ITALIAN FOODIES

Alessandro has been in Italy for the last month so has only seen the new place through email and excited descriptions from us, so he flew back yesterday!! We decided he should fly into Dublin and we’d pick him up and stay up for the night and do a little bit of “food and wine” research - oh life is good:) There were a couple of new places that I wanted to try like Carluccio’s and the Cornerhouse Grill so we made a day and night of it!! We decided to stay in the Trinity Capital Hotel which just had a complete refurbishment last year and I have to say I highly recommend it. It’s so cheap compared to other city centre hotels, is in a great location and I love the new decor so it’s my new place of sleep when in Dublin.

As usual we tried to pack as much food and drink in as one’s body can physically handle, Carluccio’s was first on the list but only for a sandwich as we were going for steaks so we only wanted something small for lunch. I’v eaten in Carlcuccio’s in London lots of times and I really like it!! Ok, so it’s not Italian food like “mama would make” but it is a chain at the end of the day and the quality is very good for a chain. The Dublin outlet is pretty impressive I think, very modern, fresh and absolutely spotless, everything shines. The presentation in the deli is excellent as you can see from the picture above and I wanted to buy everything but we just settled on 3 very good panini. I think it will do very well but if you’re looking for more traditional Italian food I suggest Dunne & Crescenzi around the corner, they even use tazza d’oro coffee which anyone who has been to Rome would have heard of, it’s the most famous spot for coffee in Rome!!

I’ve spoke of Fallon & Byrne in my last post on Dublin so this time we went down to the wine cellar and had a couple of glasses of vino and some oysters as an ”aperitivo” which were delicious and the boys loved!!

Dinner was booked in the Cornerhouse Grill at 9pm and I was interested to see what it would be like as it has had some pretty bad reviews recently. We started with the spicy chicken wings, lamb skewers and the roast beef salad.

For mains we had 3 rib-eye’s, chips and a side of broccoli

I wish I could tell you it was a great meal as I love the concept and think we badly need this kind of dining option but it really wasn’t up to standard and is pretty expensive. We all agreed the quality of the steak was really good with lots of flavour but that’s where it stopped!! The service was good with really friendly waiting staff but other than that it was a big disappointment. We tried to get in there the last time we were in Dublin on a Tuesday night but it was packed but last night it was fairly quiet which is such a shame as it has everything going for it but at the end of the day no matter how nice the place is, it’s all about the food!! 

There’s lots of discussion lately about the best steak so my question to you today is what’s your favourite???

 - fillet
 - sirloin
 - ribeye
 - striploin
 - t-bone

I’m loving ribeye at the moment, would love to hear your favourite, it’s a little bit of market research for the new place!!

Ciao!!

The title does sound pretty fancy doesn’t it??,  but today I’m basically giving you ” fancy beans on toast - Italian style”!! I will be the first to admit I’m not adverse to the odd can of heinz on a couple of slices of Brennan’s “big toast” smothered in some Kerrygold and when I was in college it was one of the main staples of my student diet along with the pints of heineken:) Seeing that I have come a long way since even though this could be questioned some days I decided to share this more gourmet version with you!!

One thing I always have in my cupboard is a couple of tins of cannellini and borlotti beans, cannellini for this recipe and the borlotti for my scrambled eggs on toast recipe, yes I know, we are posh!! These 2 recipes are great when you’ve nothing to cook and want to use some leftovers to produce something quick and tasty!! I bought lots of prawns to make “spaghetti al cartoccio”  but as usual things didn’t go according to plan so rather than throw them out we had them this way!!

what you need:

 - prawns (fresh or frozen) I got shelled tiger prawns in Superquinn even though I suspect they are frozen, defrosted, fresh as they didn’t have a great flavour!! The full prawns in their shells were much better but do require a bit of cleaning and work but it’s worth it if you have the time!! If you don’t have prawns this recipe would be fine without or use Maz at Style Treaty’s recipe with bacon!!

 - 250g ripe tomatoes - Irish tomatoes are really good at the moment so I used Irish plum tomatoes!! If you can’t get your hands on any good ones you could use a tin of tomatoes or leftover tomato sauce!!

 - 1 garlic clove finely diced

 - 1 tsp dried chilli (optional)

 - 1 x 400g can cannellini beans

 - 1 tbsp flat leaf parsley

 - 1 tbsp basil(optional)

 - juice half lemon

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - olive oil

what to do:

 - if using fresh tomatoes blanch your tomatoes in boiling water for 1 min and drain, peel off the skin and roughly chop.

