Menu Plan Monday

Well, I think things have calmed down enough to get back to normal, so time to do a proper menu plan again.   Here's the plan this week.  The sun is finally shining, so we are off to pick up any additional groceries and feed the ducks in the canal.  It feels like I haven't been out of the house in weeks, as the husband needs the car for work and the weather has been atrocious! 

Monday:

Breakfast: Vanilla Puff (I just add a half cup of sugar, use a vanilla pod and leave out the apple)

Lunch: Leftover Gumbotto

Dinner: Lemon and Thyme Roast Chicken with Stuffing Balls and Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Fruit and Cereal

Lunch: Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Dinner: Toulouse Sausages with Lentils and Red Wine (Thanks for the suggestion Chris!)

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Cinnamon Buns and Fruit

Lunch: Brie and Saucisson Ciabatta

Dinner: Beef Stroganoff

Thursday:

Breakfast: Cereal and Fruit

Lunch: Spanish Tortilla (recipe below)

Dinner: Ella's Meatballs and Garlic Rice

Friday:

Breakfast: French Toast

Lunch: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Beans

Dinner: Wine Poached Turbot with Truffled Mashed Potatoes and Asparagus

Saturday:

Breakfast: Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes

Lunch: Eating Out (The husband is taking a flying lesson that I got him for Christmas, we're all going to take pictures and will have lunch afterwards!)

Dinner: Sandwiches, assuming we've had a big lunch!

Sunday:

Breakfast: Fruit and Cereal

Lunch: Pasta Salad and Bread Rolls

Dinner: Baked Ziti (what can I say - we're hooked!)

 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

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Spanish Tortilla

When we were in Mallorca, I finally tried a true Spanish Tortilla.  I also got a breakdown of how to cook one, by our friendly bartender!  Apparently the key is to add the potatoes and onions to the egg instead of the other way around.  So hopefully this makes sense.  This is fantastic hot or cold, as breakfast or lunch.   

Ingredients:

2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 small white onion, diced

5 eggs

salt and pepper, to taste

Olive oil

Method:

Heat a pan over medium heat and add a good glug of olive oil.  Saute the potatoes for about ten minutes, stirring constantly and keeping the heat medium to low to discourage them from browning. 

Add the onion and continue to saute until the potatoes are tender and onion cooked through.

Whisk your eggs and add pepper and salt.  Add the hot potato and onion mixture to your eggs.

Without adding additional oil and keeping the heat medium add the egg mixture back into the pan and allow to cook gently until mostly set. 

Flip the tortilla over using a plate to cook the bottom, or if you prefer, just slip it under a hot grill for a few minutes.  This will brown it a little, which technically should not happen, but I won't tell if you don't!

Serve hot or cold, as is or in slices.  Enjoy!

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Review of Dunne and Crescenzi's Officina

Dunne and Crescenzi's Officina,
Kildare Village Outlets,
Kildare,
Kildare,
Ireland

Tasteless, overpriced, sub-par service. Won't be going back.

Whilst on an errand to hit the Clark's outlet in Kildare Village Outlets yesterday we decided to grab a bite to eat at L'Officina, Dunne and Crescenzi's restaurant on the site.  Having been there before to pick up various epicurian delights, I had noted it to be a child friendly bustling place, so we figured we'd go for it.

We were seated quickly and perused the menu.  We were left perusing said menu for about fifteen minutes while my efforts to flag down a waitress seemed to be blatantly ignored.  We were delighted to see that they were serving slices of pizza as a daily special, which we knew the kids would eat.  The husband and I each elected to have a pannini.  We also ordered a side of garlic bread to keep the kids occupied until the food got there. 

The food all came at once and the panninis looked lovely.  The pizza, of which we had ordered two slices, but only received one, looked dreadful.  Picture a slice of flat bread with a thin scraping of tomato paste and sparse slices of mozzarella.  If it had been me ordering it, it would have gone right back, but the kids seemed to do just fine with it. 

The garlic bread was merely crusty pieces of ciabatta that had been drizzled with olive oil.  If there was any garlic on there it was garlic powder, something that in my opinion, no self-respecting Italian restaurant should even have in house!  My oldest who is a garlic bread aficionado summed it up in one word "asgusting!"

