Chocolate Puff Pastry Balls

I made these little sweet treats this morning for my guests, as many of them have been with us now for a few days and I wanted to bake something different for them from the muffins I've been making daily.
The little pastries actually just took minutes to prepare, and only 20 minutes to cook in the oven. I'm almost embarrassed at how easy they are to make, and calling it 'baking' I think is probably a stretch!!!

Nonetheless they are soooo good. I normally do not eat any of my breakfast baking when doing B&B (if I did I'd wobble continuously), but I could not resist these little puppies this morning. They were gobbled up in minutes, will have to make double next time.
These balls are being served as a sweet breakfast treat, however it would be a great idea also to tart them up a little and serve them hot from the oven with some vanilla ice-cream as an easy dinner party dessert.

Makes 12

Ingredients

• 1 sheet of ready made puff pastry (defrosted if frozen)
• 12 tsps of chocolate hazelnut spread (i.e. Nutella)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp of oil 
• Icing sugar to dust

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2. Cut the puff pastry sheet in 12 even squares
3. Brush a mini muffin tray with oil
4. Place each square in each greased muffin hole
5. Place one teaspoon of the chocolate spread in the centre.
6. Fold down all the corners of the pastry.
7. Brush with the beaten egg
8. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes
9. Cool on a wire rack and then dust with icing sugar. (do not put the sugar on too early or the heat will melt it)

Sika's Simple Irish Pancakes

Sika Lodge's pancakes are by far the most requested breakfast option for the kitchen. It must be 60-70% of guests go for the pancakes surprisingly. In fact, a very surprising fact is that the 'Full Irish' is the least requested breakfast option!!! I know, I was shocked too!!!!!

A request from past guests (namely the utterly fabulous Lenochs from Kansas) for my pancake recipe, has prompted me to put the recipe I use daily up on the blog. I previously blogged about pancakes (low fat version), however this recipe has evolved from testing and re testing measurements. This batter I think is the perfect batter and I can now make this in my sleep. zzzzzzzz........

My mom always believed that pancakes taste best when the batter has 'rested'. Its for this reason that I always make the batter just before bed time.

The batter is simple to make, and it's just flour, eggs, milk, baking powder. If you have little kiddies, this is a great recipe to use to get them involved in cooking in the kitchen (under supervision of course)

Makes 9 pancakes

Ingredients

• 100g of flour
• 1 large egg
• 300ml milk
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tbsp of sugar (optional)

Method

1. Sieve the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar into a bowl.
2. Pour the milk into a jug and whisk the egg into the milk.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and using a wooden spoon, pour the milk mixture into the well and stir the flour into the liquid.
4. Keep stirring until the mixture is smooth (you may use an electric blender if you are short on time).
5. Pour the mixture into a jug and keep over night (if you have the time but the batter is just as good for immediate consumption)
6. To make the pancakes, get a non stick pan on a medium heat.
7. Pour a tbsp oil (sunflower or vegetable) into  the batter and mix through.
8. Add a knob of butter and a tsp of oil to the pan.
9. Use a ladle as the measure.
10. Pour a ladle full of batter into the pan and swirl until the pan is evenly coated.
11. You know the pancake is ready to flip when little air holes appear on the cooking pancake. This is normally 1-2 minutes. The pancake should come away easy from the pan, if it sticks, its not ready for flipping!!!
12. Flip and cook for a further minute or so on the other side.
13. Remove and keep covered in foil in a warm oven, while you repeat the process with the rest of the pancakes.

I serve my pancakes with Irish strawberries (in season) and maple syrup. But my own personal favourite accompaniment for this recipe is simple - lemon juice and a sprinkle of caster sugar, old fashioned I know, but its the pancakes that we grew up on, and how mammy used to serve them. 

Got Leftover Chicken? - Low Fat Chicken & Avocado Salad Mexican Inspired

Still trying to maintain the low fat vibe (whilst I secretly snack on breakfast muffins and leftovers from the bun display), here's a really quick salad I threw together in 2 minutes flat, using leftover roast chicken and my neighbours Peter and Betty's amazing lettuce fresh from their garden. (Best lettuce ever tasted).

Serves 1

Ingredients

• Good lettuce
• 1/2 avocado, sliced
• 1 tomato, deseeded and cut into strips
• 3 inch piece of cucumber, deseeded and cubed
• 4 tbsp of chopped coriander
• 1/2 a deseeded red chilli
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 4 tbsp of red kidney beans from a can, rinsed
• 2-3 slices of leftover chicken
• 1/2 lime

Method

1. Wash all your ingredients well and dry.
2. Its a simple assembly job of everything on a plate, scatter with the chilli, drizzle with the oil and lime juice.
3. Simple, yet fresh and tasty.

