My First Feta Cheese

There I was, proud as punch, admiring my first batch of feta cheese.

I knew that, before long, I would be all “feta this” and “feta that”, a salad here and a spanakopita there, and still enough feta left over to impress friends and family. It was a big, cheesy win.

Until I remembered that technically I’m not allowed to call it feta.

Not according to the European Union at any rate.

To make real feta cheese, I would need to move my operation to Greece, employ their traditional methods of cheese making and use the local sheep’s milk. Cheese made in a Dublin suburb from the milk of Irish cows doesn’t really cut it.

But who cares?

As long as I keep my faux feta to myself.

And you agree not to shop me to the Greek authorities. Ok?

Milk curds, the stuff of cheese

“You need to be a bit mad to make cheese.”

So says Hans Wieland of The Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co. Leitrim.

I do believe that he counts himself in this. When he and his wife Gaby started making cheese from the milk of their own goats over 20 years ago, they built a kitchen for their cheese making before they built a house for themselves.

I learned this and a lot more besides when I headed to Leitrim last weekend to attend a hugely instructive cheese making course run by Hans and Gaby, during which we were taken through the processes of making both hard and soft cheeses and given an insight into the practicalities of small-scale commercial cheese production.

The biggest lesson of the course, and the one that I think they most wanted us to learn, was that, once you understand the basics of the processes involved, cheese making (and especially the making of soft cheeses such as quark) can be done quite simply and, for a small scale operation or for home use, without a lot of special equipment. You need a big pot for milk, some bacterial culture and rennet to separate curds and whey, a knife and whisk to cut the curds, a thermometer to make sure that the cheese making bacteria have a cosy temperature at which to operate, some muslin for draining the curds, some plastic moulds for shaping and a lot of practice.

Cutting and washing, moulding and pressing - Hans puts a batch of curd through its hard cheese paces

As with cooking and baking, there are recipes for producing different kinds of cheeses, though with practice, you will get to know how the particular milk you use behaves during the cheese making process and adjust the recipes accordingly. If nothing else, learning how to make cheese forces you to discard the idea that milk is just, well, milk.

Milks can vary greatly in fat content and other characteristics, depending on the type of animal producing the milk, the breed, the vegetation they eat and the soil that produced that vegetation. The notion of terroir, it seems, is as relevant for milk and cheese as it is for wine. Raw, unpasteurised milk will generally produce cheeses with more flavour, but you do need to be sure of the quality of your milk supply if you go that route.

Different bacterial cultures, too, will produce different effects. For example, lactobacillus helveticus, developed in Switzerland, is responsible for emmental’s nutty taste, while propionic acid bacteria are the ones responsible for producing the holes (more properly called eyes) in that most swiss of cheeses.

Pressed and salted but still with some maturing to do - this weekend's batch of gouda-style cheeses

There are other factors, too, which influence the final cheese product. The size of the pieces into which you cut the curd, for example, will determine the hardness of the cheese – the smaller the curd particles, the less moisture they retain and the harder the resulting cheese. Washing and/or cooking the curd, which may be done after the curd is cut, also influences texture and taste – you’ll get a stronger-flavoured cheese if the curd is heated in pure whey and a milder taste if some of the whey is replaced with hot water.

And there is much else besides. The mere fact that there are so many vastly different cheeses to be had is testament enough to the many different factors at play in their production.

Gaby demonstrates some of the many soft cheese possibilities:
moulded and coated with herbs and spices or rolled into balls and stored in herb-infused oil

The only real question now is whether I am mad enough to make cheese myself.

And the answer?

Positively certifiable.

]]> http://www.thedailyspud.com/2010/04/28/slow-cheese/feed/ 25 http://www.thedailyspud.com/2010/03/12/killer-cheeses/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=killer-cheeses http://www.thedailyspud.com/2010/03/12/killer-cheeses/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:45:45 +0000 Daily Spud http://www.thedailyspud.com/?p=17434

There is at least one legend which holds that would-be assassins tried (but failed) to kill St. Patrick with poisoned cheese. There are a number of conclusions which we may draw from this, to wit:

- St. Patrick was fond of cheese.
- He knew a dodgy cheese when he tasted one.

Therefore, what better way to celebrate the feast day of our patron saint than to include a platter of Irish cheese as part of the Paddy’s Day Food Parade. And not just any cheese, but a selection of fine Irish raw milk cheeses, because I can guarantee, given that Louis Pasteur was far from born at the time, that St. Patrick’s cheese board would have been filled with nothing but cheeses made from raw milk.

