste, which I preferred over the brandy.

From my un-expert analysis of the tea it’s a red tea, which means it uses redbush tea (rooibos) as a base. It’s then combined with winter spices to create a wonderful tea which actually tastes like Christmas. It’s also caffeine free, which I guess is a plus? Each little tea temple has; Rooibos tea, flavours, orange peel, ginko, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng root, cloves and safflower.

I would highly recommend this as a Christmas brew, sadly I got mine a little late so you actually can’t place an order for Christmas now. But I’ll certainly be chancing my arm with an order and seeing if there is any left in stock after Christmas!

No review is complete without some sort of offer attached. They’ve given me a coupon to share: BLOGGERS12 will give you 15% off everything but gifts and cheeky deals, as they’ve already been discounted. You can also join their newsletter (on the homepage), for news and latest discounts.

teapigs kindly sent me some free tea for the purposes of this review, but my opinions are my own and will never be taken from me! I’m also not being paid for this

The post Review: teapigs Spiced Winter Tea appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

I picked up these two jars at TK Maxx for €2.99 each. They both have random fruit designs on them, so some ribbon and bows were needed to make them look a bit festive. They’re for two old men, so I went with a mix of Hard Gums, Fruit Pastilles, Jelly Babies, Jelly Beans and Liquorice Allsorts. To keep the cost down I paid a visit to Lidl and they have boxes upon boxes of their own brand sweets and jellies – Something to suit everyone.  These two were a steal considering it cost me less than €2 to fill both jars. (According to my Granny, old men can’t suck boiled sweets quietly, so it’s best to leave that sort of stuff out if you want to stay sane throughout Christmas day).

This is one of the lovely Ikea jars, which I took the liberty of half eating last night (just so you can see what a half empty jar looks like). American Hard Gums have to be one of my favourite sweets, after Refreshers of course! So I tend to fill a jar with them every few months to keep me ticking over. This 1L jar took 3 bags around €2.10 to fill.

Finally, don’t bother with selection boxes for kids. I’ve had them for the past 15 odd years and they’re almost as bad as the Lynx giftsets at this stage.. Get your hands on some jam jars or small mason jars and fill them with little sweets. A 7/8oz jar will last roughly the same as a selection box, provided the mother doesn’t let them finish it before dinner. I used the standard 7/8oz jars we use at The Purple Pantry and filled them with jelly beans & jelly babies. Making sure to wrap each with different ribbons, stick some bows on and of course a tag to add that personal touch.

It’s not rocket science, but it’s a really easy way to give homemade gifts with so little time left till Christmas. It also allows you to tailor the jars to suit each persons needs. And to the smart arse out there who will claim these aren’t homemade.. The jars are filled and wrapped in the home – thus being homemade

You can find a list of the products I used below, should anyone wish to rush out and buy some sweets.

• American Hard Gums – Lidl
• Jelly Beans – Lidl
• Jelly Babies – Lidl
• Fruit Pastilles – Lidl
• Liquorice Allsorts – Lidl
• 1L Mason Jar – €2.99 – TK Maxx
• 1L KORKEN Jar – €2.00 – Ikea

The post Last Minute Christmas Gifts appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

Having recently discovered my love for teapigs Super Fruit tea I couldn’t resist placing a large order online before Christmas. When it arrived I spent the whole day making cups of tea, until I realised I had a few boxes of gelatin in the press. I set off to brew a fairly large batch of tea, which took quite some time and then it was time to have some fun!

Making your own jelly is dead simple and takes only a few minutes once the tea is brewed, so why not give it a shot with your favourite juice, tea or fruits!

Method

1. Measure out 500ml of boiling water into a jug. I put the 4tsp of tea into a muslin bag, however you can use tea-bags or a tea infuser type thing, whatever you have handy. Leave to infuse for several minutes, tasting every minute or two, until you have reached a flavour you are happy with.
2. Begin adding the sugar, constantly stirring and tasting, once again until you get something you are happy with.
3. Put the tea into a small pot and allow to cool. Add one 10g sachet of gelatin and stir until dissolved.
4. Turn the heat on and bring to the boil for 2 minutes, or as specified on the packet.

