Tags: farm, Farming, foodie, Garrendenny Lane Interiors, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, Lorna Sixsmith, Real Farmwives of Ireland, RTE

A couple of weeks ago, Richard asked me if I’d help out with herding a group of cattle. The cows were going from a paddock about three kilometers up the road back down to the home farmyard. He just needed someone to block off one of the lanes along the route until he passed through with the girls.  Of course, I said no problem. I was delighted to give him a hand.

He explained that all I had to do was simply drive up to the crossroad near the graveyard and park the car three-quarters across the lane so that traffic would not be able to get through. He instructed that if someone came along, I would just need alert the driver to the fact that cattle would be crossing soon. No bother. Easy enough.

I swiftly pulled my hair into two braided pigtails, slipped on my lovely new wedge-heeled wellies brought back from NYC, grabbed my rain slicker and off I went out the door with a big smile on my face.

The minute I arrived at the crossroads, it started bucketing down rain. That was okay because until I suspected the cows were coming I could sit in the toasty car and page through my new Make Bake Love cookbook in search of something lovely and sweet to bake for tea that evening.

However, within minutes, cars started approaching from front and back. I was popping in and out of the car and letting drivers know what was going on. No sooner was I back in the car when a new vehicle would drive up again.

For some reason, every single person that I spoke to seemed to stare at me in disbelief as I shared the reason why I was blocking the road. I knew it was an inconvenience, and I was making apologies, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the look on their faces actually had anything to do with the cow-crossing situation.

Did I look suspect wearing my elevated wellies? My bright, flower patterned jacket? Perhaps the mere fact that I probably over-explained things a bit {as we Yanks tend to do} seemed peculiar. I’ll never know, but I suddenly felt very self-conscious as I stood there in the rain waiting on the cows with cars piled behind me on the road.

Finally, I could hear hipping and hollering from down the way. They were coming! We waited. And waited. Hipping and hollering carried on, but still no sight of them. I glanced back at the waiting drivers. I was soaked to the skin. Then, after fifteen more minutes, I began to hear the loud clicking and clacking of hooves and I spotted Richard, running fast and leading the girls who were following behind him like lightning. It was quite a sight to behold.

And just like that, the cows passed, the cars peeled out of sight, and I was on my way back home.

I believe I’ve advanced one step closer to becoming a cowgirl.

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photo by Imen McDonnell

Tags: American, farm, farmer, Farming, food, foodie, foodies, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, irish foodies, Kilcolman, love, marriage

For the first time since I moved to Ireland, we are welcoming family from America to the farm for this year’s Thanksgiving celebration and I am just thrilled! Last year, we hosted the dinner in our home with a group of our expat friends which was wonderful and this year it will be just as special again.

We will all be to traveling to Kildare on Wednesday the 23rd to visit a turkey farm and take home our fresh bronze turkey. I have freshly pressed apple cider in the fridge that we will warm and sip the next morning as we prepare for our meal later that day. Pumpkin pie(s) will be made. Martha’s stuffing. Fresh cranberry chutney. Yams. And of course, Richard’s famous Irish coffee.

In America, I think it is safe to say that Thanksgiving is nearly as big a holiday as Christmas. Here, since there is no holiday to break up the time before Christmas, everyone is already dangerously close to hitting the Christmas spirit. It is getting increasingly more difficult to wait to go Christmas cray cray until the day after Thanksgiving, but I will resist!

In the spring, I worked as a food stylist on a fantastic cookbook written by Irish butcher, Pat Whelan, and photographed by the very talented Moya McAllister. One of the recipes that really appealed to me was Pat’s sweet turkey, ham and cranberry pies. They are just the right size for a light lunch or tea in the evening. Of course, the idea is that these would be easy to whip up with leftovers from the Christmas dinner, but I love the thought of making them after Thanksgiving. With or without the ham.