 - fill the base of a pan with olive oil and fry the garlic and chilli for a couple of minutes until softened but not browned, add your tomatoes and cook for 5-7 mins. If you are using a tin of tomatoes I would leave it cook a little longer and maybe add a tsp of sugar!!

 - add your prawns and cook for another 5-10 mins until cooked through, add your herbs and mix through.

 - season and add your lemon juice.

 - heat a grill pan and cook your bread on both sides and rub some garlic on 1 side and drizzle with olive oil.

 - serve your prawns on your garlic bread and serve with some fresh parsley on top and a cup of tea if you live in Ireland:)

buon appetito!!

I’ve nothing much to report on the new business front except that the contracts to be signed are in the post as we speak, the accountant is getting the business plan together, I’ve warned my bank manager that we are coming to get lots of money, he thinks I’m joking, he’s in for some shock,  Alessandro is in Italy sourcing equipment so it’s busy, busy!!!! Just to give you a little info on it, we are opening an Italian bar and grill, it is a restaurant but it will be casual dining focusing on pizza, pasta and a large grill serving all different types of steaks, home-made burgers, fish like tuna steaks, swordfish steaks etc. The focus will be on simple, home-cooked food that’s affordable!! I think eating out has changed a lot in Ireland over the last couple of years and people are moving towards casual dining, somewhere you can eat any night of the week and not just a Saturday night or for special occasions. I know myself that I would eat out a lot more if there were more casual dining options but it is an area that is really lacking in Limerick so we are hoping to fill that gap!!

Everybody I tell says what a great idea it is and how badly Limerick needs something like this and how exciting it is for us!! Yes it is exciting but I won’t really be excited until  2 or 3 years time when it is established and “maybe” beginning to make a profit!! Until then it’s lots of stress, lots of phone calls with the bank looking for more money and no sleep but hey I’m tough so don’t go worrying about me now:)

With the new house and full freezer  - oooh the excitement, I plan to start cooking lots of dishes like cannelloni, lasagne, pasta al forno etc that I can make up in big batches and freeze and then just pop into the oven on the busy days when I have no time to cook. Lasagne seems to be a lot more popular in Ireland than cannelloni and seems to be the one that most people would make themselves at home but I actually prefer cannelloni. Everyone thinks of spinach or meat cannelloni so I’m going to post about different flavours and fillings from the norm.  This recipe is based on one I saw a while back in a pasta book I picked up in SQ by Ann and Franco Taruschio which has 100 different pasta recipes and really is a great addition to the cookbook collection. This recipe is really easy and was really fast to make, I cooked the pasta sheets in the morning, left them in the cold water and went off and did the shopping and then put it altogether when I came back, it was really delicious and the princess loved it too so it will be a regular in the Italian foodie house!!

what you need:

 - 500g ricotta cheese

 - 2 eggs

 - 100g grated parmesan cheese plus extra for topping

 -  tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

 - 1 tbsp chopped basil

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - 10 - 15 slices of parma ham

 - fresh tomato sauce or passata ( we have tubs of fresh sauce or bottles of De Cecco passata in La Cucina)

 - pasta sheets or cannelloni tubes - we have really good fresh pasta sheets in LC at the moment which are perfect for lasagne or canneloni. If you can’t get fresh use dried pasta sheets or dried tubes.

 - butter or margarine

 - nutmeg

 - olive oil

what to do:

 - bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and some olive oil and cook your pasta sheets until al dente. Don’t over cook as they have to into the oven to be cooked again. Scoop out with a slotted spoon or sieve and drop into container of cold water with a little olive oil and leave to cool down. Lay out a tea towel, place pasta sheets on it and dry off with some kitchen paper. 

 - in a bowl mix your ricotta, eggs, herbs, parmesan, season with salt and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

 - put a slice of parma ham on each pasta square and divide the mixture between the pasta sheets and roll up into tubes.

 - grease your oven dish and arrange the cannelloni in a single layer. Cover with your passata and srinkle over lots of parmesan.

 - bake in the oven for 20-30 mins and serve with extra parmesan.

buon appetito!!!

Ok, I know it’s been pretty quiet around here but I do have an excuse, well I have 2 really!! The first being the new house and the kitchen, it’s really nice but of course nothing ever goes smoothly, the oven and freezer are wrong so they’re gone back to Italy to return in 2 weeks so there will be lots of cleaning and packing over the next couple of weeks!!

