Vals Kitchen

Vote for my boys film please

Over last chilly Christmas Saoirse made this film, a 60 second remake of Monty Python's Holy Grail

It is now in the final of a competition with the Fresh Film Festival and RTE

Click here to vote for Saoirse's film 

Thanks :)

Me reviewing for Truvo

Writng a blog I get sent lots of press releases from PR companies asking me to feature their stuff on my site. I never do, because they don’t pay me any money. This one tme however something caught my eye, a new online show called the Review Show were looking fro new presenters so I thought I’d send them in something, all for the good cause that is Limerick. I sent them a link to a piece I’d done for Ilovelimerick, and they said I was good for the job and would be down to Limerick in a few weeks do do some filming with me. That was all well and good until the filmig was scheduled to be on the day after our Haiti extravaganza and I would have to be at the crack of dawn. No bother, I says to myself, I’ll go to bed early. As if. The Haiti gig was so good and all the boxes were ticked. I was actually at home in bed at 10.30, jober as a sudge, reading the papers and planning on eight hours of beauty sleep. I knew though, that there was a huge party on just down the street with my name on it. Sure, if I was at home reading the papers wouldn’t my time be better spent dancing at a really good gig. I jumped out of bed and shoved on my clothes and the fastest bit of eye make up ever, called my next door neighbour who babysits for me at the drop of a hat, hopped in the car and was back in the door of the bustling crowd. The fab Funk Junkies were playing my favourite song Valerie so I forced the crowd to endure the sight of me dancing to my song on stage alone. I was then very happy, all my egos boxes ticked I wnt home to bed.

Next morning the few hours sleep I missed showed a bit, luckily a lack of alcohol can make you all the more human looking. The lovely girl who was doing my make up t 8.30am didn’t get home from a party till 7.30am and, being 25 you’d never know it, she still did a great job. I met the crew at the Hunt Museum and we began filming the segments. I have zero profesional experience in this field so I was a tad nervous, which I think shows. I repeat myself, it’s true. I have to say it’s not as easy as it looks to say stuff seamlessly with lots of people staring at you, no pressure like. Anyway the way I see it is , we all want to get home so I take the Krusty the Clown approach to these things. When it came to choosing what places to feature it wasn’t an easy one, there are so many and hopefully the Truvo team will come back to do a pub crawl.

The Hunt was featured as a good place to visit for the cultural and historical stuff, plus they have the est view from acoffee shop anywhere in town. Sequoia Lane is a fab shop full of individuality and fun things that won’t break the bank. We all know the Sage cafe, good grub, yummy bread and a nice place to go with yer Ma. The Truvo team were very nice, easy to work with and all that and they reckon they would like to come back to do more stuff, my stylie which would be pretty much the sam places but with a few pubs thrown in and some of the live music that Limerick is so knowen for. The weather was freezing as you can see from the outside stuff and only two messers walked by the camera shouting “Oi, you ye doing this for yooooo tube?”.  

Limerick loved Love Haiti

Shane, me and Jimmy enjoying the bbq

The Love Haiti event we ran at Bentley's on Sunday was a huge success. So many people gave their time for free for such a worthy cause. We organised this event and strung it all together over the past four weeks and the efforts of everyone involved paid off in truckloads. 

The venue was bursting with exciting stuff; the best bands in Limerick on different stages, a holistic therapy room offering massages and reiki and entertainment for kiddies. I was in charge of the food and I pulled it together with generous donations from some very generous butchers shops and restaurant owners. We had a whole roast pig on a spit from Adare Farm, Turkuaz Kebab came and set up their doner machine, O'Connell's butchers gave us juicy burgers and sausages, O'Connor's gave us lots of their jumbo sausages and Pat McLoughlin gave us bbq goodies too. The famous tandoori chicken from Global foods was wolfed along with salads and te best brown bread from the Sage cafe. 

None of this could have happened without the help of volunteers who all worked tirelessly throughout the day. The bands had the whole place jumping and the support from the city of Limerick was tremendous. I feel very lucky to have been involved in such a special event, thanks so much to everyone who helped and came along to support the gig. The event raised almost 7000 euro for the Irish Red Cross to help the victims of the Haiti disaster. 
 