Selection of Irish raw milk cheeses

What you see above is the cheesy selection served at a recent Slow Food Ireland raw milk cheese tasting. It was a fascinating evening, presented by Kevin Sheridan of local cheese mecca, Sheridan’s Cheesemongers, and included expert guidance on smelling and savouring your cheese from Cristiano De Riccardis, an organoleptic taste expert with Slow Food Italy. Dr. Prannie Rhatigan, Slow Food Presidia Manager for Ireland, was on hand to explain the idea of presidia as a mechanism for nurturing, protecting and promoting traditionally produced foods. The raw milk cheese presidium is the only one active in Ireland at present.

So what is the deal with raw milk cheeses, anyway?

Not having been exposed to the heat treatment required for full pasteurisation, raw milk cheeses retain more of the natural flavours and nutrients present in the milk used to make them. Cristiano explained that raw cheeses, as a consequence, are generally more complex and have aromas that linger longer in the mouth. And yes, they are safe to eat (unless doctored by some assassin type). From what I can gather, a maker of raw milk cheese in this country can expect health and safety inspections aplenty, so have no worries about seeking these cheeses out:

• Durrus made by Jeffa Gill in West Cork, a semi-soft cheese with a wonderful oniony smell that made me want to grab the nearest potatoes and put them together in a gratin.
• Glebe Brethan, made at the Tiernan family farm in Dunleer, Co. Louth, from their own herd of Montbeliarde cows. A hard, dark yellow, gruyère-type cheese, similar to French comté and made only with summer milk. I swear you can taste the sweetness of summer meadows in there.
• Cooleeney, a camembert-type cheese made on the Maher farm in the heart of Co. Tipperary. The sample we had was nicely ripe and fairly runny, with a buttery smell and savoury flavour.


Looks unsuspecting, but that Bellingham Blue packs a punch

• Bellingham Blue – what a bruiser of a cheese. Made by Peter and Anita Thomas from Glyde Farm in Castlebellingham, Co. Louth. It’s a strong-tasting creamy blue stilton-like cheese that should appeal to stinky cheese afficionados everywhere.
• Last, but by no means least, was my favourite of the night, St. Gall made by Frank and Gudrun Shinnick in Fermoy, Co. Cork. It reminded me of an emmental, with a full, sweet flavour and a very pleasing tang in the mouth. The cheese is named for Irish Benedictine monk St. Gall, who, legend has it, not only brought christianity to Switzerland but also taught the Swiss how to make cheese. So there.

Raclette à la St. Gall

In fact, inspired by the saintly Swiss-cheesy connection, I thought it appropriate to use St. Gall, which melts beautifully, for some Paddy’s Day raclette (and, yes, I was looking for any and all excuses to use my newly acquired straight-from-Switzerland raclette grill set). Grill some green vegetables on the hot stone above, melt some killer Irish cheese on spuds under the grilling element below and away you go.

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Paddy’s Day Raclette

Raclette – which is really just an excuse to eat liberal amounts of melted cheese – might just be the perfect thing to serve if you’re entertaining guests. There’s minimal preparation involved, just chopping mostly, and the invitees cook their own food. You just need to keep them supplied with cheese, chopped vegetables and other grillable tidbits, and, of course, plenty of wine.

Small, waxy potatoes are a very standard part of any raclette-style meal – there’s even a variety of potato called raclette – though any waxy potatoes will do nicely. For a Paddy’s day twist, just supply plenty of green vegetables, along with an Irish cheese, and let everyone else do the work.

The amounts here are up to you, depending on how many you want to feed, what they like to eat and how many different types of vegetable etc. that you want to serve. As you can see, this is pretty free-form as recipes go.

You’ll need:

• waxy potatoes
• a nice melty cheese – I used St. Gall
• selection of green fruit and veg e.g. asparagus, courgette, romanesco cauliflower, broccoli, spring onions, green apple
• olive oil

You’ll also need:

• Ideally, a table-top raclette grill, which makes it easier for everyone to do their own grilling – though you could grill the vegetables separately using your grill/broiler and then top with the cheese and serve. More work for you, though.

