The Irish Foodie

Brandy butter cookies recipe - an excellent solution to using up this Christmas leftover

Every year after Christmas I discover a tub of brandy butter lurking in the back of my fridge.  And every year I end up throwing it out, as it has gone rancid.  This year I left the bowl out to remind myself to think of something to do with it.  Then on Twitter last night several people mentioned that they too end up throwing their brandy butter away.

I started thinking about recipes and Googled a few including brandy snaps but being a lazy cook they didn't appeal.  Then I saw a recipe for brandy butter cookies.  When I woke next morning someone had actually tweeted me the same idea.  But I was ahead and had already bookmarked a recipe.

I have probably mentioned that I never follow a recipe verbatim. I always feel I have to make it mine and change something.  So here is my take on the recipe I found.

Bûche de Noël - delicious Christmas recipe for a chocolate Yule log

Candied peel - making your own to give those warm citrus notes to your Christmas baking

Her shell - Sausage the pig's journey from the farm to the butchers

Everyone said to me it will get easier but I hope it never does.  It should be difficult.

Days in November and baking for Christmas - mincemeat recipe for perfect traditional mince pies

Using a sweet shortcrust pastry, cut out discs of pastry and fill with some mincemeat, cover with another disc. Dip your finger into a bowl of water and run it around the inside perimeter of the top disc. This helps seal the pastry.  Brush with beaten egg and bake in a hot oven at 180 deg until browned.  Cool and dust with icing sugar.

Everybody Cooks - cookbooks should be about real cooks and not stylized photography

and I use the word chef in the loosest sense of the word. Many of these so called chefs would run screaming out of a professional kitchen. I yearn for a real book written by a real cook and not a celebrity famous for what they look like or who their spouse is.

Ireland's Brighton -- The fashionable seaside resort of Bray filled with bars and culinary treats

Waste not want not - throwing out food in a culture of fear

I plan on opening the can of soup pictured in August 2013 10 years after it's best before......

The "Eye" in Pig - looking your free range pig in the eye before they land on your plate

For this reason I can look my pigs in the eye.

Put the kettle on - never underestimate the importance of tea to an Irishman

Put the kettle on.  A phrase used every day in every house in Ireland.  Everyone knows it means make a cup of tea.

Are you a Barry's family or a Lyons one?  Or the new kid on the block - Campbell's?

Tea covers all ails - sympathy, encouragement, a little chat, family crises, bereavement or celebration.  What would we do without it? 

The old tradition of the Irish town butchers -- Judge your butcher on the selection of "cheap" cuts and food knowledge

Loving Languedoc - the Irish foodie falls for delicious tastes of France

Moroccan lamb stew with an Irish twist - a perfect warming recipe for fall

Stir boiling water into couscous and stir vigorously with a fork until the water is absorbed and the grains remain separate. Cover with cling film or a plate to allow the steam to cook the couscous.  Soften the onion and courgette and add in the spices.  Add the vegetable mix into the couscous.

Cork on a fork - an epicurean journey through Ireland food capital

Honest2Goodness - Dublin's new food market could rival English Market in Cork

It is time that there are more options open to people to do their food shopping away from large multi-national supermarkets and to support locally grown and home produced Irish food.  Honest to goodness, it really is!

Color, carnival and crowd mingles with smells of food and farmyard at the Mullagh Fair Day - PHOTOS

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The Burgeroff - Food mad friends gather to barbecue, compete and eat some delicious burgers

'Every fault is a fashion' - what my grandmother would have thought about modern restaurant serving trends