Sika Lodge: From Shabby to Shabby Chic

What a crazy rollercoaster ride the last few months have been!!!! My passion for blogging didn't even get a look in the weeks were sooooo crazy busy. But now, open a few weeks and I'm beginning to hit my stride, find my feet, develop my routine, and make time to blog about the start of Sika Lodge B&B so far!!!

We met the construction deadline of 2 months with an hour to spare before our first guests and a full house. (we were powerhosing throughout the night and doing the final perfection adjustments.)

To get a feel for the kinda of scale I'm talking about, I've demonstrated with a few before and after pics of my kitchen.

My Office Pre Renovations

My Office During Renovations

My Office Post Renovations

So far, I'll been working my socks off to make sure all our guests are happy and fed little bunnies, because happy customers is where you reap the rewards of your hard work. I've already have  Europeans, Americans, New Zealanders, British, Irish (of course) and South Africans......all a real pleasure to cater for and some with very interesting backgrounds and stories. 

We have been very fortunate so far that our travellers have liked their expereience so much with us that they have given us full marks on Tripadvisor, helping us go from #89 out of 124 to #4 of B&Bs in Killarney within a month of opening!!!! Its really unbelievable. I'm so chuffed, it's spurred me on even more! But now that we have reached higher status, the pressure is on to maintain it. 

Tripadvisor Link to our traveller comments :

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g186612-d463460-Reviews-Sika_Lodge_B_B-Killarney_County_Kerry.html

For those of you who have following my food blog, you'll know that my favorite meals to cook are lunches/dinners. I do love breakfasts, though in the past it was hard to give breakfast the time in deserved (most important meal of the day), when running out the door for work at 6.45am. Now, the story is different. I'm 100000% committed to creating yummy, tasty, breakfast dishes for my guests, using locally sourced ingredients where possible. 

I've found that in the B&B business the single most important ingredient you need is good eggs!!!!!!!! I can't stress it enough. We now get out eggs delivered daily to our door from Beaufort Eggs a local supplier with very happy free range hens. I've found no subsitute for free range eggs, be it in baking or even just boiling an egg. The taste of a free range egg can not be beaten. And your eggs are your most important element of your breakfast!!!

I went to Darina Allen's breakfast course in Ballymaloe to get the insider knowledge on the perfect breakfast! She was as always full of expertise, giving loads of recipes and advise for bed and breakfast operators like myself. I've been using her Tradtional Irish Cooking cookbook for a few months now and many of the recipes on the course are in that book. We covered everything from juices to breads and cereals to the hot cooked breakfasts. I'm much more experimental and confident having completed the course. 

I'd never baked muffins in my life, but after watching Darina do it in minutes, I said I'd give it a lash and now I have blueberry muffins baked and cooled in just under 35 minutes in the morning. 

I'll share my recipes and breakfast tips along the way, I've quick developed a love for baking, so watch out for plenty of scones, buns, and breads recipes. As well as my poached apricots and my hot breakfast options.

Full Irish Breakfast

Our Most Popular Option: Pancakes and Irish Strawberries

Muesli with Mashed Strawberries, Cream & Honey (my personal fave)

So that's what I've been at guys for the past few weeks, I have been cooking loads, and photographing , but not had spare time to blog the recipes!!! That will change now. Promise! I'll leave you with just a few snap shots I took on my phone of the views near the house when out running.... Killarney, oh what a wonderful place to live!

Please come visit us at Sika Lodge, when you'll leave with a smile on your face and a very full tummy!!!!

Visit our new elegant website: http://sikalodgekillarney.com/

Instant Low Fat Berry Frozen Yogurt

First off, may I apologise profusely for my lack of blogging lately. It has been manic to say the least, but finishing up in work tomorrow to open the doors of Sika Lodge for the summer, so hopefully will have a bit more time to give to the blogging now that I’m not juggling as much.

May I say what amazing weather we’ve been blessed with these past few weeks. We’ve had many BBQs, notably my Happy Sea Beam http://serenasmediumrare.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-bbq-sea-bream.htm and My butterflied chicken http://serenasmediumrare.blogspot.com/2012/03/bbq-whole-chicken.htmlrecipes, classics on the blog!

With glorious weather comes a time for salads, great when trying to stay trim. Also the temptation for ice-cream and whipped ice-cream cones with chocolate flakes also increases; which isn’t easy when one is trying to diet! But we should enjoy ice cream this weather, without the guilt!!

 Yesterday evening I dusted off my Magimix processor and threw a 500ml carton of low fat natural yogurt into it with 400gs of frozen mixed summer fruits, and whizzed up both ingredients for 5 minutes, and there I had it……Instant Low Fat Frozen Berry Yogurt. Delicious! It was slightly creamy and soft, which could have been eaten just there and then, but I put it into a lunch box container and covered it in the freezer for an hour to harden a little. This is certainly a guilt free treat for the summer!!!

