Catherine Fulvio, Darina and Rachel Allen, and Kevin Thornton are among the top chefs featured in Get Mellow Go Yellow, a yellow-themed recipe booklet to raise funds for the Meningitis Trust. The booklet, which costs just €5, can be downloaded at www.mykidstime.ie. The lemon cupcakes look good!

Bread doesn’t have to mean sandwiches and breakfast toast. As these Nigel Slater recipes show, bread can make a summer salad more substantial or make a side dish more filling. His ‘Salad of peas, beans and bread’ is an unusual combination and the perfect dish if the usual leafy salad doesn’t quite satisfy or fill [...]

Last week I gave a gushing review of ‘Made in Italy – Food and Stories’ by Giorgio Locatelli and my admiration for this Italian recipe book has not waned. In fact, since trying out a few more recipes, I have not stopped banging on about it to friends. I think they’re still my friends. The [...]

Although it has been out for a couple of years, I have only just come across the incredible Italian cookbook ‘Made in Italy – Food and Stories’ by Giorgio Locatelli. I have been a fan of his since seeing his recipes in the Observer Food Monthly but having over 600 pages of his dishes is [...]

A few years back I was at an endangered species bbq. Okay, we didn’t actually whack a whole load of endangered critters on the grill but cooked up some unusual meats. We got them from Downey’s butchers in Terenure which offer up a large selection of gourmet game. We weren’t just trying to be mean [...]

I’ve always imagined that raspberries and strawberries fight when our backs are turned. Sure, by all means, put them together on a pavlova and they’ll appear very well behaved,  but leave the room for a few minutes and they’re at battle stations. I felt the need to take sides in this war, and sidled up [...]

I’m not a natural cook at all. I usually have to follow a recipe with the exception of a few staple dishes that I have been cooking for years. I’m good at baking but I think that’s because it’s all about measurements and I tend to treat cooking like a science. My husband has the [...]

I’ve recently discovered Yotam Ottolenghi’s innovative and inventive take on vegetarian food. The chef’s exciting approach to Mediterranean cooking is experimental with bold flavours and pure ingredients. Finding new ways to make vegetarian food interesting is always good so I’ll definitely be buying his book Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. Some of his dishes include white and [...]

Getting the roast potatoes right on Christmas day is always a challenge because there are a million and one other things to do. I have the answer – or at least Heston does. From his book ‘In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics’, Heston Blumenthal’s recipe for roast potatoes is the best I have come [...]

Competition Closed at 4pm, Tuesday Oct 13. Check back tomorrow to see if you’re a winner. Cooking is a feel-good act anyway, but if you want to tip the scales of generally feeling fabulous, then make the next cookery book you buy ‘Zest’, the proceeds of which will go to the Irish Hospice Foundation. About [...]