Perhaps the most traditional of Irish baked goods would be soda bread. Despite this obvious fact, I had never ventured down the magnificent road of soda bread-making until now. After a few {gentle} requests, I decided to get my feet wet this week with a beautiful and simple Avoca recipe…a traditional, bare-bones plain soda bread, which turned out wonderfully, and begged me to make more.

Because this bread can literally be made in minutes, I decided I would experiment by adding in a savoury ingredient or two as well as trying my mother-in-law’s favourite “spotted dog” variety. For the blog, I settled on this combination of wild garlic and flax seed, whose flavours (and health benefits) speak nicely together and are just strong enough to contend with the heavy texture of the soda bread itself.

First, we needed to go down to the wood to forage for wild garlic, which grows madly in our few acres of mossy damp soil that lies untouched on the River Shannon. This wild herb has long lush leaves similar to the Lily of the Valley, but has a distinctive garlic or chive scent. After cultivating a few handfuls of fresh stems, we made a quick trip to the local natural food store to replenish our store of flax seed in our pantry.

I’m a colossal fan of flax. It is considered a superfood and has tremendous benefits because it is loaded with omega-3’s and antioxidants. Some even say it is one of the most powerful plant foods on the planet. All I know is that it tastes kinda nutty (love a nutty) and if it can make us healthier, why not add it to an already well-appointed soda bread?

As we ambled through the woodland acreage, we spotted the wild garlic making its home next to tree roots, ferns and ivy…

We gathered the bright green leaves and brought them home for a wash and a fine chop

Then it was time to mix up all the ingredients, pat it into a round and cut a deep cross on it

(to keep the fairies out!)

I find it is best fresh out of the oven slathered with our farmhouse honey butter, but any butter will do…in fact, it really doesn’t need anything….just break a piece off and enjoy.

Here’s the recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos & Styling by Imen McDonnell. Assisted by Sonia Mulford Chaverri.

Tags: butter honey, flax, food, foodie, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, Soda bread, Sonia Mulford Chaverri, spotted dog, wild garlic

It’s St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland and we have an array of brilliant celebrations to choose from even in rural Ireland. Since today is a national holiday, our little boy is home from school and we will be going to the nearby pretty village of Adare where there are loads of family festivities planned for the afternoon.

Across America today, people will be feasting on corned beef and cabbage washed down with a pint or two of green-tinged lager, which has long been a tradition. Little did I know, this is not the case in Ireland.

I remember asking my father-in-law on my first Paddy’s Day “will we be having corned beef and cabbage for dinner today?”…the answer was a resounding “No, not at all!” I was told that corned beef is not preferable in Ireland as it is thought of as a lower grade cut/style of beef that might have been eaten long ago, but certainly not today.

In fact, I’m told there really isn’t a specific dish that is eaten on the day, rather just something special like a roast dinner or possibly bacon and cabbage with parsley sauce. The most important part of this holiday here on the farm would have been picking a shamrock to pin on your shirt, going to mass and then to a parade or other local festivities to celebrate.

My mother-in-law makes an absolutely delicious bacon and cabbage dinner. She likes to prepare it in the customary way: boiling the meat, cabbage and potatoes and serving it us with a little butter and salt. Nothing fancy, but if you boil the bacon at just the right temperature for just the right amount of time, it is tender and superb.

Irish bacon is totally different from what we consider bacon in America.  Irish “bacon” is basically a chunky cut of cured pork loin, quite different to the strips of streaky, crispy breakfast pork that we refer to as bacon in the USA.

I’ve decided to take it a step further and boil the bacon, then glaze it with our farm honey and roast it in a very hot oven for 25 minutes. The cabbage was steamed and then char-grilled on the bbq.

A velvety parsley sauce is lovely served on the side as well

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos and styling by Imen McDonnell. Assisted by Sonia Mulford Chaverri

Tags: bacon, cabbage, farm, food, foodie, Imen McDonnell. I married an Irish farmer, ireland, Irish, Paddy's Day, shamrock, St. Patrick's Day

I am delighted to be joining RTE’s Ella McSweeney and Alan Kingston of Glenilen Farm tomorrow night for Butter Live, a live event where we will be making butter together online from County Tipperary, Ireland.

Log on tomorrow, 16th March at 7pm Irish Time {3pm EST, 2pmCST, 1pm MT, Noon PST…} and see how easy it is to make butter in your very own kitchen. All you will need is 2 pints of cream,  a whisk, a bowl of iced water, a spatula and an internet connection!

