We’ve been fortunate this Christmas, with samples of festive treats coming from Superquinn and now Marks & Spencer. They sent us a bag with some party food, sweet Christmas treats and a festive soup. Mini Chicken Kievs (€6.79) – these little breaded kievs can be oven baked. I’ve been ranting on here recently about how [...]

I’ve been at a couple of Christmas events in pubs recently where party food was served. You’ll all be familiar with what we got: large platters of food all the colours of the beige rainbow. Sausages, wedges, onion bhajis, chicken goujons, chips, garlic mushrooms. Everything was deep fried. One particularly dreadful platter came accompanied with [...]

Superquinn recently sent us a nifty cooler bag with a selection of festive foods to try out and write about here.  They chose a few items from their traditional Christmas range – Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and cranberry sauce; and some party foods – cocktail sausages, pate and ribs.  The bag also contained a bottle [...]

I was in The Port House on South William Street over the weekend which is one of my favourite tapas places in the city. They do a delicious dish of Deep fried cubed potatoes served with a selection of sauces for €3.95 each. My favourite is the Patatas Mojo which is potatoes served with a [...]

Samosa are great party food but they don’t have to be Asian, Indian or even savoury. If you’re looking for a healthy alternative to apple tart, why not give this apple samosa a try. This hand-held dessert will go down well in a crowd and are totally delicious. If you are after something savoury; these [...]

Well, if like me, you’re planning on having a few over for food and want to serve up some interesting finger food; Arancini are the perfect and elegant bite for when people are standing around with drinks. They are deep-fried rice balls made from saffron risotto rice with a mozzarella centre. You can also 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 [...]

I know there are bigger things to be angry about in the world but it really annoys me when recipe books assume you have an ice cream maker. You come across a tantalising ice cream recipe and excitedly race through the instructions to disappointingly come across “now place the mixture in your ice cream maker [...]

Reading on BBC online, it appears that the latest conflict between Lebanon and Israel is all about hummus – please note that’s hummus not Hamas. The delicious spread, made from chickpeas is usually blended with sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. It has been eaten in the Middle East for centuries, though [...]

I don’t want to sound like an ol’ biddy but Halloween is getting really commercial. I did live a fairly Dickensian childhood but when I was a young lass; all the decorations were handmade, weeks were spent sowing costumes and, with the exception of monkey nuts, all treats were homemade. Of course, to be honest, [...]