Here’s Pat’s recipe

Makes 8 (In a regular 12 hole bun/muffin tray. I used tart molds which are a bit larger so recipe would make 6)

Ingredients

500g Shortcrust pastry

250g/9oz/1 1/2 cups shredded turkey

100g/3/4 cup cooked ham cut into small pieces

8 tbsp creme fraiche

8 tsp cranberry sauce

1 egg beaten

Roll out pastry

Cut 8 circles to line holes of the tin and 8 smalled circles for the pie lids

Grease the holes in the tin and line with pastry

Divide the turkey, ham, cranberry sauce and cream between the 8 holes

Season with salt and pepper

Brush the edges of the pastry and apply the pastry lid to seal

Place tray into the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes

Heat oven to 180/Gas 6

Brush pastry lids with egg wash and bake for 25 minutes

Can be eaten hot or cold!

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photo by Moya McAllister. Food Styling by Imen McDonnell 2010.

Tags: Cranberry, Ham, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, Irish food photography, Moya Mcallister, Pat Whelan, Thanksgiving, turkey

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. {Thank you so much for your kind comments..really, really heartwarming}

In other news, I ate rice pudding for breakfast yesterday.

This is significant because rice pudding was not a popular treat in our home growing up. That is not to say that other families in America didn’t enjoy the benefits of this beautiful, creamy delight (but, umm..did they?) It’s just that our place was more of a chocolatey….butterscotchy…poppyseed-y kinda joint.

Having said that, I secretly always loved tapioca pudding. I enjoyed how you could feel the pearls of tapioca rice in each mouthful…how you could roll those velvety little lumps around in your mouth this-a-way and that-a-way and then try to bite down on just one pearl which never seemed to work. I guess you could say that I loved the very thing about tapioca that puts many people off: the lump factor.

When I moved to Ireland, it took me awhile to get used to the Irish repertoire of confections. In particular, I found it peculiar that jam is used to sweeten many desserts and sweet treats. Jam on scones. Jam on sponge. Jam donuts. Jammy Dodgers. And, of course, jam on rice pudding. I had been accustomed to thick, buttercream frostings or custard fillings as a conduit to the sweet.

I discovered the glory of rice pudding shortly after moving out to the farm. We ventured to a lovely inn for a family Sunday lunch and in between bites of my roast lamb and three versions of potatoes, I noticed the constant flow of rice pudding in fancy dessert glasses being carried out by serious waiters to various patrons in the dining room. When it came time to order our final course, my mother-in-law, Peggy, ordered the rice pudding and I followed suit. It came with a dab of raspberry jam and a dollop of freshly whipped cream. It was ravishing. And, suddenly, jam made sense.

This week I received a long-awaited, anxiously anticipated parcel from my friend, Heidi Skoog. Heidi is a florist in Minneapolis and now also purveyor of gorgeous jams and jellies which are aptly named, Serious Jam. I got to sample some of her new jams over the summer and instantly fell in love. I couldn’t resist ordering some from her website to have in our cupboard for the winter. And, I specifically couldn’t wait to for this jam to grace the top of a dainty glass of rice pudding.

I found out later that rice pudding is actually Peggy’s favorite {with Victoria Sponge a close second} although she only eats it when dining out.  I decided to bake up a batch in the morning (with a taste-test for brekkie) and bring it over to share over tea yesterday afternoon. Popped a sprig of rosemary in the baking dish and topped it off with Heidi’s violette + plum jam and a wee bit of cream and that is all that needs to be said.

Happy days.

Recipe is pretty standard. Here it is excerpted from a classic Irish secondary school cookery book, All In The Cooking.{Moderate oven = 300 F or 150 C}

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos & Styling by Imen McDonnell. Jam by Serious Jam.

Tags: bastian skoog, farm, farmer, foodie, heidi skoog, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, irish food, Irish food photography, love, rice pudding, Rosemary, serious jam

You know the how. The where. The who. I would like to share the why behind this blog. It’s time. I’m gonna get down, dirty and frankly, a little emo here so if you can’t hang, scroll down to the cake recipe and eat cake. That’s what I’d do.

I have been writing here for just over two years. If you have been following along, this wasn’t always an entirely food-related blog. I did like to blather on about food..here and there…but as deliciously indulgent as those posts were, it wasn’t initially the gist of it.

