Nenaghgal Wishes Her Fellow Americans a Happy Thanksgiving

I'm doing a very speedy blog post this morning about Thanksgiving, mainly because there was a bit of back and forth on Twitter yesterday with some other fellow Americans about the stuffing I make each year.

So, I'm up early and thought I'd quickly scan some images from my book At Home in Nantucket (sorry this was before digital so had to scan!) and this amazing home which we set up for Thanksgiving- at the end it include the recipe!

Nantucket is famous for it's beautiful lightship baskets but this one was actually made by the home owner Susan Boardman.The dining table is a beautiful English 18th century piece.

The napkin holders here are old gypsy clothes pins and the plates and bowls are a beautiful woven design based on the Nantucket lightship baskets.

The recipe for my stuffing is above. I do mix it up a bit each year- sometimes I do celery instead of fennel and this year I made my own bread cubes because I found it does not work as well with bread crumbs as are so commonly used here in Ireland. I miss the bags of croutons that you can get in the bagfuls in America although I expect they are loaded with horrible preservatives so I'm anxious to see how it turns out this year. I'll try to take some photos of the preparation.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone - have a wonderful day.

Nenaghgal Falls in Love with Lough Derg Chocolates

I'm always excited when I discover a new business but nothing pleases me more to find a new local business. Last Saturday at the Nenagh Farmer's Market in Quintin's Way, I discovered the brand new company Lough Derg Chocolates. Run by the charming Malachy (above) and his wife Elaine, Lough Derg Chocolates is based in Newtown and is the latest new business in the food category for North Tipperary.

Malachy worked previously in the construction industry  but when that dried up he decided to train as a chocolatier. His new lifestyle suits him well and you can feel his passion for his product.

 These are the boxed chocolates which include 12 pieces of chocolate for €8.95. They also have fabulous big bars of chocolate. I love the packaging on these large boxes.

 Chocolate Santas and snowmen.

 Chocolate lollipops cost .80 cent.  They also have cello bags of truffles, Sophia and I picked up the mint truffles which were delicious.

You can find Lough Derg Chocolates at the Nenagh Farmer's Market in Quintin's Way every Saturday morning but they are also at the Milk Market in Limerick on Fridays. I'm pretty sure you are going to see them on sale in shops throughout Ireland in the very near future.
Check out more on their website, Lough Derg Chocolates or LIKE them on Facebook. But be sure to buy some and try them out yourselves, the perfect local gift for Christmas this year!!

Nenaghgal Goes to a Mexican Cooking Demo at Old Farm

On Saturday the 5th, Sophia and I once again headed off for the day. Our weekends have been so busy this autumn - hard to resist heading off to do something when there are so many things going on throughout the country. This time it was for a Mexican Cooking Demonstration given by Lily Remirez- Foran who writes the  wonderful blog A Mexican Cook in Ireland. Margaret O'Farrell and Alfie McCaffrey hosted the day at their place, known as Old Farm. This is where they raise free range pigs and homegrown veggies, chickens etc. You can read more on their website or their blog, A Year in Redwood. The table, above,  in Old Farm's kitchen was laden with all the delicious ingredients we were going to use including a big piece of fabulous pork.

The menu included two types of salsa and to follow re fried beans, the pork dish, a pepper, cheese and corn salad and corn tortillas which we made ourselves.

Lily started off the day teaching us about making salsas, which many of us assumed were made from cold ingredients but those are really pico de gallo. Salsas are simple and made from about 7 tomatoes, whole with stems off. 1 scallion, 1 clove of garlic and 1 chili pepper. Pop a drop of oil in the bottom of the pan and then put it on the hob high until it sizzles, then turn down and cover for a good half an hour or so. Then take all the cooked ingredients and whizz up in the blender with some salt and pepper. Perfect salsa.

The green salsa, below, is made exactly the same was although it uses tomatillos instead of tomatoes. Lily told us as fresh tomatillos are so hard to find, canned ones worked equally well. I loved the Nicholas Mosse bowls that were on hand for the day - these are their small angle bowls and are really perfect for serving salsas. Not sure if I like the Forget Me Not pattern (above) or Old Rose more. Anyway, I'm getting off track.

Next was the Cochinita Pipil a simple pork dish (yes, that is a beautiful piece of Old Farm pork) made in a pressure cooker and using the simplest of ingredients. You can get the recipe from Lily's Blog in her post on the 24th May.

Basically though it's 2 kilos of pork, tomatoes, this paste made from a Mexican spice mixture called achiote and a whole clove off garlic, with the peel still on. Put in the pressure cooker for about and hour and you have the most delicious pork dish.

The pork dish is accompanied by a picked union relish which is fabulous.

One hour later, here is the pork all cooked and everything has practically disintegrated inside the pot for  a thick tasty stew like dish.

Next we made our own tortillas. Here are several shots of Sophia mastering the technique. It was very easy and I look forward to doing this more at home.

Tortillas stacked next to the hob after being cooked. Everyone participated in making them and cooking them.

The day was incredibly bright and unseasonably lovely for Ireland so us "Foodie Bloggers" took some of the food outside to take advantage of the gorgeous natural light. Also there was Mona Wise who writes the blog, Wise Words. Do head over to her blog for her account of the day. And Margaret has also written about it on her blog, A Year in Redwood.

This is a Mexican flan which Lily actually made in the microwave, the simplest dessert - it's thick and sweet and like custard. The recipe for this is also on her blog, check out her post on the 22nd of June.

