December/New Year Nosh

Yes, I am paying the price for all this gorgeousness and calorificness as I pound the roads trying to claw back a pound or two but you know what - it was worth it and I enjoyed every morsel - so there!!!!!

My lovely Yule Log

covered in marzipand and dark chocolate, filled with a sweetened chocolate chestnut puree.

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Our delicious and attractive Christmas day breakfast, lovely creamy scrambled eggs with eggs from my brother, strips of smoked salmon and rye toast, washed down with some prosecco with fresh orange juice.

Christmas Dinner starter, Oysters Rockefeller and Oysters Kilpatrick - I will post the recipes for these divine bites later! For anyone who doesn't like the texture of raw oysters (like me!) these are a revelation.

Our Christmas dinner dessert - a Christmas pudding bombe, the Italian meringue encased a vanilla ice cream enriched with Christmas Pudding, dates and brandy. The base of the pudding was a disc of sponge and just before serving some hot chocolate sauce was inserted with a squeezy bottle under the meringue. Oh. My. God!

Stephen's day dinner was kept light, gently poached lobster, some Dublin Bay Prawns, smoked salmon and Marie Rose sauce. 

This was followed with a selection of gorgeous cheeses enhanced by serving them on the lovely slate cheeseboard I won on a fellow food blogger's site - Mona's blog is fab! Check it out here . The slate cheeseboard and knife were coutesy of Slated.ie

A light lunch over Christmas - Scallops with Jack McCarthy's black pudding and a drizzle of Highbank  Orchard Apple Syrup and a few slivers of fried chilli on top - nom!

And we had a wee bit of dining out, with a couple of Billy's colleagues and their other halves we went to Chapter 40 in Killarney and had a fantastic meal, really top notch nosh, flavour and presentation were faultless! These guys produce art on a plate!

My starter - Crab - potted,doughnut, cone!

My main course - Seafood - Vegetable Tempura, Crab and Grapefruit  Salad (Oh MOMMA!!!!!)

My Dessert - Doughnuts - Pistachio Ice Cream, Cappuccino Mousse  

The following night was New Year's Eve and we were at the Station House in Blennerville which is our favourite local restaurant in Tralee. We had a lovely night there, great food for superb value. An amuse bouche, starter, sorbet, mains, dessert, tea/coffee and a bottle of wine thrown in for €49 per person, AND a magician on tap between courses to keep diners amused!

I had the confit duck leg served on a bed of sublime red cabbage which I totally enjoyed - I'm a divil for going for seafood when I'm dining out so it was nice to try this for a change.

And to end 2011 we bought a new table and chairs - looking  forward to getting the new kitchen to match them in 2012 - fingers crossed!!!!

Chocolate Truffles

These babies are seriously divine, they're easy to make, you don't need to scour the shops for any special ingredients or equipment (which is the absolute bane of my cooking life!!!), they look impressive to serve up to your friends and family after a meal or to give as a gift wrapped in some simple cellophane and tied with a pretty ribbon or a nice little box lined with tissue paper or a pretty paper napkin.

Ok there has to be bad news, per truffle we're talking serious calories and for anyone doing Weightwatchers (like moi) they work out at 3 whole propoints each - eek!!! Nonetheless .....they are worth it!! Hehe!!!

A tip : The ones coated in cocoa powder wold be very slightly less calorific than the vermicelli coated truffles!

The following recipe makes about 21 truffles, yes, yes I am painfully aware there are 18 on the plate in the picture above - I gave himself ONE and shur I had to make sure they tasted okay myself! If one didn't taste the mixture as it was cooling etc one might have got 24 truffles

Here's what you'll need:

120mls cream

30g icing sugar

100g Dark chocolate 70% cocoa solids broken into small pieces

50g Milk chocolate, broken into small pieces

25g butter

30 mls Baileys Irish Cream or other liqueur of your choice (Tia Maria, Creme de Menthe, Cherry Brandy, Malibu, whatever floats your boat!)

Chocolate vermicelli and cocoa powder for rolling the finished truffles in.

Re the chocolate - I do a mix of dark and milk chocolate, but if you prefer use all dark, 'tis up to you!

Here's what you'll need to do:

Put the cream and icing sugar in a saucepan and gently heat, do not let it come to a boil!

Take off the heat.

Put the chocolates in a bowl, pour the hot cream/icing sugar mix over it.

Stir well until the chocolate is melted.

Add the Baileys or liqueur of choice, stir well.

Cover and put in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours until set.

Use a teaspoon scoop out amounts of the mixture similar in size to a Ferrero Rocher, roll into balls with your hands.

A tip: Try to have your hands cold for this part and the kitchen ideally wouldn't be meltingly warm either!

Have a couple of plates ready with chocolate vermicelli and cocoa powder and roll the truffles in these as desired.

If liked you could dip them in some melted and cooled chocolate instead.

These will keep in a container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Next time I'm going to try some White Chocolate and Limoncello Truffles so watch this space!