 

Fishy Business

 
A trip to the food market at the Crescent Shopping Centre ( on Wednesdays) inspired me to rustle up a less than traditional Ash Wednesday fishy feast. I'm not religiously orientated enough to choose to eat only fish today but when I saw the selection on offer this morning, monkfish, halibut, hake, cod, gurnard and some of the fabbest looking spider-crab claws I was hooked (sorry!). 

 

I'd started cooking before I really decided what I was making. The claws were flung into a pot of boiling water with a halved lemon and cooked for 15 minutes. They don't need much dressing up to be taken out. 

 

I got some hake too, three big fillets, and sliced these into chunks. I made a batter with some self raising flour, water and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Just whisk in enough water until the consistency is like pouring cream. 

 

Heat some cooking oil in a pot or wok and when it's hot enough, dip the fish pieces in the batter to coat lightly. Drop them into the oil carefully, they will only take a few minutes to cook, turn them if you need to. 

 

Stir fry some veggies with ginger and soy sauce, I had some rice steaming while all this was cooking. 

Serve up the fish goujons, tempura, or whatever you want to call them with soy sauce or any dipping sauce, or just a squeeze of lemon. I love Nature's Bounty Chilli and Garlic Sauce, you can get this at the same market.  

To serve the crab claws, you'll need a tea towel and a heavy knife, or cleaver. Cover the claws with the towel and wallop them with the blunt side of the knife till they crack. You can then pull them apart to yank out the sweet, juicy meat. Happy Ash Wednesday!

  

 

Come to this Gig, Love Haiti and bring your money

 

Coming up Sunday 21st February 2009

Over five floors of music, food and fun will be hosted by Bentley’s, The Brazen Head and Isaac Taylor’s. All procees will be donated to The Irish Red Cross effort in Haiti.

Local musicians, chefs, entertainers and more will lend their talents to this day long fundraiser event, which kicks off at 3pm. Children are welcome to the specially organised kid’s activities in the afternoon, and of course, the adults will be well catered for until the wee small hours.

Throughout the day there will be a barbecue buffet with specially prepared foods and tempting delicacies and even a pig on a spit! A top floor ‘healing space’ offering relaxing massages, and appearances by local comedians, personalities and maybe even a celeb or two!!

Acting ringmasters for the day will be Jon Kenny~D’Unbelievables, Mike Finn~Playwright and Myles Breen~Actor.

Here’s a rundown of the days scheduled events :

Bentley’s Courtyard:

3pm~The Downtown Dixieland Jazz Band
4pm~Live Magic Show with Terence Andrews
5pm~The Varadys
6pm~Bollywood
7pm~Drea
8pm~ The O’Malley’s
9pm~The Funk Junkies
10pm~The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra
11pm~Walter Mitty and The Realists
12am~DJ Tom Fitz

The Brazen Head

From 6pm, The Brazen Head will open its doors and house more great bands, such as The 54 Club and Joe Browne and The Durty Dawgs and The Half Yards.

The Piano Bar

From 7pm, The upstairs piano bar in Bentley’s will open up, Nick Carswell will kick start proceedings and give way to Steve Hanks and many other Jazz cats throughout the night.

Isaac’s Bar

From 9pm, Issac’s Bar downstairs will start hopping to the sound of Limerick most well respected DJ’s, The Roots Factory crew, Paul Tarpey, Tokin White Boy, and Jon Greenwood to name a few.

The Board Room

From 3pm , on the top floor of Bentley Barkers, there will be a space dedicated to relaxing in a calm environment with complementary massage therapists on hand to guide you to full relaxation, and even a Sitar player to keep the mood nice and vibey.

When the healing is done and the good vibes have all been dispersed, a troupe of Traditional Irish Musicians will take over the top floor and get a good old session going!

As all this going on there will be plenty going on around the venue, a bouncy castle for the kids, a balloon artist, face painters, stilt walkers and even fire breathers!!

All proceeds from this event will be from donations and will all go to The Irish Red Cross to help with their efforts on the ground in Haiti.

Flaps a la Jack

Hot on the heels of the huge success of the Beef recipe (it doesn't take much to encourage me), I whipped out the camera today to snap one of our favourite sugary treats; flapjacks. I featured these in the early days of this blog.  

