Ballymaloe LitFest and a postcard from my mortifying/proud childhood…

Yes, I'm afraid to admit, that bespeckled boy with the tea towel on on his head, demonstrating how to make homemade pizza, is me... You may be wondering why the strange get up, but to me it was quite clear at the time, that with my jam jar glasses, I was a dead ringer for the Queen of Irish food, Darina Allen.  It made complete sense to set up my dad's video camera with the help of my best friend, dressed as Delia Smith, to present the forgotten episode of Darina's TV show "Simply Delicious: The Cook Off", complete with my best impression of Darina's dulcet tones.  Clearly it would have been a ratings winner!

Continue reading >>

HomeCooked Cover Shoot!

Yesterday I was up very early to catch a flight to London to shoot the cover for my new cookbook.  I don't mind early mornings normally but a 4.30am start certainly has a bit of a sting in the tail.  A good nap on the flight over sorted me out and I was raring to go!  Martin and Lucy from Harper Collins design team had been planning and plotting cover concept designs over the last few weeks so it was great to see them finally come to life.  I was also very excited to be shooting with top photographer Myles New who has worked with Lorraine Pascale, Rick Stein, John Torode, Gordon Ramsey and many more. 

Continue reading >>

Lights, camera, action on new TV series…

What a week! I've just come up for air... For the last 7 days our house has been filled with lights, camera and plenty of action.  Filming for the next series of "Kitchen Hero: HomeCooked" started last weekend at the West Waterford Food Festival in Dungarvan. Unfortunately we got completely washed out of it on the Saturday but filming went on and a good few dedicated home cook's watched on, as I cooked up, Chilli and Lemongrass Chicken and Dungarvan Beer Batter Fish with Rosti Potato Cakes and Minty Mushy Peas.  It was the first outing of Gertrude the very cool Citroen H Van (from littlepiggy.ie) I'll be traveling around Ireland in and despite the rain she looked great!

Continue reading >>

Hitting the road and Smoky Fish Cakes…

What a crazy week we've had! From an incredible food photoshoot on Tuesday at a beautiful old church at TheGlade.ie, a visit from Gertrude our new vintage van and as I write this, we are on the way to visit lovely little spring lambs on the hills of Connemara.  We are starting the filming for the third series of Kitchen Hero this weekend and we will be setting up at St. John's Castle in Dungarvan on Saturday as part of the West Waterford Food Festival.  It's been a bit of a scramble to get everything together but we now have our full set organised and next week we will begin the filming of a whole section for the new show in my home kitchen focusing on lots of baking recipes. 

Anyone For A Dirty Big Chocolate Cake?

After a long day, shooting some lovely food images for a project I'm very excited to share with you, in the next few weeks, I am sitting here transferring images while drooling at these pictures of chocolate cake.  Baking has without a doubt become ridiculously popular in the last few years and its popularity has been cemented by the success of shows like The Great British Bake Off.  It never fails to amaze me that the most popular posts I blog about always tend to have butter and sugar on the ingredient list. 

Continue reading >>

HomeCooked Newsletter | April 2013

Hi folks!

Well, you've probably noticed by now, that the website is looking a little different!  I'm thrilled to have it back to looking like a blog and hopefully you're finding it much easier to browse back through old blog posts and through the recipe database filled with over 250 recipes.  If there's anthing you'd like to see on the blog or any suggestions, pop me a comment below.

After a very cold start to the year, with the clocks changing, it is finally starting to feel like spring with longer evenings and wild garlic popping up in the forest. I've been busy getting my kitchen garden ready for the growing season and I've just started planting out the seedlings, which have been tucked up in the greenhouse, safe from the cold weather.  I love growing my own veggies, which was why it was an obvious choice to support the GIY and Innocent Smoothies Sow & Grow Campaign for a second year in a row- You can read all about it and check out some of the images below.

We are coming to the final stage of my next book, Kitchen Hero: HomeCooked, which will be out in October and I'm thrilled to say, it's looking fantastic.  It certainly makes the time we spent shooting the food images before Christmas, all worthwhile.  To accompany the book, I'm thrilled to say there will be a 13-part TV series which will air in May and then again in October on RTÉ One, proudly sponsored by SPAR.  We're going to be on the road this series and stopping at festivals across Ireland to demonstrate simple HomeCooked recipes.  Check out details below, to see if we'll be filming near you!

Continue reading >>

Sensitive smoke alarms and Lemon & Mint Griddled Chicken…

The big joke in our family growing up was that if the smoke alarm went off, we knew dinner was on the way.  My mom used to get a terrible slagging and ever so slightly flustered over this and would invariably throw the offending article out the back door (normally toast left under the grill for too long).  I, rather cruelly, always scoffed at this and swore that when I had my own kitchen, it would never happen, clearly she wasn't paying enough attention.