Our panninis were bland, but edible, certainly not worth the €7 we paid for them though.  There was no garnish or salad or anything with them either.   

The service did pick up after we ordered.  We had a lovely girl wait on us and seemed to really cater to the kids.  

When I went to pay I approached the till where the manager was working.  I was not asked how my meal was or I would have told him exactly how I felt.  Indeed I was not asked anything or even smiled at.  

At the till I also noticed the dismal pizza slices lying on the counter uncovered, which really put me off.  

For two panninis, an order of garlic bread, two glasses of milk, a diet coke, pellegrino and a slice of pizza we paid €30.  Worth it?  Considering I could have got better tasting panninis, pizza, and drinks at Spar for under a tenner - I think not.

This place enjoys a monopoly at Kidare Village, but in my opinion that is no excuse for substandard food and service at those prices.  Dunne and Crescenzi have a great name in Dublin, but I really don't think the Kildare branch stacks up.  I certainly won't be returning, even for my normal grocery items such as carnaroli rice, espresso and truffle oil that I usually pick up there.  I think I'll just have to drive to Limerick and visit Lorraine!

Rated 1/5 on Jul 28 2007 by Deborah

LouderVoice Review Tags: , dunne and crescenzi kildare, dunne and crescenzi officina, kildare village, l'officina kildare, l'officina review, officina

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Winners, Awards and Bread

Well ladies the draw is done. I painstakingly wrote down every name on all 110 (!) comments! I had Ella draw out a name and couldn't believe who she drew out. Her own Godmother and my best friend, Amy! I considered re-doing it, but then that wouldn't be fair to Amy who entered fair and square just like everyone else and who won fair and square. So Amy - there's a book on the way, sure beats silver cufflinks!

On another note, Annie has graciously awarded me with the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. You may have seen these going around. Basically when you get awarded you have to award five other "rocking" bloggers.

Here are my nominees:

Irish Flirty Something - This is the hysterical blog of a single thirty-something living in Dublin. I enjoy reading all about her antics and while sometimes jealous of her freedom, usually thank God I'm happily married!

Parker at Divine Domesticity - I really enjoy reading her recipes and looking at her food photography. Her blog is unpretentious and entertaining unlike many of the food blogs out there. She also has quite the flair for design as you can tell by her very cut blog. Well worth a look!

Lisa at The Food Snob - Another unpretentious food blog, Lisa gives an entertaining account of her life and food. She has an incredible recipe for strawberry shortcake that I really need to try before the season ends!

K8 the GR8 is Grandad's daughter and never ceases to entertain. In fact I'm pretty sure she's my long lost twin and that only bad things would happen if we went to the pub together. Well worth a read!

Amy is just on a roll today because I couldn't not mention my rockin' best bud! Although her blog, The Life of a Newlywed, is a relatively new one, I have no doubt it will develop into a fine read! Most importantly though is that I can personally attest to the fact that she ROCKS!

There are many others I would nominate, but most of them already have the award, so no point in duplicating the effort! So thanks a million Annie and congrats to everyone.

Now onto some food...

I mentioned in a previous post my fondness of a book inherited through my husband, Just a Matter of Thyme. I have been meaning to try a recipe in there for Light Wheat Bread Rolls for years. I finally got around to it the other day and all I can say is WOW! The recipe uses both yeast and baking powder which results in needing only one rise of 45 minutes with the final rising occurring during the actual baking. These are light, slightly sweet and quite versatile as you can tell from the other recipes following.

Light Wheat Rolls

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 9-10 cups white flour
• 3 pkgs dry yeast (6 3/4 tsps)
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 egg, beaten
• Sesame or Poppy seeds if desired

If your eggs have been refrigerated, pop them in a bowl and cover with hot water. Set aside

Heat milk, water and butter until very warm. Butter does not need to fully melt.

Stir together in LARGE mixing bowl sugar, wheat flour, 2 cups of white flour, baking powder and yeast.

Add eggs and wet mixture to dry mixture and mix well for about three minutes.

Gradually start adding the additional flour a cup at a time. When it starts to become doughy tip out the bowl and begin kneading. (I only needed about 8 cups flour)

Continue kneading on a lightly floured surface for about ten minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic and not sticky.