So, without further ado, here's the how to; 

You need:

140g butter

140g brown sugar of some type

280g oats, I like Bunalun but Flahavans are equally fab

3-4 tblsp honey or golden syrup

Gently heat the butter, sugar and honey to a simmer. Don't rush it or it won't like you

When the mixture is nice and hot, throw in your oats and give them a good stir so everything is nice and sticky

Protection is always a good idea, so line a nice, big 10inch tin (or similarly sized receptacle) with some baking paper   

Empty all your oats and sticky stuff into the tin and bake it at 180degrees C for 20 minutes or so

Before this is fully cold, carefully run a knife around the inside of the tin and pop out the hot flapjack slab. With a large knife, press down gently but firmly to cut into segments. Eat up before the pesky kids get them.

 

Boof booginyon

After enjoying a thoroughly grown-up weekend where I was wined and dined and generally having a great times with lovely people I re-entered the dominion of my kitchen. I'm a student, I said to myself as I sent my kids off to school with bread an butter sandwiches. Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say. Ah still, it's Monday, so plenty of time to get back to good Mammy for the week. A proper dinner is the order of the day so here it is. 

Beef in red wine etc

I cooked with:

2lb stewing beef from the butchers shop I love, O'Connells on Little Catherine St

Onions 3 organic Irish ones from Dunnes

Mushrooms Organic Irish from Dunnes

Half bottle red wine, I used this lovely Shiraz from Dunnes, reduced from Euro14 to 7

Bacon bits from Lidl

Thyme, from a pot in the yard

Salt n Pepa

Flour - a bit

1. Toss the meat pieces in some seasoned flour, heat a few tblsp oil in a large pot till pretty hot

 Brown the meat in batches in the pan, it should do in about 4 batches, and keep on a plate

Roughly chop the onions and fry with the bacon bits

Return the meat to the pot and throw in the mushrooms, unwashed and roughly chopped

 

Pour in plenty of wine, but leave enough for yourself, hic! Top with some hot water or stock if you need more liquid but not too much, barely cover the ingredients. Season and cook in the oven for about 2 hours at 180 degrees C. 

Steam some scrubbed spuds and carrots for about 30 minutes

Nom, burrp!
  

  

 

The Icing on the Cake

 

Cake is an illusion. Indeed all cakes, buns, and sweet things are big, fat liars. Be they filled with cream, oozing with jam or tartily enticing you with their pert, pinky icing tops, don't trust them. I'm not talking about fat here. I have no fear of fat, bring it on I say, eat more butter and cream, it's real food from living things we can put names on, just don't say I told you. 

The reason why cakes are such good liars is that their simple, tempting beauty tells nothing of the story that went into making them. So I'm going to tell you mine. Cooling on my kitchen table right now is 24 of the fluffiest, spongiest, lightest cup cakes known to humanity. A bold statement I know but I learned from the best so I can't take all the credit. I love baking, when I feel like it. I love to make chocolate brownies you'd leave your wife for, oatmeal cookies you'd blow your diet on and these feathery ladies here, American style cupcakes. 

My son, the fairy, ordered these from his Mama two days ago when he announced a fund-raiser for Haiti was to be held in his school. A good cause we all agree, without one bit of begrudgery. I agreed to make the cakes, the school is super-human when it comes to cake sales and would give the stepford wives a run for their money in terms of quality and quantity. I'm in I said, bring it. Cupcakes and cookies he said, no worries said I. 

That was before today. Today was another bananas day in college when we spent a lot of time doing a lot of not a lot. Followed by the hour-long drive home I was limbering up nicely for my bakeathon. The lads were in two separate houses, one in town, and one in the country. No bother. The rain came down, the cake ingredients had to be got. Son no 1 was collected, shopping was done on the way to get son no 2. Son no 2 had made a new friend in a lovely house full of lovely people with endless dogs and cats and grown up kids, like Southfork without the oil, fence n all. I got cosy with coffee and time wore on. I'd forgotten the chocolate for the cookies. More shopping to do on the way home. Now it's 9 O'Clock. I'm getting ratty. The house is that kippy way it is when you go out and you come in again and can't believe you live like this. I order Son No.1 to do the sink full of dishes and set Son No.2 up with a mixer and begin lobbing butter and sugar at him, into a bowl. He decides that the mixer may be more effective mid air so he yanks it out into the sky and splatters butter/sugar goo all over the walls. That's nothing. keep mixing. 

