Bruschetta is one of the most appealing things on the Italian menu, but the white bread makes it a little unhealthy.  Our reader Nicola gave us a suggestion for a healthy bruschetta, and also shared a great recipe for baked couscous, another nutritious choice. Bruschetta 6 vine tomatoes, chopped Dressing: 1 clove garlic crushed 4 [...]

Have you ever tried black rice?  It’s available in most Asian shops but it’s something I rarely see on menus.  I first had it in a delicious salad,  in an amazing vegetarian restaurant in New York (it was years ago and I have tragically forgotten its name) and have been cooking it at home ever [...]

I’ve been trawling through the very excellent BBC Good Food website in order to learn some new healthy dishes and avoid dying of boredom while eating healthily.  I found many lovely recipes including a great one for Sicilian Fish Stew. I tried it out, made a few tweaks, used a generous hand with the lemon [...]

We put the call out for interesting but healthy recipes last week and a few of our commenters came back with some real gems.  Lovely long time reader and commenter Nanazolie shared this delicious veggie lasagne recipe with us.  It’s hard to imagine a lasagne being healthy, but if you use wholemeal pasta and go [...]

We’re all about the healthy eating here at the moment (except for the occasional lapses when we will be stuffing jellies into our faces, obviously).  I am keen to expand my repertoire of healthy dishes this Spring, and have been poking around in both my store cupboard and my favourite food websites for new inspiration. [...]

At last! Tomorrow, Aldi are opening up in Sandyford, south county Dublin. If, like me, you refused to drive past several branches of Lidl to get to Aldi in Nutgrove, this will be very good news indeed. Aldi don’t stock the very amazing Fruchtsaft or cheap organic potatoes – until they do, I won’t be [...]

This is a very tasty, cheap and easy midweek supper containing one of my favourite ingredients, fennel. Unbelievably good roasted. This served two large portions, but would easily stretch to three lunches or lighter dinners. The parsley brings some much needed colour and an added freshness to the dish. I only use wholewheat penne; it [...]

Flip! It’s cold. Autumn swept in at precisely 6.20pm on Sunday evening, as we sat in front of the main stage at Electric Picnic. I’m still recovering from that fantastic weekend, and my wallet has taken something of a hammering too. This is a rescue recipe. Supplied by my lovely friend Paula White, it has, [...]

Autumn is quietly beginning to knock. The wasps have grown fat and exhausted trying to harvest the fruit of my dad’s plum tree, but they’ve barely made a dent. Dad is eager to offload the plums on random passersby, as he reckons it’s a matter of weeks, if not days, before this year’s unusually generous [...]

Liver never quite recovered from Hannibal Lecter’s slimy endorsement. But in most animals, the liver is often the tastiest part: think pâté and the wistful, slurpy looks of people over 50 when they gross out their children with happy memories of liver and onions. Liver crops up on many restaurant menus, and not just in [...]