Yoghurt like you've never tasted before!

Glenisk Upfront & Personal Dawson Street Pop Up Store opened at the start of May and will remain open until the end of August. The store offers full range of Glenisk's organic yoghurts, creme fraiche, fresh milk and cream, as well as prepared dishes, both sweet and savoury, demonstrating the versatility of Glenisk products.

The menu changes daily to reflect the best of local, seasonal produce. The dishes are healthy, delicious, reasonably priced and feature many leading Irish food producers, including Burren Smokehouse Organic Salmon and Goatsbridge Trout. Each savoury dish is served with rosemary & olive oil crostini baked daily by the Paris Bakery located on Moore Street.

I've found out that starting from Thursday 27th June, the shop will be holding a series of free pop-up cookery demonstrations with Christine Jordan - foodie expert and cookery tutor, who has spent three months developing recipes for the store.  I've contacted the shop through their Facebook page to reserve a place and received a very quick reply confirming my booking for Thursday lunchtime demonstration. I've arrived in the shop just before 1 o'clock and was offered a raspberry smoothie freshly made by the lovely Aoife. There were few more ladies waiting and after few minutes we were shown upstairs where the demonstration was about to take place. The lesson lasted about 50 minutes during which Christine showed us how to prepare simple yet very tasty dishes, such as summery finger food platter, fresh zesty salads with healthy yoghurt based dressings and super-fast summery dessert platter.

I've found it amazing that during such a short time Christine was able to create a wonderful spread of yummy dishes that would be perfect for entertaining, picnics and BBQ's. I also think that some of the dishes would be ideal for kids parties (strawberry pops with orange and vanilla creme fraiche). We were able to taste all of the dishes at the end of the demonstration and they were absolutely delicious!!

My favourite dish was the smoked salmon and new potato salad with dill and yoghurt and of course all the mini desserts, mmmmm, they were so yummy!!!!!

We've received copies of the recipes and I will be definitely trying them out. We've also received some Glenisk goodies to take home, which I thought was a lovely touch.

If you are in the area, working or maybe just visiting Dublin city centre I would definitely recommend to register for one of the classes. I know I definitely will be back next month, this time with my teenage niece to prove to her that healthy food can also be very delicious!

Arnotts Cook Month

On Monday 13th May, Dublin department store Arnotts in association with Miele, Kenwood and Expert Electrical launched their inaugural "Arnotts Cook Month". During the next few weeks a series of exciting in-store events and demonstrations will take place as Arnotts, Miele and Kenwood will host a selection of well-known Irish chefs, such as Clodagh McKenna, Neven Maguire, Edward Hayden, Domini Kemp and Oliver Dunne joined by food writers and bloggers Sophie Morris and Ron and Mona Wise. For full schedule of events/ demonstrations look here Arnotts Cook Month

I am a big fan of Neven Maguire. I've got a few of his books and love trying out his recipes, up to now every single one of them has been a success! Neven uses ingredients that are widely available and his dishes are easy to recreate at home. Last Christmas Mr PB presented me with a gift card for Neven's restaurant in Blacklion, County Cavan which we will be visiting next month, I'm sure we are in for a treat!!!

I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see Neven "in action", so I went to Dublin city centre on Thursday afternoon to watch Neven doing a cookery demonstration in Arnotts Henry Street window.
As I expected, Neven was fabulous; funny and entertaining, full of passion for food which he tried to share with the audience but to be honest I didn't really like the window demo setup. We could see Neven making all this amazing dishes but we could't smell anything, Neven was not able to hear us and although we are in the middle of May it was cold and wet and after 20 minutes I was freezing!!!!!

Still, the demonstration was fantastic. Neven made prawns in kataifi pastry for starter, Thornhill duck breast served with cabbage, sweet potato fondants and honey & cloves sauce for main, passion fruit jelly with yoghurt as a palate cleanser, cute mini creme brulees and MacNean cheesecake with Coole Swan, white chocolate and strawberries.
Everything looked delicious and I'm planning to make all of the dishes at home for a special Sunday dinner.

