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Tag: Rachel Allen (Page 1 of 2)

The Good, The Bad, And The Perishable

Thursday, November 25, 2010 /

I do not like throwing food in the bin, I do not like it one little bit.

It feels like a defeat (boo!) when my perishables expire before I can put them to good use and, conversely, a victory (yay!) when I have successfully cooked and/or eaten my way through the latest contents of the fridge.

A recent survey conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tells me that I am by no means the only person who feels this way. 97% of people, when asked, said that they were bothered by food waste. Thing is though, almost half of those people confessed to doing little or nothing to prevent it. So, really, they can’t be that bothered by it, can they?

Perhaps the EPA’s Stop Food Waste campaign, which aims to heighten awareness among consumers and provide commonsense tips on how to avoid food waste, will prod more people into taking action.

At the launch of the campaign this week, some familiar foodie faces were on hand to lend both their support and their use-it-don’t-lose-it recipes.

Rachel Allen

Rachel Allen, with a little help from TV3's Aidan Cooney

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Spud Sunday: Bread For Thought

Sunday, January 17, 2010 /

Potato Upside Down Bread

Upside down bread, upside down world

What a lucky sod I am. Let me count the ways.

After the recent extended period of cold snappiness, today was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day and I had the health to enjoy it. I also had running water so that I could shower and not sully the day with smelliness. Not to mention being able to make my morning coffee, so that I didn’t have to subject anyone to excessive early morning grumpiness (at least not any more than usual).

And time. I had time to contemplate the creation of some olive oily, potato-y bread. And time to contemplate what had been going on elsewhere in the universe this week.

A week where my brother’s bedroom ceiling fell in when pipes froze and burst in his attic. Where a friend was seen on national news toting buckets of water as the water supply to her housing estate has been gone more or less since Christmas. And, yes, Haiti (I’ve been taking English Mum’s lead on that and giving a bit for Shelterbox).

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The Taste Of Christmas Past

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 /

Well, it’s about time that I got my Christmas baking boots on, now, isn’t it?

For weeks, my feed reader has been choc-a-bloc with blog postings stuffed with festive baked goods, and I can only hold out against that kind of onslaught for so long. So, having realised that resistance was futile, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift across the sea of baked possibilities. I ended up in Spain.

Huh?

While I was still, unquestionably, in Ireland, I had found myself dreaming of that Spanish confection known as turrón. It’s made primarily from toasted almonds and honey, and varies in texture from break-your-teeth hard to soft and fudgy. When I was a kid, my brother, who lived in Spain, would bring a selection home at Christmas and I have been a sucker for turrón, particularly the soft variety, ever since. It’s just as well I can’t lay my hands on it too easily here – I inhale and it’s gone. And while the brother hasn’t lived in Spain for years, in my head Christmas is still flavoured with almond and honey. So I thought that I would try to capture that in festive shortbread form. I was very pleased that I did.

Almond, Honey and Orange Shortbread, inspired by Christmas past

Shortbread, inspired by Christmas past

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