‘…food was all around me, and now my belly shows.’  This Christmas was a particularly epic one on the food front for Peter and me, and now it’s time to look into smartening up our act and shrinkening down our Christmas bellies. I’m not going to follow any particular diet as counting calories makes me [...]

Restaurants don’t tout for business here. I’ve seen it along tourist strips and on various travels in non-Western countries, but until recently, I’d never seen someone standing on an Irish street trying to lure me in. I’ve mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the Indian Curry Club’s approach is far from intimidating: I [...]

My friend Asad once prepared a delicious chicken biryani for a group of us using left over chicken and a hodgepodge of ingredients.  We were on holidays in a rented house and only had what we’d brought, but it was one of the nicest biryanis I’ve ever had. It’s a great way to use up [...]

I love the East End range of Indian spices which you can pick up from any Asian store. One of my favourites is the Tandoori Masala that has the most pungent aroma. I made this recipe up as I went along and rustled together these Tandoori chicken kebabs last night using the Tandoori masala powder. [...]

I’m always dubious when someone tells me they’ve discovered the best Indian restaurant in Ireland. More often than not, it turns out to be very good indeed – but also very, very similar to most Indian food served in Ireland. Seven pieces of identically shaped chicken or lamb, swirling in lots of sauce, and served [...]

It has been a great summer so far for growing and the strawberries haven’t let me down. They taste unbelievably flavoursome and are the stawberriest strawberries I’ve ever tasted. This is the first year I have grown the fruit and I had no idea that there would be such a bevy of them. In fact, [...]

I love Indian food and feast on it at least once a week but I just haven’t got the cooking down yet. I am comparing myself to my husband who makes the most amazing curries. This is one recipe that I will be taking on. I have observed that the secret to a great curry [...]

Mince is one of the things that’s most frequently on offer in supermarkets, and I picked up two packs for the price of one in Superquinn the other day, thanks to Peter’s tip-off.  I made a batch of spaghetti bolognese with the first pack and was looking for something a bit out of the ordinary [...]

This great recipe comes from Hazel McFadden, cookery tutor at The Kitchen in the Castle in Howth. A couple of years ago, Hazel taught me on a month-long professional cookery course, and she is a brilliant teacher – patient, precise, caring and fantastic at cooking. Hazel and her husband, chef Neil McFadden, are the creative [...]

Following on from Tuesday’s post on cookbooks, another one of my favourite books is ‘Just One Pot’ by Lindsey Bareham. What I love about this book is the recipes cover a whole range of cuisines including – India, France, Trinidad, Spain and Thailand amongst others. As you can tell from the title, all the dishes [...]