Continue reading >>

New Beginnings and the perfect pizza base at home…

Welcome, welcome, welcome! I'm very excited to welcome you along to my brand new website with a new look and feel.  We've gone back to the old blog format with this new version of the website as I was feeling our old version was being swallowed up a little.  Now you can freely browse the blog archive in the left hand bar and we've also improved the recipe categories and recipe page to allow you find things a lot easier and to browse over 250 delicious recipes.  A big thank you to Robbie and Cristi from LaVerita studios for doing a fantastic job on the design and Simon Walker for designing my new logo.

Continue reading >>

Kitchen Dresser and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup…

Let me introduce you to Pearl Skehan, my grandad's cousin, from Co. Tipperary, 97 years young and the inspiration for my kitchen dresser pictured at the top of this post.  Pearl has always been a bit of a dynamo and has us in stitches with stories of times gone by.  I was visiting Pearl last year and was reminded of the fantastic old kitchen dresser she has in her kitchen.  Mint green all over with pale yellow shelves and knobs, and a beautiful old collection of plates, which are her prized possessions.  All last year I was on a mission to try and find something similar for our cottage.  During the summer I got a text from Sharon Hearne Smith with an image attached of a sweet little vanilla yellow, kitchen cabinet/dresser she had seen at Herman Wilkinson auction house in Dublin.  I knew it was the one.  Some fairly nerve wracking bidding took place the following day, I won with a bid of €100 and that was that, she was coming home with us!  On closer inspection, the dresser was sticky with dirt and the shelves had been covered with a horrible red plastic- that was first to go.  After a lot back and forth, sanding and painting we finally decided on a vintage blue colour with yellow shelves.  My two favourite features however are both gifts from Pearl, vintage wallpaper from her house, which I used to line the back of the cabinet and the photo of my great grandmother Molly which now sits pride of place on the second shelf.  Both complete this kitchen dresser story perfectly.

Continue reading >>

Baking with The Wild Flour Bakery…

Like most of the best things in life, I came across Kate Packwood's baking creations by word of mouth. Images of Kate's beautifully displayed market stall popped up in my twitter feed and I knew we had to meet. Her unique combinations and use of interesting spices really set her cakes apart, like her passion fruit cake with olive oil drizzle and passion fruit curd, dark chocolate and sea salt caramel brownies, and banana, cardamom and pistachio loaves. Is your mouth watering yet? I haven't managed to visit her stall in the Honest2Goodness market in Glasnevin, Dublin, but last week I had the opportunity to try her cakes. Kate kindly agreed to a cake filled photoshoot where we shot three rather special cakes and bakes, Pear, Vanilla and Smoke Cakes, Raspberry, Pistachio and Rose Cake and Earl Grey Profiteroles with Dark Chocolate & Tonka Glaze and Honeyed Figs. I also got the opportunity to ask Kate about her background and why she started baking...

Continue reading >>

January 2013 Newsletter!

Hi folks,

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year celebration. Ours was really special as we had both events in our little house for the first time. On New Years Day we braved the Irish Sea and took a dip to mark the start of a brand new year.  Out with the old and in with the new!

The start of any year is always exciting, plans are made and lots of possibilities lie ahead.  For me, I was thrilled to finally put the last touches to my next book which I had been working on, full time, all the way up to Christmas.  As with all my books to date, I again got the opportunity to shoot the recipe images myself, which can be quite a nerve wracking experience but I had lots of help from Sofie my partner, the wonderful Sharon Hearne Smith and a few extra special helping hands who gave up their time to help during our shoot days.

I'm thrilled with the outcome and the book has now been sent off for editing and design.  Now comes the really exciting part of seeing everything come together.  Kitchen Hero: Home Cooked will be released later this year and I'll make sure to keep you posted all about before then.

I don't think you can ignore the fact that January is a month where all over the blogosphere, beautiful images of cakes and sweet treats make way for juices, healthy salads and soups while people make plans to get fit and healthy for the year ahead.  Considering the proper feast we had over Christmas, I think it's a bit of a case of, if you can't beat 'em, join em'!  So with that in mind I've put together some of my favourite healthy recipes to keep you on the straight and narrow.

In this month's update, two rather special food blogs, a beautiful cookbook from Anna and Fanny Bergenstrom, a great book for new food writers, lots of healthy recipes and some kitchen garden planning

Have fun!

Donal x

Continue reading >>