My second excuse is that we are opening a second business, it’s all happened really quickly, we went to see it on Tuesday and shook hands on it on Friday. The contracts haven’t been signed yet so I won’t give the details yet but will let you know as I soon as I can! It is a restaurant, a rather large one at that, I won’t sleep for the next year, that’s if I have a bed to sleep in after all the money it’s going to cost;) It’s really exciting even though not the best timing as we are under pressure to open by Sept 1st so we have to start on it straight away so once we’ve moved house I can focus on it!!

I know this is a food blog but I just wanted to know if you would want me to blog about the new place, a behind the scenes look at our “stressful” journey of opening a food business or do you prefer to come here for the recipes??? I will still post recipes but just wondered if this is something people are interested in because I know I love behind the scene “stuff”:) and we will be taking a couple of trips to Italy to buy all of our equipment and source some wine of course. I await your comments or emails!!

What recipes I do post in the coming future will be of the simple kind because time is going to be an issue in the coming months so fast, tasty and simple food is on the menu!! This is really a non recipe as there is really nothing to it but sometimes those are the best!! The key to this is to buy the best meat you can, I got my t-bones from my local butcher Jim Flavin, he cut them fresh for me and they were huge, we could only cook 1 at a time.

what you need:

 - 2 t-bone steaks

 - 3 sprigs rosemary

 - 2 garlic cloves sliced

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - olive oil

what to do

 - season your steaks, mix your garlic, rosemary and olive oil in a bowl and pour over your steaks and leave to marinate for an hour or more if you can. If you can leave overnight you will have even more flavour but I’m never that organised so mine only got about 40 mins but schhhhh don’t tell anyone:), they still tasted good!! This recipe is all about the flavour of the meat!!

 - heat your grill pan until really hot and cook your steaks for 5-10 mins until golden brown and char-grilled on both sides!! We eat our t-bones medium rare and other steaks rare so cook according to personal taste!!

 - I know you are supposed to let meat rest for about 10 mins before eating but that never happens in our house as we are always too hungry but if you are not of the savage variety -  leave meat to rest!!

 - we served ours with a simple tomato and red onion salad!!

buon appetito!!

p.s. As time goes on it is getting harder to maintain this blog with the princess, she’s even interfering with my photos now:

I eventually had to sit her up on the counter and play with the kitchen roll holder while I held her with one hand and took the photo with the other!! Oh the glamorous life of a food blogger:)

I’m sure you’ve heard me mention the family restaurant in Atina many times on this blog so I decided it’s about time I did a little post on it!! IL Vicolo means little laneway in Italian and yes that’s where it is - down a little lane way!! It’s owned by Bruno’s Zia Adele, Zio Lello and Zia Franca and his Zia Terese works there too so it’s pretty much a family affair. It’s situated in the basement and is quite big for a small town but then people come from near and far!

It has so much character and the brick work is amazing inside, it is divided into 3 rooms, there are no candles, no music and believe it or not no menu!!! You basically eat what is on that day so you are guaranteed fresh, home-made, seasonal produce everyday!!

They are known for certain dishes, one of  them being “pasta fagioli” which is one of my favourites

On Friday’s a local fish supplier comes to the village and sets up his little stall and sells the nicest fresh fish so we were lucky enough to be there to help with the eating:)

One thing I really love in Italy is the rocket, the leaves are much bigger than you get here and have a much nicer flavour!! There’s a lot of preparation in it though as it all comes fresh so lots of cleaning and pulling off stems to be done which is Zia Franca’s job:

They are also famous for their home-made limoncello, once you’ve had home-made you can never go back:)

They all thought I was a bit mad taking loads of photos as they have never heard of blogs but I thought it would be nice to give you a little snap shot into a real Italian kitchen:)

p.s. I’ve been meaning to write about this great new idea by Paul over at siopaeile, he has created a collaborative google map focused on farmers markets, artisan food retailers and individual farmers who sell directly to the public. The idea is that anybody can see what’s available in their immediate vicinity at a glance. This supports local farmers and enables people to source the freshest produce. There are also environmental arguments to buying locally as you know. Not only will people be able to see at a glance who is selling fresh produce in their area on the internet, they will also be able to see this information on GPS devices.

So imagine you are driving home in your car and you have one of the GPS devices. You spot that the farm you are just passing is selling home made cheese or new potatoes. I think a lot of people will be tempted to visit the farmer. This will be a whole new avenue of advertising for Farmers so check it out!!