Shape into rolls and place in a greased baking tin. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size or about 45 minutes.

Apply beaten egg over the surface of each roll* and sprinkle the rolls with seeds if desired.

Bake at 180C/350F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes approximately 3 dozen.

* When I make these again I will skip this step, as I didn't feel it was necessary, it didn't add to the overall taste or texture.

Variations:

Cinnamon Buns

I split the dough into three and made cinnamon buns with one third. Basically you just roll out the dough until it's about 1/4 inch thick and spread with butter. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar and roll it up. Slice into one inch sections. Place in a baking pan and allow to double and bake as above. To make a vanilla glaze, just mix some powdered/icing sugar with vanilla extract until you have a nice syrup. Drizzle over and serve. YUM!

Ham and Cheese Rolls:

Do the same as the cinnamon buns, but instead of sprinkling with cinnamon and sugar after you have buttered the dough, layer prosciutto, serrano or parma ham on top of the dough. Then either layer with thin slices of cheese or sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Scatter with diced scallions and roll up. Slice and bake as above. These were our favourite. The light sweet dough really offset the salty ham and cheese and the scallions added a great crunch. I sent some with the husband to work and he rang later to tell me he loved ham rolls and the woman that made them! ;-) I guess I forgot to take a picture of these ones, but they look really cool too! Enjoy!

On a final note I found a wonderful recipe resource yesterday called Feeding America. It's a database of vintage American cookbooks and homemaking books from around 1860 to 1950. They are all catalogued and fully accessible. I don't know about you, but I LOVE vintage cookbooks and have been having a grand old time looking through these. It's quite amazing to imagine life back then - you imagine cooking would be basic and simple - but some of the books have incredible recipes. Calf brain croquettes anyone?

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Another Competition? You betcha!

Rocks in my Dryer is hosting Dog Days of Summer which consists of well over 200 different bloggers having giveaways. Check it out and enter some or host a giveaway of your own!

Wish I could tell you it was Broadway tickets, but instead I've decided to giveaway yet another Avoca cookbook. How does one even explain Avoca? Calling it a shop seems so inadequate... it's more like an entity! It is the most beautiful shop stocking incredible things from clothes to house wares, but all very unique and very Irish. They also have a wonderful food hall that has some of the most amazing cooking you will ever taste. They have a restaurant in most locations as well as a deli. This is not just any ordinary deli - the stuff they have is mouthwatering. I especially love all their tarts. All of them feature fresh Irish produce and artisan baking. Incredible!

Well now you can taste this in your own kitchen. I will be giving away the Avoca Cafe Cookbook 2, which I think is better than the first. This really is Irish cooking at it's finest. None of that corned beef and cabbage mularky! Fresh food, simple cooking, exceptional taste. And if you win, I am always on hand to help with ingredient substitutions or conversions! For example courgette is zucchini! ;-)

So what do you have to do? Just comment on this post! I will enter all the commenter's names into a hat and randomly draw a winner! Easy - so have at it! Enter by 8pm GMT on Friday July 27th. Good luck!

And the Winners Are...

First of all apologies for being a bad blogger of late. My little one is teething like mad and making all our lives miserable as a result. This has been going on for months and she's still only four teeth at 18 months! GRRR!

I did have a lot of fun this week preparing the wonderful finalist recipes, in fact the entire family did! So without further ado, let me present the winning recipes and the photos of my version.

Bridget's Heart Shaped Chicken Nuggets and Fruit Kebabs

First thing you'll notice is that I had to make star shapes as I had no heart cookie cutter (it's a hard life) but the kids were just as excited! I also omitted the kiwi from the kabobs and didn't dip in coconut as I can only imagine what they would say to that!

Heart-Shaped Chicken Nuggets

• 3/4 lb chicken cutlets, cut into chunks (not cooked)
• 1 large onion diced
• 2 TBSP chopped fresh parsley
• 1 small apple, peeled and grated
• 3/4 C fresh white bread crumbs
• 1 chicken bouillon cube, crumbled
• 1/2 C dry bread crumbs
• 2 oz. cheese and onion flavored chips, finely crushed
• veggie oil for frying

Put the first 6 ingredients in a food processor and chop for a few seconds until well combined. Shape mixture into a flat disk.
Use a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter to press out heart shapes. Mix the bread crumbs and chips on a plate, and press the pieces into the coating.
Heat enough oil in a large skillet for shallow frying. Add the nuggets and cook for about 6 minutes, turning occasionally, until lightly golden and cooked through.