The Steps:

• Scrub the potatoes and boil them in salted water until fork-tender – this may take around 15 minutes for baby potatoes, longer if you’re using larger spuds. Drain, cover with a tea-towel and allow to dry off for 5 minutes or more.
• Wash and pat dry any other vegetables you’re using. Chop broccoli or romanesco into bite-sized pieces. Slice courgette in pieces around 0.5 cm thick. Slice the spring onions. Chop the apple into small chunks. Leave asparagus spears whole.
• Most of the vegetables for grilling can be placed directly on the heated grill stone. You can toss them in the barest amount of olive oil beforehand if you like.
• Guest fill their little grill pans with their choice of potato, spring onions, apple and grilled vegetables, top it all with cheese, let it melt under the grill, then eat and repeat.

The Variations:

• The variations on raclette are only limited by your imagination. If it goes well, grilled or otherwise, with cheese, then it’s a candidate for raclette.

The Results:

• Raclette-style meal for as many people as you care to feed.

It’s true. No spud should have to spend its days alone.

Whether absorbed in the intimate company of its buttery best mate or plated up with a larger group of friends, the potato does what it does best when it’s part of a team.

Take the other week, when not one, but two good spud buddies showed up on the doorstep.

First there was a veritable trawler-load of Irish organic salmon from The Organic Salmon Company, a well regarded supplier of high quality salmon to well-known cheffy types and who have now taken to selling retail packs of their very lovely Atlantic salmon fillets here (available in Superquinn, I believe).

Spud's Fishy Friends

Then there was a host of creamy, dairy goodies from Yeats Country Foods. Let me just say that I am not surprised that these folks scored great taste golds for their organic soft cheese and crème fraîche. If Philadelphia is your yardstick for cream cheese, then theirs is even richer and creamier (in both colour and taste) than that. Gorgeous. Do get some to try the next time you’re in Dunnes Stores.

Spud's Dairy Friends

So, then, having welcomed these two visitors to my fridge, what next?

Being ever the sociable Spud, I reckoned that there was nothing else for it but to invite some other friends around and let everyone get together in a chowdery kind of way.

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Potato, Salmon And Cream Cheese Chowder

I use the term chowder here in the sense of a milky, fishy soup.

Now, according to Wikipedia, that fount of all knowledge, dubious and otherwise, chowders are typically enriched with salt pork fatback and thickened with flour or saltine crackers, neither of which is true in this case. This chowder is none the worse for that, however, and is, I reckon, extremely likely to make a repeat appearance in my house whenever salmon and cream cheese show up together again.

You’ll need:

• 3 smallish leeks (white and light green parts – should yield about 200g)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 400g potatoes (2 medium sized spuds)
• 2 tblsp butter
• 150g cream cheese
• 1 tsp fine salt or to taste
• 250ml milk
• approx. 150ml water
• 280g salmon fillets
• 2 tblsp chopped dill
• 2 tblsp lemon juice
• freshly ground black pepper

To serve:

• chopped flat leaf parsley
• lemon zest

The Steps:

• Slice the white and light green parts of the leeks thinly and finely chop the garlic. Scrub the potatoes and, leaving the skin on, chop into approx. 1cm cubes.
• Place a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat, add the butter and allow it to melt.
• Add the garlic and leeks to the pan, sauté over medium low heat until soft, about 5-7 minutes.
• Add the potato cubes, cream cheese and salt and toss with the leeks. When the cream cheese has melted, add the milk and water, enough to just cover the veggies.
• Increase the heat to medium, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 25-30 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender.
• Meanwhile, chop the salmon fillets into approx. 1cm cubes, leaving the skin on if it hasn’t already been removed.
• When the potatoes have cooked, add the chopped dill, lemon juice, salmon pieces and a few twists of black pepper to the pot. Stir to mix and simmer very gently for 5-7 minutes or until the salmon pieces are just cooked through. The chowder will be fairly thick, so thin with additional hot water if you prefer a thinner consistency.
• Remove from the heat and serve, scattered with some chopped flat leaf parsley and a little sprinkling of lemon zest.

The Variations:

• To make something a little less rich, you can, or course, replace some or all of the milk with water and/or reduce the quantity of cream cheese.
• You could also add other fishy things in here – I’m thinking something shrimp-like would work well.

The Results:

• Chowder for 3-4.

Let me explain to you how this works:

(a) Big food brand gets together with well-known chef.

(b) Chef creates recipes using said brand of food.