I mentioned a while back that we were moving house but surprise surprise we’re still at our old abode!! Why? I hear you ask seen as we bought this standard semi - detached house off the plans nearly 2 years ago, we got the keys in December but what’s been the big delay - our kitchen from Italy!!! It’s times like these when the Italian culture drives me mad, we’ll get it when they are ready!! I wouldn’t mind but we are getting the bedroom and part of the sitting room too so it hasn’t been an option to move in without the kitchen. Anyway it arrives tonight, well the boxes arrive and the Italian fitter is going to return next week as he is very busy - HELLLOOOOOO???? I’m really excited though as we just picked it out of a brochure last September which we don’t have anymore so I can’t even remember what it looks like so it doubles the excitement - God knows what I’m going to get:) but we got our present kitchen and bedroom from him so I’m not too worried!! All I remember is there is a 5 ring gas hob, extra large oven, full fridge, full freezer etc etc - a foodie kitchen heaven!! I shall post a pic when it is ready to go, probably next Christmas at the rate things are going!

Bruno is over at the new house at the moment helping him unload the millions of boxes so I have a roast chicken dinner waiting for him when he returns - I know, I really am wonderful;) I’m always looking for new roast chicken recipes as I tend to stick to the garlic, lemon, rosemary combo so I was delighted to see recipes in both Delicious and Taste Italia this month!! This one from TI was absolutely delicious but you have to love onions as much as I do and it’s really simple which I love nearly as much as onions:)

what you need:

- 1 kg onions, peeled and sliced - I used red as I had no white and they were perfect.

 - 4 garlic cloves peeled

 - mustard ( I used good “ole” colemans)

 - chicken - I used organic from SQ

 - 5 tbsp chicken stock( I used 1 Kallo organic stock cube even though I know Sarah wouldn’t agree but one word “children”!!!!!:)

 - 125 ml white wine

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - olive oil

what to do:

 - pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees

 - place the garlic and onions in an oven dish, season and pour in some olive oil.

 - using your hands cover the outside of the chicken with mustard, don’t be afraid to use loads as you don’t taste it but it gives loads of flavour. I always do this with roast beef and lamb too!

 -  place your chicken on top of your onions , season and drizzle with olive oil and cook for 35 mins.

 - the recipe doesn’t include potatoes but I love one tray meals so I cooked some new potatoes cut into quarters in salted water until a little tender and then drained them and added to tray.

 - turn the chicken over, pour in the wine, add your potatoes and cook for another 25 mins!! I added my stock here too! Add more during cooking if onions are drying out!

 - turn the chicken again and cook for 10 mins until skin is golden and crispy and serve!!

buon appetito!!

I thought it time for a recipe after all this talk of Italy so something simple and very easy and in season on the cards today. I ventured into the market on Saturday and picked up lots of veg, cheese and duck eggs. I often make this recipe but normally with free-range eggs so I thought it perfect for my first experience as a duck egg virgin!! I’m plagiarising from Taste Italia again to bring you some of their seasonal selection but I’ll add in my own recipes just to give it the Italian foodie stamp!

lamb(agnello) - I’ve talked about lamb numerous times on this blog:

 - noisettes of lamb with rosemary and garlic

 - roast lamb with anchovies and herbs

 - rack of lamb with a mustard and rosemary crust

 - lamb chops with rosemary and garlic

carrots(carote) - tbh I rarely cook carrots on their own, I mainly use them in soups or the base for tomato sauce or bolognese.

new potatoes - roast potatoes feature quite regularly in the italian foodie house.
 
asparagus(asparagi) - another fave in our house even if it is from Peru and the likes most of the time:(

 - asparagus and parma ham

 - asparagus bruschetta

and today’s recipe:

Our week in Italy feels like a distant memory already, it’s amazing how you just slip back into normal life so fast but hey we’re planning the next one already in June so I’m afraid lots of posts about Italy in the future but I’m sure you won’t mind!! Our main concern going was how the princess was going to survive the plane journey but of course after all the worry she was perfect and had a ball. I’m sure Aer Lingus are still peeling off Barney stickers from the back of the seats in row 5, thank god for Barney!! We arrived Easter Sunday night to lashing rain, what’s new, every time we go on holidays it is always raining when we arrive whether it be the summer or winter time and it doesn’t matter what country either. I’ll give you a few examples, Lanzarote a couple of years back, it rained for the week, we even had to buy new shoes because we only brought one pair and they got saturated the first night so we had to go shopping for some warm clothes and shoes. Sicily 2 years ago, we arrived and it was beautiful, we walked down to the beach to have a look around and it started to rain and it continued for 2 days. August in Atina 3 years ago, it rained every day for 2 weeks at 2 o’clock on the button, not just rain either, the worst thunder storms in years, my sister’s wedding 2 weeks ago - it rained all day. The thing is every time this happens everyone says how strange it is and how great the weather has been so I’ve come to the conclusion “yes it is us”, so I’ll give you all advance notice whenever we go away for a weekend or a holiday just so you can make sure you don’t go to the same place as us:) - I’m serious!!!