My focus was on the humorous, quirky treasures that are part and parcel to marrying an Irish farmer and navigating a new life in the Irish countryside. Part comedy and part scan of my life through two lenses: city + country/American + Irish and seeing bits of colour in the everyday routine of Irish country living that others might miss along the way. Eventually, I turned to traditional Irish cookery and baking, a delicious way to explore and embrace my newly adopted culture…..either that, or a damn good excuse to enjoy sinful delights like this or this on a regular basis.

BUT, it didn’t start that way either.

Rewind to confession (well, we are in Ireland): My first blog post was a complete rant.

A full-blown, sad, depressed, lonely, mofo angry, soliloquy of my life that evening. My husband was still not home at 9:30pm, pretty standard at the time. It was my 5^th day spent inside alone with our little boy while it bucketed rain outside and made the windows so blurry you couldn’t see out. It was probably the 10^th night we had eaten supper without daddy. Once Geoffrey was in bed, I opened my computer and began typing…well, pounding, on my keyboard. IT IS 9:30PM AND MY FARMER IS STILL NOT HOME. ALONE AGAIN. THIS IS WHAT IT IS REALLY LIKE. I AM MILES AWAY FROM CIVILIZATION. IT IS NOT IDYLLIC. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS. &%£%@$&!!!. Then I deleted it. Then I cried. No, not cried. I bawled. My brains out. Like a little girl who lost a puppy. I hurt.

Suddenly, I had realised that somehow in 4 fast years, life as I knew it had completely vanished.

Poof. Gone. Forgetaboutit.

Life 2005-2009

• Full of absolute confidence and adulation, I left a flourishing career, loads of friends, family, my dear kitty, my cute convertible and a lovely walk-up. Yep. Picked up sticks, moved to Ireland and married the love of my life.
• Morphed into a mummy in a new country without said family and friends.
• Designed and self-built a home on the farm (note: do not attempt this)
• My father became unexpectedly ill and within three months he died.
• I died.
• Then started this blog.

Yes, I died. A lot. Moving abroad, marriage, motherhood, building house were definitely challenging, but losing my father nearly killed me. And that fateful night at the computer, the weight of it all hit me like a ton of bricks.

Roughly one year earlier, on September 13^th, 2008, my dear dad left this world. I held him in my arms with my head resting on his chest as he took his very last breath.

I don’t remember much that happened in the year after that except that my in-laws were very kind and they whisked myself and Geoffrey off to Spain with them for two weeks immediately after we returned from the States so that we wouldn’t be alone so much. Richard had taken 6-8 weeks away from the farm to be with us that summer and he would be working very long hours upon our return. The only other memory is of soaking Richard’s neck with tears each and every night for at least 8 months as I unsuccessfully tried to go to sleep. I couldn’t stop ‘hearing’ my father’s last breath. And I couldn’t stop thinking about every last detail of that summer. Nor did I want to.

We had arrived stateside on June 10^th. I knew my dad had not been feeling well. He had been undergoing tests of every size, shape and acronym. The next day, he had a follow-up appointment with a specialist and I accompanied him. He had undergone a small procedure on his kidney and when we sat down in the examination room the doctor informed him that it had went as planned.

Then, the doctor put an X-ray up on the wall which lit up like an Irish country night sky all filled with starry constellations. I stood up in front of my father and quietly asked the doctor, “what are all those pretty bright spots?” He gravely replied, “You’re going to stay here all summer, right?”  I stood there staring at those stars for what seemed like an eternity while tears silently ran down my cheeks and my throat throbbed like I had swallowed a large boulder.

Two days later we were escorted into an oddly luxurious chemo suite.

Three weeks after, I moved into his hospital room with him as he fought infection.

Radiation.

Surgery.

Chemo.

Emergency Room.

Home.

Hospice and the “Comfort Kit”

Last breath.