(c) Brand wants to demonstrate general tastiness of the recipes, so they get the chef to make lunch using some of same.

(d) Third parties get invited to said lunch to provide independent verification of the mouth-watering nature of the chef’s creations.

(e) Lunch is eaten, wine is drunk, everybody goes home happy, well-fed and well disposed towards the parties and the food involved.

Simple enough formula, really, and I got to see it in action up close this week, where the brand in question was Philadelphia cream cheese, the chef was Kevin Dundon (yes, he of the Zest! interview experience) and I was one of those well-fed third parties.

Kevin Dundon's Philadelphia Lunchables: smoked salmon and scallops, chicken and mushroom parcel, wild mushroom risotto, philly mille feuille

I will admit that it is sometimes still, if not a mystery, then at least a source of wide-eyed wonderment to me that I get to be the kind of third party who receives such supremely edible invitations. I’m not complaining though, except possibly (and only very slightly) from the extreme fullness of belly that my attendance involves.

And whatever opinions I might have had about such brand endorsements, I was won over on the day, not just by the food (which, unsurprisingly, was lovely) but by Kevin Dundon who (a) remembered me from the Zest! launch (b) did not give the impression that I had conducted what was possibly the worst interview ever last time out (c) was utterly patient and charming and (d) clued me into the secret of his stunning turnip purée.

The purée, which accompanied the main course, was probably the only thing on the menu which did not involve a liberal helping of Philadelphia. What it did contain, though, was potato, making a play, in this case, for best performance by a vegetable in a supporting role. The potato was present in sufficient quantity to tone down the sweetness of the turnip and give the dish more body, without it being obvious that it was there at all. It made for a killer combination and proved, yet again, that the Scots are really on to something with their penchant for combining turnip and potato as neeps and tatties.

And finally, I would like to think that the otherwise notable absence of potato from Kevin’s cream cheesy lunch menu was not an oversight, but rather, an invitation to rectify the situation. I am more than happy to do that right here and right now with some cream cheese mash.

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Cream Cheese Mash

Cream cheese is, of course, endlessly versatile as an ingredient and, like many of its dairy product cousins, it is extremely happy in the company of potatoes. You can easily conceive of it layered into a gratin, mixed into a mash, gracing a baked potato or dressing a potato salad.

Here it finds its way into a simple mash with some mustard, parsley and spring onions. This can, of course, be eaten warm, though I think it’s possibly even better served salad-like at room temperature, perhaps with some smoked salmon and brown bread or toast.

I did use Philadelphia as the cream cheese here (the makers had kindly supplied me with some), though you can, of course, use whatever cream cheese you prefer. I’m certainly keen to try this with some Yeat’s Country Irish cream cheese as soon as I get hold of some.

For those interested in the theories behind what makes a good mash, you can take a little detour here, just remember to come back this way when you’re done.

You’ll need:

• 800g potato (4 medium-sized spuds, preferably a floury variety)
• 200g cream cheese
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp salt or to taste plus more for boiling the spuds
• freshly ground black pepper
• 100ml milk, warmed
• 6 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced (or 4 tblsp finely chopped chives)

You’ll also need:

• A potato ricer is useful, though not essential, for this.

The Steps:

• To soften your cream cheese, remove from the fridge, chop into small chunks, spread the chunks out onto a large plate and allow them to come up to room temperature while you cook the potatoes. Alternatively, you can microwave the cream cheese on high for about 15 seconds.
• Peel your potatoes and cut into roughly even-sized slices, around 1-2cm thick. Rinse them under cold water.
• Bring about 1.5l of water to the boil in a saucepan, add about 2 tsp salt and the potato slices. Bring back to the boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer gently, covered, for around 15-20 minutes or until just fork-tender.
• When the potatoes are done, drain well and return them to the saucepan. Then either let them sit, covered by a tea-towel, for about 5 minutes or place the pan over a low heat and stir the potatoes gently for a minute or so while they dry out.
• Put the cooked and still warm potatoes through a potato ricer if you have one, or mash with a potato masher or, if all else fails, a fork.
• Add the chunks of cream cheese, the mustard, about 1 tsp salt and a couple of twists of black pepper to the potato and mash in well.
• Stir in the milk, adding more if you prefer a looser consistency.
• Stir in the chopped parsley and spring onions and dig in.

The Variations:

• I might just add a touch of lemon juice to this next time ’round, while you could certainly try adding a few cloves of roasted garlic here too.