Easy Fruit Shish Kabobs
Ingredients:
1 banana
1 kiwi fruit, peeled and cut into chunks
handful of strawberries
small bowl of melon (e.g. watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew)
4-5 oz. of cheese, cut into medium chunks
1/4 C orange juice
1/4 C coconut
wooden skewers
Cut the banana, and melon into large chunks. Place the fruit and cheese onto the skewers in whatever order you wish. Dip in orange juice then roll in coconut.
In this recipe, you can pick and choose the fruits that you desire if you don't like one or the other fruits. Can also be doubled, or tripled for the amount of kabobs you need.

The verdict: Delicious!!! My three year old devoured these and just loved the fact that they were shaped. They are really tasty with or without dipping sauce. Very moist and flavourful they would please adults or kids. They do take a while to assemble, especially if using the cutter, but would be less time consuming if you just made flat nuggets. The skewers whilst simple were a novelty and very well received!

Daisy's Chicken and Apple Empanadas

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups diced cooked chicken
• 2 granny smith apples, peeled and shopped
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 small white onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup shredded smoked cheddar
• salt and pepper
• 1 sheet puff pastry
• 1 egg, beaten

Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F.

Fry apple, garlic and onion in the butter until soft. Add thyme, salt and pepper, honey and chicken. Allow to cool slightly and mix in the cheddar.

Roll out the puff pastry until about 2-3 cm thick. Using a glass cut out circles of the pastry. Roll the scraps and keep making circles until you've little to no pastry left.

Place about a tablespoon of filling on each circle and seal the edges with egg wash and use a fork to press down to seal.

Brush with egg wash and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown. You can deep fry these as well, but you will only need to fry for about 3-4 minutes.

The verdict: Another winner, both kids devoured these as did the husband and I. This will definitely be added to my party repertoire - it's a great recipe that everyone will enjoy.

Barbara's Baked Ziti

Baked Ziti with Sausage
8-10 servings
1 lb. mild Italian sausage, casings removed
2 T. oil
1 sml. onion, minced
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 T. minced garlic
1 T. oregano
2 T. sugar
2 t. pepper
6 T. butter
¼ cup flour
2½ cups milk
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
1 lb. ziti, cooked
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded

Brown sausage in oil in a large skillet. Add onion, tomatoes, garlic and spices. Cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir, but do not brown. Add milk and bring to a boil, stirring until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in Parmesan.

Layer ziti, Béchamel sauce and tomato sauce in buttered 13 x 9 pan.

Top with mozzarella. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes.

The verdict: My personal favourite, this was incredible. I had great fun as I wasn't able to get into Naas Farmers Market to get my usual Italian Sausage, so I had to make my own. It turned out really well and I think I will be doing that in the future! The husband and oldest loved this as well. This dish makes a lot! I have half of it in the freezer for a quick meal next week.

And the winner is...

This was tough as I wanted to judge it myself, but the point was it was the recipe the kids preferred the best, which makes Daisy's Empanadas a clear winner! They were gobbled up by both kids and I will definitely be making them again.

Second place is Barbara's Baked Ziti as the whole family loved it with the baby eating a little, but she didn't really get into it!

Finally in third is Bridget, which although the adults and oldest loved, the baby was not impressed at all - which really surprised me, but that's the way it works I guess!

So ladies, thank you ALL and please email me with your postal address and I will get your prizes out on Monday. You too Frannie!

On another note - today is one of my friends first year anniversary. She died last year just before we went to the states. Amy was a troubled soul, a beautiful talented troubled soul. She tried so hard to please and to be loved. She struggled with anorexia, bulimia, drugs and alcohol and had been through many drug rehab programs, as well as eating disorder programs. Each time she came through them and it looked like she would start over, but old ghosts always came back to haunt her and in the end kill her. Today I mourn my friend, who she was, not who she became.