Ballymaloe Literary Festival

Ballymaloe Cookery School is without question Ireland's most famous cookery school. The school was established in 1983, is based in beautiful little village of Shanagarry, Co. Cork and is owned and run by Darina Allen - called by many the "grand dame" of Irish cooking. There will be a separate post about the school but today I would like to tell you about the fantastic event that I was able to attend last weekend.

From 3rd to 6th May, the Ballymaloe team hosted first ever Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine. On Thursday, just 1 day before the opening of the festival I've received a message from "Food and Wine" magazine that I was the lucky winner of a VIP pass, which allowed me to attend any of the events taking place during the festival. The prize was sponsored by "Foods of Spain" and the Spanish Embassy. It was a fantastic surprise and I was delighted!! Unfortunately, due to our busy work schedule, we couldn't get to the festival on Saturday but we decided to leave for Ballymaloe very early on Sunday morning. It took us just over two hours to get to Midleton. I must say the signposting for Ballymaloe is pretty terrible but after taking a few wrong turns and having to ask a few passers-by for directions, we finally arrived at the Ballymaloe House.



We started with a little stroll around the Ballymaloe House, shop and cafe.

After our walk we visited the Big Shed where lots of free events were taking place throughout the weekend. With live music, farmers market food stalls, craft corner, wine talks and tastings, book signings and many other activities, the place was buzzing. Looking at all the delicious food has made us hungry, so we decided to sample some Spanish food from Silvia Iglesias Hilara Spanish Food stall (after all it was the Spanish Embassy that sponsored my VIP pass!) and some lovely apple juice from Mealagulla Orchards.

After our little lunch, we decided to have a look at the cookery school, farm shop and gardens. I would love to do the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe at some stage (still saving for it!) and was curious to see the school and student cottages.

The cookery school is located in the middle of its own 100-acre organic farm. The gardens surrounding the school are wonderful and the school itself is modern and well-equipped. It would be such a fantastic experience to be able to spend 3 months here. Who knows, maybe next year?

There were many workshops, talks and demonstrations taking place during the festival and I was able to attend one of the most exciting cookery demonstrations with three past Ballymaloe students: Rachel Allen, Thomasina Miers and Stevie Parle.

Thomasina Miers is an English cook, writer and TV presenter. In 2005 she won the British MasterChef. Thomasina is the founder of the "Wahaca" chain of Mexican diners.

Stevie worked in some of the best restaurants in England, opened his own "Dock Kitchen" and has written 3 award winning cookery books.

And finally - Rachel Allen. Rachel is an Irish celebrity chef, known for her work on television and as a writer, she also teaches at the Ballymaloe School. Rachel Allen is one of my favourite Irish celebrity chefs and there will be a separate post about her.

The demonstration was absolutely amazing: funny and educational. The chefs have shown us how to make:
Caramelised scallop, avocado and orange salad with spices
Luxurious chicken liver toasts
Easy goat's cheese souffles with spiced almond crust
Chicken roasted in pomegranate molasses&mastic with braised broad beans
Asparagus thoran
Lemongrass coconut cake
Dulce de leche cake
Madeleines
We were able to sample all of the dishes after the demonstration.  Everything was delicious but suprisingly, my favourite dish was the goat's cheese souffle (I don't really like goat's cheese) and that will be the first dish on my "to re-create at home" list.

The demonstration finished at 6pm, we spent another hour doing a bit of shopping (stocking up on Ballymaloe Country Relish, lovely olive oil and spices) and as we had to be back to work the next morning, we decided to drive back to Dublin.

I had a really great day and I am only sorry that we couldn't stay longer...Thanks very much to all involved, thank you "Food of Spain" for the fantastic prize and last but not least: thank you Mr PB for driving me to Cork and spending the day there with me.