So we arrived late that night and had missed the Easter feast but there was loads of leftovers so lots of lasagne, lamb, pizza rustica and Italian desserts were consumed before bed.

The weather was really bad for the first few days so we did a lot of relaxing, eating, shopping and watching Italian Big Brother and Italian X Factor, yes they have all this rubbish TV too!! I’ve mentioned before that Bru’s aunt has a restaurant in Atina which I will do a separate post on so we didn’t eat out too much as we ate there and at the apartment with “chef MIL” most of the time. We ate at a very simple local fish restaurant for lunch one day and had beautiful swordfish, linguine with clams, fried squid and fish antipasto.

I’m always amazed at the difference in quality of fruit and veg in Italy compared to Ireland, the market was cancelled because of Easter but this was the selection available in the local supermarket;

Atina itself is very small and is situated between Rome and Naples, it is up in the mountains so it does tend to get a bit more rain than other parts but it is so beautiful and untouched.
 
                                          
We hadn’t been in 3 years and absolutely nothing had changed, it is so old and rustic and very characteristic which is probably boring for the young people that live there which there are very few of anyway these days as most of them move to Rome, it’s inhabitants seem to be on the older side and in the holidays all the returning immigrants and their families. It is the perfect place to retire as there is a very relaxed pace of life and a great little community, they even have a club for the older “gentlemen” where they play billiards etc and all stand outside all day chatting or watching a foot path being fixed,  oh to have the time to stand around watching builders at work:)

There isn’t a huge social scene there at night as there are only a couple of local bars to have an aperitif or a couple of beers during the day and it is soooooo cheap, €3 for 2 Peroni and €5 for a bottle of local house wine. I even photographed the receipt to prove it:)

The FIL enjoys himself while he is there and who are we to say no to a couple of proseco at 11.30 in the morning:) God I love aperitivo and the free nibbles “stuzzichini”, I’m sorry but it beats a pint of Guinness and a packet of dry roasted any day!!;)

There are a lot of emigrants like the FIL who return on a regular basis from all over the world and probably most Italian fish and chip shops in Ireland are owned by Italians from this area. One of the FIL’s friend’s has been very successful and has a huge architect company based in Rome which designs all the Armani stores and Italian banks etc. Bru’s cousin Pasquale is working for him and is currently in China as project manager for 2 Armani shops and 2 Armani cafes!! It is this friend who owns the Ferrari pictured in my last post, as successful as he is he is one of the nicest guys you could meet. He gave us the keys to the Ferrari and we had a look around inside and took a few photos much to the amusement of the locals, “tourists” I could hear them thinking but hey I’ve never even seen a Ferrari in Ireland and to maintain Bru’s rep I took all the pics, they all think I’m from Sweden anyway:)!!

The same guy has his own wine “cantina” where he stores his wine collection and opens it to the public during the wine festival in August. This is quite common in Italy, I spoke about the wine festival we went to a couple of years back where we visited about 35 cantina and had a couple of glasses in each one which resulted in a very sore head the next day:)

I love the pace of life in Italy, everything is centred around food, cappuccino and cornetti at the bar in the morning, an aperitivo before lunch, a long lunch, a bit of shopping, an aperitivo before dinner, a big dinner and then a digestif and a passigiatta - pure heaven!!! The princess loved it there even though she wasn’t too happy with everyone trying to kiss her all the time “bacioni”, even the other babies kiss each other but she still has too much Irish in her which will have to be beaten out of her;) They even made her “babychino” at the bar every morning - an espresso cup with the froth of the milk and when she’s finished with that her spoon goes into mine, she’s a bit addicted to coffee tbh, she kept trying to stick a spoon into every one’s espresso and of course they were all letting her as they thought it was so cute, it hasn’t been so cute every morning since we came back and she has decided it’s time to move on to cappuccino and “babychino” is only for babies not 16 month olds:)

Ciao!!

p.s. thank god I don’t go to Italy that often because all this photo uploading is driving me crazy!!!:)