The Results:

• Serves around 6 as a side-dish or salad portion.

So I boldly returned to where only I (to the best of my knowledge) had boldly gone before and went back to work on the spud shake formula, enlisting a few skeptical guinea pigs to sample the results.

In the end, there wasn’t that much to it. I took the basic formula of spuds, milk, honey and lecithin that had made its debut chez Aoife Mc, added a bit of salt, and topped up with mango for version one and banana for version two. The skeptics were really not quite so skeptical afterward and declared banana the winner and themselves spud shake survivors, which makes them members of a really, as yet, rather exclusive club!

And so, without further ado, I give you the spud shake formula and wonder when it will happen that future searches for “Potato Mc Shake” will bring the world, not to my door, but to the latest, em, “innovation” by a certain well-known fast food emporium…

Potato Shake, Now With Mango

]]> http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/05/31/spud-sunday-the-return-of-the-spud-shake/feed/ 26 http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/05/27/a-seedy-offer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-seedy-offer http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/05/27/a-seedy-offer/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 23:31:03 +0000 Daily Spud http://www.thedailyspud.com/?p=5787 Before I get started, I should say that the following is really only going to be of interest to the Spud readership in Ireland. Just sayin’, so don’t say I didn’t tell you so. I’m newly arrived back in the ol’ sod and thought, after all that gallivanting, that the locals should get a bit of my attention.

[Watches as the foreign readers remain undecided as to whether to stay and gradually start shuffling away]

The other thing to note is that this will mainly be of interest to those who fancy putting on the gardening gloves and growing their own french beans.

[More hesitation as possessors of non-green-coloured-fingers hover same over their back buttons]

It may also be of some interest if you like yoghurt.

[...a few hardy souls left]

Now, for all you Irish-based, french-bean-growing yoghurt lovers, here’s the deal.

Those makers of fine yoghurt, Glenisk, in conjunction with the The Organic Centre, are giving away organic french bean seeds (and guidance on how to grow them) to the first 10,000 takers. You sign up here and they will send you seeds. It seems roughly that simple. There are terms and conditions – mainly that you need to be resident in Ireland – but I warned you about that one already, didn’t I?

And, there’s a special incentive for Daily Spuddites. If you sign up to get your free seeds and quote “dailyspud01″ as the partner code, Glenisk will also enter you into a draw for a month’s supply of their organic yoghurts. So there.

Now, I should say that Glenisk haven’t given me loads of yoghurt for doing this. As it happens, I usually make my own yoghurt, but when I don’t, I often buy Glenisk, but not that they knew that. It also happens that I am already the proud possessor of french bean seeds from the Organic Centre, some of which are already poking their first leaves above the ground. They didn’t know that either. They just thought that my Irish-based, french-bean-growing, yoghurt-loving readers might like to know about the offer. I thought they’d like to know too.

Now, it’s not the first time that I’ve stopped at the lilac bush outside my front door to inhale its glorious perfume. It’s also by no means the first time that I’ve thought about ice cream (I do that more or less every time the sun shines). It’s just the first time that I’ve known one to cause the other.

Do these smell like ice cream to you?

Yes, lilac ice cream. I was going to have to do something about that thought, but where to begin?

For starters, I wasn’t even entirely sure if lilac flowers were edible (but the Internet said they were, so I took that as a positive sign). It’s also fair to say that the culinary world isn’t exactly awash with recipes involving lilac. The flavour of lilac is reported as being quite variable from plant to plant, which might, perhaps, explain why you don’t see it used more. In any case, I did find a recipe for a lilac-infused pastry cream and took heart. The other feature of this little experiment was that I had never made ice cream before and was not the proud possessor of an ice cream maker. Undaunted, however, I forged ahead with my flower-powered ice cream dream.

In the end, after a couple of experimental batches, we did have some lovely ice cream, though it didn’t have that full floral perfume that had inspired me to try making it in the first place. My milk-infusion had tasted distinctly of lilac, though that dissipated somewhat with the addition of the sugar, eggs and cream. My tasters instead wondered if what they were sensing was vanilla but I could close my eyes and taste the flowers.

