Recalling my first date (and a tasty loaf recipe)

I have to admit that my first date (of the edible variety) was a real disappointment . It probably doesn't say much for my priorities in life when I genuinely don't recall much about my first romantic one but remember the first one I ever ate with absolute clarity.

 The main reason I felt so let down was that this particular scene in my childhood story was set for something really amazing. It was Christmas for a start and I was visiting my uncle's house where the brightly coloured and individually wrapped box of treats I was presented with was surely going to be something special. The four year old me lived in a sugar saturated world and knew well that this elaborate packaging was just bound to represent a superior treat in the line of a much loved Viscount or Penguin.

 Its toffee hued appearance when unwrapped only elevated my expectations further but as I bit into it I was greatly let down by something that seemed bland and underwhelming. This was the source of great amusement for the adults present and I remember feeling at the time that I had been rightly duped.

Perspective, however, is a wonderful thing and many years later, I would come to see dates in a very different light when I gave up refined sugar for a six month period in my twenties. During that time, they sweetened up smoothies nicely and even meant that I could enjoy a (healthier) brownie or cookie now and then.

My opinion on them now probably lies somewhere between the two extremes but I do know they make a fantastic pairing with banana and banana bread is the obvious thing to reach to make when you have spotty bananas like this in the fruit bowl.

Because I am keen not to take too much solace in sweets during isolation, I refrained from buying any chocolate or junk in my last shop. However, I was struck by a serious sugar craving this weekend and decided to make a banana, date and walnut loaf (well, two to be precise).

I doubled up on this banana bread recipe, adding in a handful each of chopped dates and toasted walnuts. The low fat content in this recipe gives a result that is more akin to standard bread than other banana bread recipes I have tried in the past but a bit of butter helps with that issue greatly. I think toasting would improve it even further. 

Lots of my friends and family are also baking up a storm during this crisis and I'm really enjoying seeing and hearing about (if not tasting) their efforts. This is my little contribution for this week, a good solid recipe that can be modified very easily. (I think chocolate chips would be another great addition).

Using up that quare stuff at the back of the press

In these strangest of days, I have once again turned to food. While I haven't (quite) been polishing off biscuits by the packet, these incredible times have reiterated to me both the emotional role food plays in our lives and the fact that there really are few greater acts of love than feeding those we hold dear.  And so, more than four years since it last saw the light of day, I am once again resurrecting this blog.

I'm sure I'm not alone in embracing any semblance of normality I can at this time when almost all that we know has been utterly turned on its head. Because of my failure to source Dettol and disinfect the place on repeat like the rest of you, I don't mind admitting that I have instead been washing and drying clothes almost constantly (and sometimes unnecessarily). For me, the hum of the machines has never been more soothing, symbolising glorious normality at its most basic. Similarly, as the hours spent at home have turned into days, the pattern of preparing meals has lent a sense of structure to my time in the house. 

For very obvious reasons, I’m adverse to making unnecessary supermarket trips and mindful not to buy a second of anything for fear of leaving someone else short. Prior to this craziness, I was  someone who unashamedly took full advantage of my shopping freedom, visiting Lidl most days (sometimes even twice) and throwing pretty much whatever I fancied for dinner that night in the trolley but with the planet having seemingly shifted off its axis, that can of course no longer continue. 

I am trying hard to shop just once a week (for both my mam and I together) and also now feel a genuine moral obligation to try harder than ever not to be wasteful with the food we are lucky enough to have in the cupboards and fridge (purchased both pre and post pandemic).

Though it's also in a state of chaos, I have to say that I really love my extra large food cupboard/ larder. I am well aware that many houses these days have elaborate walk-in pantries, outdoor pizza ovens and many other amazing features but when I came to view our house a couple of years ago, the kitchen storage was probably the stand out thing that made me most excited about the prospect of living here. For context, I had just moved home to Mayo after 16 years in the capital which finished with a stint in a horribly overpriced, stinking bedsit in Dublin 8 where I had close to no kitchen or counter space and literally had to sit on my bed in order to chop an onion. To me this standard three bed semi and its abundance of storage was a veritable palace. I snapped it up and promptly began to fill it with food!

I’m lucky to be able to say that my kitchen cupboards and freezer are now quite full of all manner of weird and wonderful things because I have simply gotten lazy and unadventurous but I’ve decided that this is the ideal time for me to challenge myself by changing that and documenting the results here. Having once been a fairly adventurous and experimental cook, I have found myself in a bit of a rut, cooking the same old things week after week. There are so many items I need to use from tahini and miso to panko breadcrumbs and including some older items (that I will have to examine closely before consuming!). Now that we no longer have the luxury of flying down to the supermarket on a whim because we happen to fancy a roast chicken and with no certainty in terms of what still lies ahead, I figure that making do with what we have to hand might be a useful skill to master.

I have to say that I have the utmost of respect for all of the supermarket workers who are working at the coalface of this crisis with little money or thanks.The medical staff are quite rightly receiving high praise from all quarters, crowd funded meals and huge respect and of course that is all richly deserved. However, our retail workers are also doing a heroic and absolutely essential job for a whole lot less money and without the same levels of respect. I see that Aldi announced yesterday that they are to give all staff a 10% raise and hopefully others will follow suit.  After all, if we can't eat we simply can't survive and we all owe those who show up each day in these uncertain times a huge debt of gratitude.

Though I ate plenty of the over-salted packet sort as a teenager (usually alongside a white bread cheese sandwich), soup wouldn't usually appear on my shortlist of favourite foods. Perhaps it was its 'hug in a mug' connotations that encouraged me make some yesterday or maybe it was its reputation as a good old staple at a time when things feel less than secure. In any case. it helped clear out the overflowing vegetable drawer nicely.

Soup really is the perfect vehicle to use up tired vegetables be they slightly withered with age or ice- burned from spending too long in the depths of the freezer. It is also very forgiving of adaptations. To make a simple vegetable soup,  I started with one onion, gently fried in butter, adding about seven medium sized carrots, most of a celeriac (head?)half a packet of diced swede (that must have been in the freezer for a year), a few shrunken potatoes, a couple of handfuls of frozen peas, about 750ml of vegetable stock and finishing with a good glug of milk added to a basic flour and butter roux to thicken it a little further and add to the creaminess.

The lot then simmered on medium for about 25 minutes before blending and finishing with some extra peas. I also added a teaspoon each of garlic and onion powder (not salt! I made that mistake once!).Another mistake I made was adding in a very pungent Tesco herb and garlic stock pot towards the end of cooking.Though still very tasty to eat, I found it took from the gentle sweetness of the root vegetables a little and I will be wary of using these so liberally in the future. It still made a great lunch together with some soda bread I made using this very simple recipe with the addition of a few chia and sunflower seeds. I am sorry that I don't have a picture of the finished soup but I'm simply out of practice. Here is one of the bread instead and I promise to try to be a better blogger in future. 

I dropped some soup to my mam and dad (from a safe distance) and, in the absence of real hugs,  it seemed to to be something of a substitute. It certainly wasn't fancy but transformed a good amount of weary ingredients into something very edible (including some very questionable flour which I used in both the bread and soup).It was nourishing, simple and good for the soul because in these weird days here on planet earth surely that needs feeding too.

These are mad times and I believe they will change us all in many ways that are yet to be revealed. My own journey of change starts with tackling that food press.