Avoca-Powerscourt noms

Out in the extremely lovely Enniskerry is Powerscourt House and gardens. The views and house alone are worth going for. What makes it even more attractive is that there's an avoca restaurant there :). The restaurant runs nearly the whole length of the back of the house. Several huge bay windows run the whole way down the restaurant. I wasn't lucky enough to get one of those tables. There's also a very large patio out the back with unreal views.

Blue skies make me happy.

I got a vegetarian Pastie which was AMAZING!

The Happy Pear II

This was my 2nd time going to The Happy Pear. I don't know why I don't go more often because it's quite near me. Anyway I went on Friday

They just do specials everyday, as far as I'm aware. I got the Cheesy Lentil Bake, which was unreal. It was so tasty. It was kind of curried as well. I need to try make it sometime. I also got 2 side salads. I went with a potato salad with semi sundried tomatoes that was all in some dressing along with some stir-fried vegetables.

Purple potatoes!

After the meal, I drank some really shit coffee that just tasted like warm soy milk. And went on some house creeping around Greystones. SO MANY amazing houses.

Cookies/Picnic

I got a craving the other night for some sort of an oaty/peanut butter cookie. So I looked through some cookbooks and found a recipe for just an oaty cookie. So I made that but added peanut butter. They tasted shit anyway.

I went to Airfield on Thrusday with Lisa and Stacey. We had originally planned to have a little picnic but it was way to cold for that. So we went back to Stacey's house. I made some pasta with pesto, chilli, grilled slices of peppers and grilled cherry tomatoes. And brought some left over of 'The Bean Thing' from the previous nights dinner. It's always so yummy. Oh and a few cupcakes I had made the day before. I made them vegan again but tried a different recipe that used chocolate soy milk instead of oil. They weren't the best. Really heavy and not as moist.

Cornucopia Whole food vegetarian restaurant take 2!

I went on a little adventure into Town yesterday with my Mom. There are a lot of areas she isn't really aware of or just hasn't been to in years. We had intentions of doing a lot more exploring but it started to rain.

I firstly brought her on my daily route to college. Across the bridge from tara, up Eden Quay and then up marlbouragh st. I promised her she would see a million pikeys because I'm always telling her about them always been on that street. But of course there was not ONE! Typical. I showed her my college anyway.

We did a bit more exploring and then for lunch. We went to Cornucopia on Wicklow st. I have only been there once before, with her.(http://walkingdogsandwritingblogs.blogspot.com/2010/07/cornucopia-whole-food-vegetarian.html) I need to go more but don't having friends who are up for eating pricey vegetarian food over something cheap is hard to come by.

I don't have great photos of our meal on me right now. I didn't have my digital camera with me, only my film one. I took some photos on my phone though.

I went with the Sweet potato, celeriac and spinach ragout with organic brown rice.

side salads-Garlic potatoes with roasted hazelnuts and a barley salad.

My mom got a Tomato, mushroom and puy lentil soup. She got a herby bread that came with a butternut squash and almond puree/pate thing. She also got a side of ceasar salad and some other simple salad.

The food here is so flavorsome and tasty. So many flavors going on at once. I wish I could cook food like this. The food served here is a fine example of how vegetarian/vegan food isn't bland and boring, as some people may think. I always get asked 'what the hell can/do you eat?'.

I was way to full to get a dessert. I took a fair bit of my meal to take a way. You get very large portions.

This all cost around 20 euro. Not to bad. Well not bad when you're mom is paying :D.

I think I am going to The Happy Pear in Greystones on Friday for the 2nd time. I will report back.

First time vegan baking

I wanted to try vegan baking. Apart from the obvious healthier benefits from vegan baking (less saturated fat from the eggs and butter), I'm always conscious of my use of eggs in baking. I don't use them or like using them in anything else. I'm reading a book called 'Eating Animals'-http://www.eatinganimals.com/ , that has really opened up my eyes to the factory farming industry out there that I had always thought about. Every time I read it I'm thinking, go vegan go vegan. Maybe someday. I know one girl who read it and she turned vegetarian. If you are vegetarian or vegan allready, I recommend you read it! It's extremely interesting. Although most of the content in the book is based on US animal and agriculture standards. As far as I'm aware, EU laws are a lot more strict in the raising of animals in factory farms. I've been trying to find out some information on standards on certain EU websites but not to much luck, or just lengthy reports of small writing.