In the two weeks before he died, I began a feeding frenzy. Looking back, I am sure it didn’t help matters. But, my dad was going to die and I wanted him to eat all the foods he loved before it was over. Plus, my denial/fix-it mind kept telling me he needed more food. Needed to put on weight. It was ridiculous. I begged him for requests. I fulfilled each of them and then some. Lasagne, pizza, ice cream, kneecaps from Jerry’s Bakery, German Chocolate Cake. I fed him with a spoon. I remember he was exceptionally pleased with his chocolate cake even though he could only manage a bite, maybe two.

There is so much to tell about my father. And, so much to tell about that last summer. Maybe I will share more as time goes on. But for now, I want you to know that this is why I began writing here. I needed an outlet. To share the good. To leave the sad behind. Even if I didn’t know it at the time, this diary gave me one more reason to carry on, to look at the positives and laugh a little, to have company when the farm kidnapped my husband for 16 hour days….to adjust to all the crazy changes life can throw your way in such a short period of time.

But most of all, it has helped me to heal and to come back to life.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

Now, have a slice of my dad’s cake.

It will make you smile. I promise.

Dad’s German Chocolate Cake

Makes one 3-layer 9 inch cake

Ingredients

1/2 cup water

4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups white sugar

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 egg whites

Filling/Frosting

1 cup white sugar

1 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup butter

3 egg yolks, beaten

1 1/3 cups flaked coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 3 – 9 inch round pans. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a small saucepan, heat water and 4 ounces chocolate until melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

2. In a large bowl, cream 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in 4 egg yolks one at a time. Blend in the melted chocolate mixture and vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing just until incorporated.

3. In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain.

4. Pour into 3 – 9 inch pans Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto wire rack.

5. To make the Filling: In a saucepan combine 1 cup sugar, evaporated milk, ½ cup butter, and 3 egg yolks. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in coconut, pecans and vanilla. Cool until thick enough to spread.

6. Spread filling between layers and on top of cake.

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos & Styling by Imen McDonnell. Dedicated to Alfred M. Wozney 1935-2008

Also, a special thank you to Damien Mulley for encouraging me to share.

Tags: chocolate cake, dad, Farming, food, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish

Isn’t flummery a wonderful word? I love the way it falls from the tongue…fl..fl..fl…flum…flummmmmery. I came across this recipe when I was digging for something different to do with the Kilbeggan Organic oats that I never got to use for my demo at Electric Picnic this year. {Boo Hurricane Irene}

We have been enjoying the beautiful porridge for brekky, but I wanted to do something really special to share these oaty gems here. And, after a weekend of inspiration following Savour Kilkenny and  The Great Irish Food Debate, which {for me} enlivened the celebration of truly traditional + historical cookery in Ireland, I couldn’t resist sharing this recipe. A classic flummery.

It is thought that flummery originated in the United Kingdom and made its way into Irish homes in the 18th century. Essentially, a flummery using oats or cornstarch was originally more or less a thickening agent which evolved into a sweet dessert thereafter.

So simple: toasted oats and almonds + honey and whiskey folded into thick, rich cream. These ingredients were available in the 18th century and commonly used for festive recipes. When I look back through my mother-in-law’s cookbooks and beyond, it is really incredible to see how creative the early tastemakers were with so very little ingredients on hand. Delicious. And gluten-free…perfect dinner party or Sunday lunch dessert.

Flummery

from Classic Irish Recipes by Georgina Campbell

Serves 4-6

1/3 cup almonds (sliced)

2 ounces Irish oats {or, if you are not in Ireland, any organic oats will do}

1 cup heavy cream

4 tablespoons honey

1/4 cup Irish whiskey

1 -2 cup berries (optional)

Toast the almonds and oatmeal in a pan until slightly browned. Set aside.

Whip the cream until smooth, but not stiff.

Warm the honey VERY slightly, so that it will run easily.

Fold the honey, whiskey, half of the toasted almonds & oatmeal, half the berries if using them into the cream.

Mix thoroughly, but lightly, and spoon into tall individual glasses.

Sprinkle the remaining almonds/oatmeal and berries on top.

Chill and Serve.

Slan Abhaile,

Imen

Photos and styling by Imen McDonnnell 2011

Tags: dessert, Farming, flummery, hone, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, irish food, oats