As it got chillier, we set the table up inside for our feast. Large bowls from Nicholas Mosse served each dish  perfectly. Lily's niece, who is visiting from Mexico and learning English here in Ireland demonstrated the best way to prepare and eat a tortilla.

Using the back of a spoon, first smear the re fried beans onto the tortilla. Then add the first filling.

When you've got all the ingredients in, just roll it  up and eat it!

We had some Irish beers also on the day- the micro-brewery industry has really taken off recently here which is very exciting. We had 8 Degrees produced in Cork and O'Hara's made by the Carlow Brewing Company. Both were delicious.
Mona and her husband brought these delicious spicy muffins topped with a cream cheese and carrot glaze.

This is the view from Old Farm- can you see what an amazing day it was. Many thanks to everyone involved - Lily we loved learning about Mexican food- Margaret and Alfie, thanks for being such great hosts and it was lovely to meet everyone else. The perfect day. Can't wait until the next one!
Oh and a side note: Lily has recently taken over a Mexican food website which she is re-naming to My Mexican Shop and the new site will be up and running very soon. She will be selling loads of Mexican spices and pepper, tortillas etc. so keep and eye out for that launch. You can read more about it on her blog post of 29th September. And of course, if you want some free range pork for Christmas get your order into Old Farm - it's going fast.

Nenaghgal Makes Butternut Squash Soup

I love making soup in the winter. It's simple, it's in-expensive and thankfully we all seem to like it. It's the perfect lunch with a sandwich or salad and then it lasts for several days so I can also take it to work.

I seldom measure my ingredients for soup but I'll give you the basic run through.

Start off with 1 butternut squash. Cut in half it and take out the seeds. Lay skin side down in a roasting pan (  I picked up this fantastic orange enamelled pan a few years ago for a photo shoot and I always love roasting my veggies in it as it looks so bright, colourful and happy)

Set the oven at 200 centigrade. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil and add salt and pepper on top.

Pop into the oven for approximately 30 minutes.

Since I had extra apples on hand - not cooking apples just some nice eating variety, I think these are Gala, I decided to add 3 or 4 apples into the soup as well. Peel them and core them and cut into chunks.

Here's the roasted squash out of the oven. It should be all soft and ready to scoop out into the pot.

Sauté one large yellow onion in about 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Sauté until soft.

Scoop out the inside of the squash and add to the onions.

Add the apple chunks and continue sauteing for about 5 minutes.

Add chicken stock, now I seriously do not measure, I literally add a stock cube and then pour boiling water from the kettle until it reach about a quarter from the top. If I were to guess, I'd say it's about 3-4 cups of water.

Here are the skins of the squash after the insides have been taken out.

Let all the ingredients simmer away for about half an hour or so.

Whizz up with the hand blender. This has been the best tool I ever got for the kitchen as I used to ladle from the pot to a blender and back and forth - all those steps used to drive me crazy. Now a quick whizz with the hand blender and it's all done. Then I add 1 can of reduced fat coconut milk. Recently, I really love using coconut milk in my soups instead of condensed milk.

And voilà, it's all done- a bit more salt and pepper to taste and you are good to go.

I served mine in a mug with tomato and cheese quesadillas. Warming and filling for a rainy Saturday lunch.

I did the exact same soup using pumpkin instead of squash. Pumpkin has a wonderful flavour and I just took 1 small pumpkin, cut it in half, took out seeds, cut into chunks and took the skin off and then roasted it like the squash for 30 minutes, the rest of the steps are exactly the same. I think I might have added a bit of curry powder in to that one for a slight change.

Happy cooking and as always, I love to hear your comments or other soup suggestions.

Nenaghgal Lunches at The Watergarden Cafe in Thomastown

On Friday, I brought Sophia to work with me as she was on her October break. We went to The Watergarden Cafe, on Ladywell Street in Thomastown which is just an easy 10 minute drive away. Sophia really enjoys trying new foods so it's a pleasure to lunch together.

I loved their autumnal theme in the window.

The cover of their menus caught Sophia's eye and our table was beautifully painted.

When we arrived, Sophia exclaimed with delight, "they have goat cheese ciabatta". She's been an avid fan of goat cheese from a very young age so she of course ordered that (below).

And I ordered a salad plate with hummus and some other spicy spread (the name of which escapes me now). The salads that accompanied our meals were absolutely fabulous. The cucumber salad had a mint marinade over it which was so un-expected and utterly delicous. The freshness and simple presentation was just what we had hoped for.

The Watergarden Cafe is run by members of the nearby  Camphill Community

which is for people with intellectual disabilities and otehr kinds of special needs. There are about 18 of these communities throughout Ireland and the cafe is run by members who belong to the local Jerpoint Community. They live about 5km outside of Thomastown in 18th century buildings that were once part of the neighbouring Mount Juliet estate. Here they have an extensive vegetable and herb garden along with a small holding with pigs, cows and chickens.

Outside the cafe itself in Thomastown there is a magificent garden, on the wall is the colourful mosaic featured on the cover of the menu.

It's a lovely spot to bring children and have a quiet lunch on a lovely day.

Here's Sophia on the bridge.

I loved this beautiful doorway into another part of the garden- these charming ceramic ladybugs and flowers decorated the surround.

The gardens were charming and laid out in an inventive way.

Loved this sunny seating spot.

And the striking monkey puzzle tree.

They also have a gallery space and plants for sale.

Sophia and I were truly impressed with our meal and now we'd like to get down and see their bigger garden and farm in Jerpoint.

Be sure to put this on your list of places to get to if you are down in Kilkenny in the near future.

The Watergarden Cafe is on Ladywell Street, Thomastown and you can ring them at 056-7724690.