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Winter in Ireland means stew becomes a regular menu feature. Irish stew is a world famous dish, but one that won’t feature in this house of vegetarians. Still, we need the heartiness and the warm filling elements of stew. I decided that’s what we needed last night.

Initially, I was going to whip up some Mulligatawny Soupbut quickly realised I didn’t have all the ingredients. My health has taken…

Soup is one of my favourite things – but only if drunk from a mug. It’s comfort food; especially as the days and nights get colder. We had a bag of kala chanain our house – which lead to some interesting musings about who ate them first, and how they decided that these stone-like things could be rendered edible after lots of soaking and boiling – and we decided to soak and boil them all up at…

‘Will this be in history books in the future?’ Kashmira asked me. ‘Yes,’ I said. She beamed. ‘And I can say I was there.’ There were no losers in this referendum. Love won, and when love wins, nobody loses – not even those who voted no and did not want the amendment to be made. This referendum was important and it really caught my kids’ attention. Ishthara, at 13, was a bit stumped that we would…

It occurred to me that it was a while since I’d made hummus, and as I had a brand new jar of tahini, I thought today might be the day to put that right. Then, I noticed that there were a few odds and ends in the fridge this morning and I decided to combine them in a salad and use the tahini in a dressing.

So this is what we ended up with:

The camera didn’t work the first time, so I ended up…

This is one of my favourites – full of flavour and not at all spicy, so you can serve it to anyone and they won’t be afraid of it. I was full sure I’d already posted this recipe until my friend Karen and her daughter, Ciara, came by for lunch. Ciara is also vegetarian and forever on the hunt for new recipes. She liked this curry, so I blithely told her ‘oh! It’s on the blog – you can easily…

So, you remember the other day when I was extolling the virtues of quinoa? Well, hold the phone, honey, cos I’ve a new grain to tell you about and it’s got even more protein in it than quinoa and it’s less than half the price.  Amaranth. Gluten-free, heart-friendly and versatile, it’s also less than half the price of quinoa (in case you didn’t hear me the first time!).

I have given up wheat again…

I always forget how much I love beetroot until I end up with little else to prepare for lunch or dinner. Then, I break into a sweat and wonder what on earth I can do to make it interesting. This recipe was invented on one such day. Now, I’m not for a moment going to pretend that quinoa is a cheap food. It’s not. That is to say, a 500g bag retails at about €7.00 but that bag gets you get about…

This is another of those quick and easy recipes that we all need a slew of! I’d spent most of the day slaving over a hot laptop and it was 6pm before I knew where I was. I’d picked up 1.5kg of gorgeous little roosters in Lidl the other day for €0.79 and there was some frozen veg in the freezer and eight eggs in the fridge. Plenty for dinner, so!

Oven Roasted Frittata

600g of Frozen Vegetables

This recipe was born because we needed to go shopping yesterday, but I didn’t feel like venturing out in pre-snow weather (not least because I was reading a terrific book – Rowan Coleman’s The Memory Book).  So I had a quick rummage in the cupboards and came up with this:

1 Onion

250g Mushrooms

2 Tablespoons of Sesame Oil

4 Teaspoons of garlic-ginger paste

1 Tin of Kidney Beans

1 Tin of Tomatoes

Last Tuesday – January 6th – was Nollaig na mBan.  For the past six (or maybe seven?) years, I have celebrated the tradition in my home by inviting several of the wonderful woman I am pleased to know into our home for dinner, drinks and chat. This year was no exception. About a dozen women joined me for dinner (my girls scarpered upstairs with plates – feeling at the same time both too old and…

These days, the anxiety is worse than it has been for a while. Actually, it’s worse than it’s ever been – anxiety is a new one for me; I’ve only been dealing with it for a few months. But I’ll tell you this much – I wouldn’t wish it on my worse enemy. This isn’t a mental health blog, so I won’t go on about it, I’m only mentioning it because sometimes it keep me from leaving the house, answering…

Peppers Stuffed with Curried Rice & Veggies

Gosh, it’s been a while since I posted here. Not, obviously, because I haven’t been cooking but I have (to be honest) gotten a little bit lazy with writing them up on the blog.

  Anyway, the fabulous Anne Marie O’Connor inspired me to get back with it, as she posted a recipe on her blogmade from the odds and sods in her kitchen. I was in the middle of looking at the fridge, cupboards and shelves…

The Post With No Recipes (But a Word of Warning)

Just a quick note today to point you in the direction of my friend, Laura’s, website dairyfree.ie. Earlier this week, Laura interviewed me for her blog. You can see what we spoke about here (hint: there’s a clue in the title!).

  I will be back over the weekend with some more recipes (we put together a lovely frittata the other day).  In the meantime, I’d like to bring your attention to these…

This is one of those recipes that organically happens when you give your imagination (and ingredients) free reign.

  I’m running an austerity kitchen again this week (too many bills and a birthday assaulted me all at once!) and we essentially had a bag of  Quorn mince for dinner. As regular readers will know, I’m a great fan of the stone soup approach to cooking, so decided to jazz things up a…

A Week In Dinners

The lovely Sinéad over at Bumbles of Rice invited me to blog our week of dinners and share them via a linky. 

  I’ll admit I’ve never done this before, so I hope I’m doing it properly….

  Monday of this week was a bank-holiday and we had what passes for a ‘ready meal’ in this house – a meal that was in the freezer and ready to eat once it had been defrosted! We had broccoli and chickpeas in that…

Almond, Orange & Rose Bake

Initially, I wanted to make a shortbread, but that isn’t how this turned out. I possibly should have used a bigger tin and spread it thinner, but this ended up being one of those recipes that was an experiment that went right.

  Almond, Orange & Rose Cake

200g of Ground Almonds

150g of Butter

50g Light Brown Sugar

2 Small/Medium Eggs

7 Teaspoons of Rose Water

Zest of One Orange

Preheat the…

Eggplant, Mushroom & Fig Tagine

I hesitated before posting these recipes. The cake, in particular, isn’t really a budget bake (what with ground almonds being E1.79 per 200g), but if you fancy a bit of a splurge when there are a few more euros than usual knocking around, this menu might be just what you’re looking for.

  We had friends over for dinner last night and I wanted to make something I’d never made before. So, I decided…