This is not a sponsored post, I’m just a happy customer who decided to base this recipe around teapigs “Super Fruit” tea.

The post Fruity Tea Jelly appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

This Cauliflower Pilau is such a handy recipe to have handy for lazy nights, work/college lunches or even for picnics! It takes less than 20 minutes to cook and tastes delicious hot or cold.

Method.

1. In a small-medium pot over a medium-low heat, soften the onion and garlic in the groundnut oil. Then add the cardamon, ground turmeric, cinnamon and fry for 1 minute.
2. Add the cauliflower, peas and sultanas to the pot, stirring for about a minute. Then add the rice, along with the boiling water. Lower the heat and cover with the lid for 15 minutes, stir occasionally adding more water if it begins to dry and stick to the bottom of the pot.

The post Cauliflower Pilau appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

Random photo of me with a statue. Thanks to Zach for the randomness!

Watching the news as I write this, and honestly think those protesting about the new Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast is an absolute joke. Politics over, I’ll slowly be returning to the blog over the next week or two!

I’ve started college. Bachelor of Business in Entrepreneurship to be exact, down in IADT. It’s a 5 hour round trip every day so sadly I haven’t had time to blog.. But I’m working on trying to get into a routine of blogging on a weekly basis. I’ve a small few posts waiting to be posted, however they need several recipes to accompany them.

I managed to bag myself the title of GIYer of the year at the 2012 GIY Gathering down in Waterford in September. It was a great weekend and one shall be putting up a post about that very shortly. I got a lovely voucher for Woodies, so that’ll be going off the new greenhouse for the garden.

The Goodalls Modern Irish Cookbook launched today. I had the pleasure of heading along for a little photoshoot prior to the launch with some fellow bloggers which was good fun! We were treated to a lovely lunch in the Cellar at the Merrion Hotel. Again, I’ll be putting up a post about this very shortly.

In other news – I’m a year older, the big 20 next September D: I’m also in the process of launching a food based business, more on this to follow along with a lovely Christmas hamper that’ll be packed full of products which will surface on here as a Christmas giveaway! So stay tuned and hopefully content will start flowing again very soon!

The post Coming back to a blog near you.. appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

Why not try them with salt & a pinch of chili powder for a chip more suited for salsa.

Method.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
2. Slice the tortillas in half, stack the halves and then cut in half again, repeat the process until you’re happy with the size. (I used burrito sized ones (30cm)).
3. In a small pot melt around 2 – 3 Tbsp of butter, this will help them to crisp up nicely in the oven.
4. Arrange the strips of tortillas on baking sheets and with a pastry/cooking brush lightly coat the top side of each with butter.
5. Place the trays in the oven. They’ll typically take around 5 minutes, but can vary. I typically float around the kitchen constantly peeking in to check for when they are done. Once the edges begin to turn brown, they’re just about done.
6. While the tortillas crisp up in the oven, prepare the cinnamon sugar mix by combining the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.
7. Brush the remaining butter onto each ‘nacho chip’ and then sprinkle over the sugar.

The post Cinnamon Sugar Nachos.. appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.

They recently teamed up with the folks from Keoghs to produce nude crisps made from the ugly potatoes. They have nothing added to them, just rejected rooster potatoes and sunflower oil. I had a chance to try several bags during last weekends GIY gathering and for something without salt they taste absolutely amazing! I managed to squeeze 5 bags into my case coming home so I’ve decided to give them away to one lucky reader!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One winner will be chosen at random and notified by email. This competition will close at Midnight on Saturday, 29th of September. Competition is open to anyone with an address in Ireland.

This competition is now closed. Congrats to Fiona, expect to be tucking into some bags of crisps before the weekend!

The post Competition: Spuds.ie Nude Crisps appeared on Cook It Yourself Food Blog.