Son No. 2 walks into his room and yells, bleeaagghh, the cat has puked, on the carpet. It's always on the carpet. I order him to get some bog roll to clean it up, after he has walked into the hall in his puke-covered socks. As I begin scooping up cat vomit, swearing old Limerick style obscenities I step backwards into more puke. I'm loving today. Now there's puke on my Uggs. Ugg. In three different spots the little b*****d has thrown his guts up. There's only carpet in one room, why does he always pick that one? It's all cleaned up, and the cat is ejected from our lives for the evening. He clings on, suicide style from the kitchen door, way too dramatic and it won't get him in. I open the bin to put in the be-puked kitchen paper and cloths. It's full to the brim so I decide to empty it. I pull at the bag and yank it up, yes yes, it rips and cat puke and three day old dinner come spilling out onto the floor. I start cursing people in my life who are lovely and sweet and have nothing to do with all this. I yell at Son. No 2 to get a bag and remind him that all Men are idiots while he does it. I clean up the crap off the floor, I hate everyone.

Lovingly we get the cake batter into the paper cases and into the oven. It's a miracle. There's no way I'm making cookies too, I tell the small fella. But I made a sign saying Oatmeal cookies, he says. The rip it up, I hiss. I love him. The pile of new dishes is done by Son No.2, he hates me now. I want butter icing, he says. Just to goad me. I concede as we have reached a deal on the goods. Half pink and half white, who is this guy? I concede because I am an idiot and because I love him and because I'm a show off and I can't resist. Icing sugar is sieved, so much icing sugar, and butter is beaten, it deserves it. The vanilla goes in, and much love, and swearing. Half of it is scooped out and I notice how like ice cream it looks. We pour in some red colouring and I lament the disappearance of cochinel food colouring that was made of beetles and made food the most magical pink colour. 

As I begin to thaw and the love comes back into the kitchen, I open a cupboard door to put away the sugar and , smash! Nooooooooooo, my eyes see it in slow motion, it registers as it sails past me and onto the hard, tiled kitchen floor, a full, glass jar of honey. I point my head to God and open my mouth to yell, very loudly Mother ******* (without the beep) so loud and for so long that the whole of O'Connell Street is offended. I close my mouth and look at the floor. A huge, sprawling lava gush has erupted on the floor. And it's full of broken glass. As Homer Simpson said to Marge when she finally lost her temper at the dinner table "Now kids lets leave your mother alone to clean up this mess in peace". So exited my Son from the kitchen so fast. I laughed at myself, as I always do when something happens to make me notice that I've got my knickers in a twist over nothing. Cos it's always over nothing. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some cup cakes to ice. 

Interview with a minister

Trevor Sargent, Minister for Food, Fisheries and Agriculture visited our college at Drumcollagher last weekend for the conferring of students. 

The class nailed me to ask Trevor as many questions as possible in the time allowed, plus I squeezed in a few of my own. If left alone I'm sure we could have gone on for longer than half an hour. I didn't edit this as then all the facts and figures would have been lost, parts 2 and 3 on the tube.

Help for Haiti

As written by my friend Bock

The disaster in Haiti defeats the human imagination.  It’s impossible to comprehend the suffering these people are experiencing this very night, amid the stench of rotting flesh and the screaming of amputees without anaesthetics, while we complain about our recession

A group of Limerick people are planning to hold a fundraising event to help the people of Haiti. It will probably happen about a month from now and I’ll bring you more details as they emerge.

The event will involve music, food and performance.

You will be asked to give.

It might be money.  It might be your time, or it might be your skill.  It might be your talent, or it might be something you make.

The aim is to make this a big day and you’ll be asked to help in any way you can.

The people involved in organising this come from all sectors of the community, including sport, music and business.

So far, everybody who has been approached has, without hesitation, offered to help.

This initiative does not belong to a committee or a group of people. When an appropriate charity has been chosen, they will be invited to associate themselves with it.  Only when a charity has been selected will the event go ahead.  The prime consideration will be to ensure that all the money goes to Haiti, and not to some charity’s administrative overheads.

The hope is that this event will become an act of support and solidarity by the people of Limerick for their fellow human beings who find themselves in a situation of unimaginable horror right now, as we speak.

I’ll keep you up to date  as things evolve.

Please submit your thoughts and feelings about which charity you would like to see the proceeds going to