Update 12/7/09: It’s July and ice cream season is in full swing, so I’m dusting this off and sending it along to Scotty Snacks, Tangled Noodle and Savor The Thyme for their Ice Cream Social. The lilac florets may be long gone but there are lots of edible flowers out there and there’s no reason not to think of including them in your ice cream! ]]> http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/05/14/smells-like-ice-cream-to-me/feed/ 34 http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/04/29/blessed-are-the-cheesemakers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blessed-are-the-cheesemakers http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/04/29/blessed-are-the-cheesemakers/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:06:08 +0000 Daily Spud http://www.thedailyspud.com/?p=5002 …or so goes the line from Monty Python’s achingly funny and irreverent Life of Brian.

And let it be known that I’m quite happy to give it up for cheesemakers everywhere. I can’t really imagine life without cheese (and I’m sure that Grilled Cheese Shane would agree with me on that). I’ve even dabbled in rudimentary cheesemaking myself, at least to the extent of making homemade Indian cheese or paneer a few times.

Paneer with toasted cumin seeds - just add curry

It’s just about the simplest of cheeses to make because it consists only of the curds that remain when boiling milk has been separated using some vinegar. It’s endlessly versatile but, then again, cheeses are like that. You can use the drained curds as is in salads or as an alternative to tofu in stir fries or as a (less creamy) replacement for ricotta. You can press the paneer into patties and then slice and fry it or cut into cubes and use in any number of Indian recipes. You can flavour it or not, as takes your fancy. Traditionally it’s made with buffalo milk (same as buffalo mozzarella) but, for those of you not on milking terms with any buffaloes, regular cowjuice will do nicely. Please use the full-fat, as-nature-intended milkstuff, though. You’ll thank me.

The Prototype Potato Shake

Next question.

What exactly would possess one to even think about making a potato milkshake?

Two things, really.

1. you’re me
2. you have been invited by the lovely Aoife Mc to a Guilty Pleasures dinner party, the premise of which is that everyone brings food which fits into the I-shouldn’t-but-I’m-going-to-enjoy-it-anyway category

But still, a potato milkshake? The mere mention of which was enough to strike fear into the heart of at least one of the other party attendees? I can only plead that it is not as bad as it sounds.

I happened across the idea in the eye-catching coffee-table book Potato by Lyndsay and Patrick Mikanowski, which included a recipe by Gilles Choukroun for a savoury potato milkshake, flavoured with parsley and cumin. It caught my attention but in a “frankly that sounds odd” kind of way. I simply had to give it a whirl, though, so that it I could confirm that, in point of fact, it was odd.

Thing is, it was not so odd that I didn’t think there was merit in coming up with a sweet version instead. And so, after some playtime in the kitchen, a blend of cooked potato, milk, honey and lecithin came together as an offering for guilty pleasure consumption. And people lived to tell the tale.

I will confess that it is still somewhat of a work-in-progress. Unlike my first home sample, the super-sized batch whizzed up on the night of the party was (in what you might call a case of blending under pressure) a bit OTT on the potato and honey fronts. I had also wanted to add some malt but had none. No matter. I will send the formula back to the lab for minor tweaks and return to the topic anon.

My other contribution to the evening was some Elvis bread, which I have been wanting to make ever since I saw it on Recipe Play. All you really need to know is that it’s peanut butter, bananas and honey rolled up in pizza dough, and if that results in an understandable urge to make some yourself, you can head on over to Will’s video to see how it’s done.

Elvis Bread, guilty as charged

As for the rest of our guilty carb-fest, Aoife Mc has the full colour low-down on the lot, which, in addition to the milkshake and Elvis bread, included all of the following good-for-the-soul food and drink:

• lashings of lovely pimms no. 1 cup with ginger ale, lemonade and some healthy fruity things
• big, fat, juicy olives with thyme and anchovies
• divine caramelized onion hummus
• delectable cubes of halloumi cheese fried with paprika
• ham and crisp sandwiches and it’s hard to beat a sandwich that involves crisps
• my first-but-not-my-last peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• a delightful eggy, cheesy, worcestershire saucy mix on toast
• a positively gourmet presentation of deep fried mini mars bars and cream soda floats

Oh, and wine. Plenty of wine.

All of which was very pleasurable to those present, who, along with our hosts Aoife Mc and Niall, included Rick, Raptureponies, Darragh, Loreana and a couple of people who (shock, horror) don’t have blogs, resident sis and Jocelyn. We all left wine-filled and artery-clogged but happy. And, yeah, maybe just a tad guilty, though I daresay, given half a chance, we’d all do it all over again!