So….to recap:

·         500ml of low fat yogurt

·         400g of frozen berries

1.       Whizz both together in a food processor for 5 minutes, stiring if a frozen berry get stuck in the processor and then whizz again. Put in a freezer proof container, cover and freeze until required.

2.       Put in a wine glass and decorate with a sprig of mint.

How easy is that!!!!!!

Note: This is a slight bite bitter, so you wont need to scoff much to get that sweet hit you were looking for, but if you want to sweeten it up a little, I’d add a tablespoon of honey before whizzing in the processor!!!!!

This is such a versatile recipe; you could experiment with different flavours, boiled lemons? Strawberries? Blueberries? Or why not add some textures, i.e. flaked alonds?

Leftover Lamb Fried Rice

I may have mentioned cooking a big butterflied leg of lamb over the weekend….Well I have lots of meat leftover as I seemed to have cooked a ginormous leg, enough to feed 10 people, not the six that I was cooking for! This resulted in lots of leftovers for lamb pitta pockets for lunch all week. To make a dent in the leftover mound of tasty meat and because time was not on my side, I decided to make really quick leftover fried rice for the husband for dinner. He may actually turn into a sheep after the lamb over load!!!!!!

I would use any leftover meat for this recipe, be it chicken, boiled bacon or pork!!!! It would all taste equally delicious. In this instance the lamb still had the smoky BBQ flavour on it, which made the fried rice extremely tasty.

Serves 2

Ingredients

·         Leftover meat, diced

·         2 carrots diced

·         6 mushrooms, diced

·         2 spring onions, diced

·         120g of rice, cooked according to packet (to speed things up further microwave pouch rice is good)

·         1 egg

·         1 garlic clove, diced

·         ½ a red chilli, deseeded and diced

·         2 tbsp of soy sauce

·         1 tbsp of oyster sauce

·         1 tbsp of hoisin sauce

·         1 tbsp of oil

·         1 tbsp of chopped coriander

Method

1.       Make sure you have all your ingredients prepared, as once you start cooking, it all comes together really fast!

2.       Get your wok on a high heat with the oil and add the garlic and chilli, stir fry for a moment

3.       Add the carrots and mushrooms and fry for 4 minutes.

4.       Remove from the wok to a plate.

5.       Add the rice and fry with the diced meat.

6.       Add the 3 sauces and mix through the meat.

7.       Break the egg directly into the wok and stir vigorously to cook the egg.

8.       Return the veg to the wok and stir to combine all the ingredients together.

9.       Add the chopped coriander to finish it off.

10.   Serve with some sweet chilli sauce on the side

Quinoa, Chickpea & Carrot Herb Salad

I’m really on an middle-eastern inspired buzz at the moment. It’s so spicy and fragrant and fresh though, it’s quite easy to get carried away with middle-eastern inspired dinners every night of the week.

I BBQ’ed a butterflied leg of lamb over the weekend and I had lots of small sides, such as hummus, cous cous, herb salads, honeyed carrots etc. It was divine to say the least. This salad really was a chance to use up all the leftovers in fridge from the ingredients in making all those sides.

So that is how I came up with my Quinoa, Chickpea & Carrot Herb Salad w/ Cumin Squash Wedges!!!!!! Fresh and invigorating, not to mention extremely healthy. I made extra for lunch the following day. It can be stuffed into a pitta pocket with some feta and natural yogurt and be the envy of all work colleagues with their limp ham salad sambos…..

Ingredients

Serves 4

·         1 drained tin of chickpeas

·         75g of quinoa

·         2 carrots, cut into batons

·         1 lemon

·         1 small carton of natural yogurt

·         1 tomato, deseeded and cut into strips

·         3-4 spring onions, sliced

·         2 tbsp of chopped flat leaf parsley

·         2 tbsp of chopped coriander

·         2 tbsp of chopped mint

·         2-3 tbsp of hummus (shop bought or from this blog)

·         ½ red chilli, sliced thinly

Cumin Squash Wedges

·         ½ a butternut squash, cut into thin wedges

·         2 tbsp of ground cumin

·         Low cal spray

Method

1.       Firstly make the wedges and get the quinoa on the boil.

2.       Preheat the oven to 220 degrees

3.       Lay the wedges on a baking tray and sprinkle with the cumin powder, and spray with low cal spray.

4.       Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes

5.       Boil the quinoa according to packet instructions (normally 15 minutes)

6.       To assemble the salad get a large bowl and add the herbs, carrots, spring onions, tomatoes and chickpeas.

7.       When the quinoa is cooked, rinse under cold water and drain, removed excess moisture with kitchen paper before adding to the salad.

8.       Stir well to distribute the quinoa.

9.       Place some hummus in centre of salad and top with the chilli strips and wedges of lemon.

10.   Serve with natural yogurt (low fat is fine), and the wedges.