Anyway, I took a bit of inspiration from Glauce- (http://foodinmylife.blogspot.com) and decided to make cupcakes. I found a recipe for vegan cupcakes that was extremely easy.

I thought it was going to be very complicated and involve me having to buy vegan butter and egg replacer. But it was far from it. While researching I discovered that the stork block is vegan and the stork in the tub isn't, it has buttermilk in it.

All it involved with water,oil,vanilla extract, vinegar and caster sugar in a bowl. And then adding flour and cocoa powder to that. All ingredients I all ready had in my kitchen. They however, weren't fully vegan. The icing I made contained normal butter. I didn't have any vegan butter. So that kind of ruined it a little bit.

The cakes themselves turned out lovely and moist though. I am going to make them this way from now on. A lot easier, cheaper and healthier option :)

Blazing Salads Buckwheat burgers/salsa

So as I mentioned in my previous post, that I got the Blazing Salads cookbook. I decided to make the Buckwheat and vegetable burgers.

So I headed down to Dalkey to Select Stores to find some Buckwheat. Turns out, it is really good for you ' Like other wholefoods such as brown rice and oats, Buckwheat is high in fibre. It is also adept at taking nutrients from the soil, so you'll find an array of useful minerals. It contains high levels of calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and iron.' -
http://www.independent.ie/health/diet-fitness/real-food-nutty-buckwheat-will-boost-your-nutrition-2115497.html

I wasn't to impressed with how they turned out. You have to boil the buckwheat with some vegetables and then mix it together with brocolli and a small bit of ground up pumkin seeds.The mixture was extremely wet so I put some breadcrumbs in to hold it together. The recipe said to fry them, so I did just that. Again, they were still horribly soggy, so I baked them. That did a better job, still soggy though. I had one left this morning and found that it had hardened up a fair bit over night. I've had these burgers before from the store and they aren't much like what I made.

After I fried them.

After baking them. A lot more crisper.

The recipe also involved some salsa. I had never made salsa before but it turned out well. I will for sure make some again. It was Tomato, onion, chilli and coriander.

And I served it all up in a pitta bread!

Resources

I go to DIT Cathal Brugha Street, which is the school of hospitality, tourism and food. So there is culinary arts students and pastry arts students in the building I also study in. You can always smell amazing things coming from the kitchens and see them in the kitchen. Makes me a little jealous. They also sell a lot of the food they bake for really low prices on a Thursday.

Anyhow, since there's food students, there's so many cookery books in the library. I always go look at them when I'm bored in the library. An easy distraction. I was looking at some of the vegetarian cookbooks yesterday. I found a Blazing salads one. I am dying to go the store on Dury Street. In select stores, Dalkey you can find the salads there along with some burgers. Any how, I took the book out on loan. There's a lot of really good recipes I will for sure be trying out when my exams finish.

The library also has a subscription to the good food magazine, which I love. They break down at the front what pages have vegetarian/vegan recipes and what pages include baking. I have so many photocopies of recipes I have yet to try.

Upside down pictures. DUNNO.

I plan on use my week and half off productively, so hopefully involving some cooking and baking. I really want to try and make a vegan cake just to do it.

College Lunch boxes

Noodles in soy sauce, Sweet chilli and stir fried vegetables.

Homemade Nutloaf and salad.

Falafel salad

Falafel from Lebanese stand in the market with salad and feta.

Homemade bean burger in a salad pitta. I had hummus with this too.

Potato salad

Another Potato salad.

Roasted vegetable bulgar wheat.

A couple cakes

A couple of cakes from the Hummingbird bakery cookbook.


Carrot cake. Great recipe. Was so tasty and moist. My mom ate the majority of it.


Brooklyn blackout cake. I didn't make the chocolate custard that came with the recipe, must chocolate butter cream frosting. I doubled the recipe and made it into a 4 layer cake. Went down very well! It's quite rich.

Breakfast bars.
I wanted to make something pretty carby in the morning but healthy enough at the same time. So, I made flapjacks. I just threw whatever in. They're mainly banana flavor.
Mashed Banana
Softened dates
raisins
orange zest
Honey
Chocolate spread
Peanut butter
.. I think that's about it. I made a big batch and portioned them up. I put a lot of them in the freezer.


I also made another big batch of Bean burgers to bring into college. Again I make loads and then freeze them.
Before I mash it all up.



Nut loaf