Articles

Christmas Recipes and Tips - and Good News about Real Butter! The shops are brimming with tempting trinkets and baubles and canny shoppers are taking advantage of pre-Christmas bargains, and ticking off their lists. How good it feels to be organised, but more and more it’s a challenge for so many who are trying to balance both time and budget.
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New artisan cheeses have been coming onto the Irish market in a pleasingly steady flow in recent years and, every now and then, something really unusual comes along. That can certainly be said of the latest cheese made by Helen Finnegan at the family farm in Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny, where the famous Knockdrinna range is produced.
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They came to the beautiful Lough Inagh Lodge Hotel in their hundreds to enjoy the December launch of Mairin Ui Chomain’s new book, as they had done to Sallynne & Derry Clarke’s iconic restaurant L’Ecrivain for the Dublin launch in November.
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In the latest of a series which shows how to get the best from particular food and beer pairings, our expert columnist and food blogger KRISTIN JENSEN gives her tips on matching beer and beef - the ultimate ‘dude food’ combo
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This month Lucy Madden enlists Santa’s help to make our green and pleasant land can become a more attractive place to live and to visit
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This month Martin recounts their first proper holiday since they set up business in France - A Fortnight in Italy. When we moved to France and therefore onto the Continent of Europe I imagined that we would be popping into the car every weekend we had free and tripping down the road to Italy, or Germany or Switzerland...
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Today we dried off our spring herd of 81 cows. This will give them a 2 month break before they begin to calve. So no milking on Christmas Day at Castlefarm, yippee.
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I can’t confess to know a lot about beekeeping. Actually, correct that, I know absolutely nothing about beekeeping. So, one might be surprised to find a beehive in my garden. But there it is nonetheless, nestling happily in a secluded patch between my polytunnel and the hedgerow.
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As much a part of our Christmas as the turkey or the plum pudding, cranberries are borne on evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines (subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium). A major commercial crop imported from North America, they thrive in acidic bogs and the sharply flavoured red berries have antioxidant qualities which have led recently to their reputation as a ‘superfruit’.
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This month Marilyn Bright talks to Eithna O’Sullivan, proprietor-chef of Eithna’s by the Sea, Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. our Seafood Restaurant of the Year 2014, sponsored by BIM
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