Join in!

Slan Abhaile,
Imen

GIY Week Press Release

What?
To celebrate GIY Week, we’re asking people to join us for a live online event on Wednesday, March 16th at 7pm with RTE presenter and broadcaster, Ella Mc Sweeney. Coming live from St. Ailbe’s School in Tipperary, Ella will be making butter from raw milk cream from Brochan Cocoman’s award-winnning Kildare herd. Ella will be joined by farmer and butter enthusiast Alan Kingston of the award-winning Glenilen Farm, Cork. American-born, Imen McDonnell, who married an Irish farmer and writes a lovely farmhouse food blog and a column for Irish Country Living from their farm in County Limerick will be joining in as well.

With a passion for Irish food and farming, Ella is a huge supporter of home-grown food and our love for butter.  “When I first turned fresh, white cream into a block of gorgeous yellow butter, I was just amazed at how easy the whole process was – here was I eating butter all my life and I hadn’t even made it from scratch. It was hugely satisfying, and pretty gorgeous, too!  As a patron of GIY Ireland, I’m asking everyone out there to log on from your kitchen on Wednesday 16th March at 7pm with cream, a whisk, a bowl and a spatula on hand, and together we will whisk up a storm”.   Ella Mc Sweeney is a GIY patron, and comes with plenty of experience she keeps rare breed hens, pigs and grows fruit and vegetables in her urban garden in Dublin, Ireland. She is proof that you can have a busy lifestyle and still find the time to have a productive garden.

How?
It’s easy – all you need is: 2 pints of fresh cream, a whisk, a bowl with iced water, a spatula and a computer hooked up to www.giyireland.com.
When?
Wednesday 16th March, 7pm.  Log on to www.giyireland.ie for this live online event.

About GIY Week
GIY Week 2011 takes place from the 12th to the 19th of March and is GIY’s first major outreach event of the year.  The event is timed to coincide with the start of the 2011 growing season and aims to encourage people who have never grown anything at all to pledge to stick a seed in the ground.  GIY groups around Ireland will be hosting events to provide would-be GIYers with the skills that they need to grow their own successfully.  On Facebook, GIY plans to get over 100,000 people to take a pledge to grow something they can eat: www.facebook.com/giyireland

For more information on GIY Week Events, visit www.giyireland.com/markets/events

For more information contact Sarah Fleming at GIY Ireland on +353 86 086 8770 or email sarah@giyireland.com

Once there was a little boy named Fionn who lived on a farm

on a green, green island in the blue, blue sea.

On Fionn’s farm there were a handful of happy cows, a few clucky chickens,

and a gigantic garden filled with the most tremendously tasty vegetables.

But little Fionn did not like vegetables.

He would not eat them.

Never.

Ever.

Since it is “Pancake Tuesday” in Ireland, I am sharing with you a lovely recipe for sweet carrot pancakes which our little boy fashioned last year after we pulled our first round of carrots from the garden. It is now virtually the only way to get him to eat these yummy vegetables. I thought it would be fun to share an excerpt from a children’s picture story I wrote last spring and brought all the way to the Bologna Book Fair , hoping I could meet with a publisher who I could very politely persuade to publish it.  Little did I know, the book fair was focused on books that were already sold and shopping rights to other parts of the world and/or television and film. Didn’t sell the book, but definitely learned a lot and got to enjoy at least one brilliant bowl of Bolognese!

The story, which is about a small Irish boy named Fionn who lives on a farm and won’t eat his vegetables, includes our son’s clever recipe for carrot pancakes at the end of the book.

His carrot pancakes go a little like this….

First, you’ll need to find the freshest, most brightly-coloured organic carrots {preferably pulled from your very own garden} and with mommy’s help, grate one or two along with a little bit of sweet orange zest…

Mix it into your pancake batter, making sure you can see all the fun orange bits, of course

Pour em’ onto your griddle and wait until they bubble up and turn golden on both sides. We like to garnish with home-made cinnamon + vanilla butter and icing sugar, but you can use pure maple syrup or golden syrup or anything your heart desires….

Happy Pancake Tuesday!

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos & Styling by Imen McDonnell. Assisted by Sonia Mulford Chaverri.

Tags: Bologna, carrots, expat, farm, food, foodie, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, Married an Irish Farmer, Pancake Tuesday, Sonia Mulford Chaverri