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Competition Round Up

Hi everyone. So sorry I've been gone so long! When we got back from Mallorca we immediately started house hunting, so I didn't really get back online properly until yesterday!

I've had some wonderful entries for the competition and hope that everyone will be able to use some of these great recipes! Let's get started!

First up we have Barbara with a wonderful chicken and dumpling recipe. This is a recipe that Barbara's own mother used to make, tweaked a bit. It looks delicious, healthy and most of all kid-friendly!

Next up is Tara from Should You Eat That? Tara is a nutrition student which gives her an excellent advantage in terms of knowing which foods are good for our kids. This is a great recipe for Extreme Makeover Spaghetti Bolognaise which hides all kinds of vegetables and goodness!

Next up is my expat friend Annie. Annie is an Irish woman in America and her blog is wonderfully insightful and entertaining. Annie has made breakfast for us with fabulous looking Bran Muffins topped off with a Strawberry Banana Smoothie. Nevermind the kids - I know I'll enjoy this delicious yet healthy breakfast!

Bridget is up next with a fantastic complete meal of heart shaped chicken nuggets, with fruit kabobs. Kids love shapes, and the nuggets sound wonderful. It took all my restraint NOT to make these before the competition! And who wouldn't love fruit skewers?

Another expat blogger, this time an Englishwoman in Ireland, Beccy has posted a fabulously inventive recipe for Burgers and Chips! Healthy? What? Absolutely! Beccy has hidden courgette (zucchini,) peppers, onion and green beans in the burgers! She serves them in a pita with lettuce with cheesy potato skins (YUM!) followed by a wonderful fresh fruit salad. Are her kids lucky or what?

Next up we have the insightful and incredibly sweet Frannie! This has got to win a special prize for creativity. I think it absolutely the coolest thing I have ever seen! Frannie has come up with this extraordinary Kidtastic "Seafood" Pasta. And what kid would not love this plate? I'm not usually a squid fan, but I think I'd make an exception for this recipe! ;-) Absolutely fantastic!

The next entry was an email entry from blog-less Daisy. She did send a picture though and I'm sure you will agree that these Chicken and Apple Empanadas look fantastic! Stuffed with a thyme, onion and apple chicken filling, these puff pastry babies look fantastic and we all know kids love finger food! Daisy deep fried these ones, but for a healthier option she bakes them with a bit of egg wash. YUM!

Tara is back with another wonderful recipe with nutritional information all laid out for you! Her recipe is for a low-fat cottage pie. The recipe itself is very similar to my own Shepherd's Pie recipe, only with much less fat involved. This is a recipe I would think most kids would enjoy, never mind the adults!

Barbara is back with a wonderful looking recipe for Baked Ziti. As a huge Soprano's fan I have been hearing about Baked Ziti for years, but have never actually made it. This recipe looks fantastic with a lovely combination of bechamel, tomato sauce and Italian Sausage. YUM! Barbara has step-by-step photos too, so make sure you check this one out!

And last but not least is my food snob friend Lisa! Lisa has a wonderful food blog that makes my mouth water as well as keeping me entertained! Lisa brings to us a kids classic - Pizza! But not just any pizza, a pizza with hidden vegetables in the sauce. She also gives a kids version and adults version. I picked the picture of the adult version because how good does that look?

Well that's all folks! Talk about some fantastic recipes. Now comes the hard part - I have to select three to cook for my kids! After careful deliberation I can tell you the three winners (not in order as of yet) are:

Barbara with her Baked Ziti

Daisy with her Chicken and Apple Empanadas

Bridget with her Heart Shaped Chicken Nuggets and Fruit Kabobs

Frannie gets a special creativity prize for her Kidtastic "Seafood" Pasta!

Now over the week I will cook these fabulous dishes and decide who wins first, second and third prize. I will be posting the pictures and recipes as I do this and can't wait to try all these delicious recipes!

Thank you to EVERYONE who entered. I had a really hard time picking winners and really appreciate the time you guys took to do this. I think I will be trying just about every recipe at some point!

It will be a bit of a rough week as it is coming up to the one year anniversary of the death of a good friend of mine, who despite going through lots of eating disorder and addiction treatment died last year. I think she is finally at peace though.