A Winner, & a Trip to The Natural History Museum!

To find The Mermaid a home I used the brilliant Random.org and we have a winner! It picked no.5 so that's Maeve of The Delights of Tea and other things! She's not my sister Maeve, this is legit. So email me and I'll send her out to you. Thanks so much to everyone for entering and leaving your favourite cake comments! Expect to see alot of cakes made here over the next few weeks!
I spent my weekend in Dublin and apart from having a gorgeous dinner in The Mermaid Cafe and breakfast in Avoca we went to The Natural History Museum. It's now open again having been restored and Oh wow.

It has to be the best museum ever. I you love the idea of mice gossiping, Platypus posing and cute baby seals gazing lovingly at you then this is where its at.

My first Giveaway!

I'm doing my first giveaway! Woohoo! Here are my reasons:

1. I've been writing this blog for nearly 5 months. It's now a semi-serious relationship.
2. The weather is absolutely gorgeous.
3. Me and my sister Maeve did our interview with the lovely Miriam O'Callaghan, you can listen to it here if you want.
4. I have 64 followers! I can't choose a favourite, I love ye all equally.
5. I found a fiver in my jeans after they were washed and it's still grand.
6. I made this mermaid.

Rhubarb & Red Onion Compote

During the week I went to a food blogger event in Dublin held by Bord Bia and organised by the brilliant Donal Skehan of The Good Mood Food Blog. Klara and Maeve from Bord Bia were there making sure everything went perfectly and the week before the event the lovely Klara sent out massive pieces of pork to everyone that was attending the event! I got a huge loin of pork and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. There really are so many possibilities with pork. But I decided it was such a beautiful cut I didn't want to mess with it too much!

So I gave it an old school roasting. Just scored the fat, poured a kettle of boiling water over it, patted him dry with kitchen roll and rubbed sea salt into the fat. Then into a scorchio oven of about 230 and turned it down after a while. It took about 2 1/2 hours to roast and I just did a load of roast potatoes with duck fat (I know, I'm terrible.) Then served it with a huge mixed green salad, the garden is really taking off, loads of rocket, lettuce, mustard leaves and mizuna. Peppery lemony salad. Yum. There's also a load of rhubarb vying for my attention so I had to involve it somehow. So I made rhubarb and onion compote.

Owl you need is love...

You remember the cat I made a while ago? Well she'd been feeling pretty lonesome lately and wandered into the wrong side of town. There she met a hand stitched felt handsome bird by the name of Owl. He wears a patch because he is a Pirate and he sails on a Pirate ship (not his own, he's the head pirates right hand bird but he's working his way up the pecking order and maybe next year he'll have his own crew, all going well). He thought that his true love was the high seas and the rum that wet his beak, that was until he set eyes on Cat as she wandered around the fish market looking for pollock.

Cookie Munster

These are the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. Unbelievably crumbly and crisp with toasty hazelnuts and molten chunks of dark chocolate. They're definitely cookies but with my Cork accent it always sound weird saying cookie so I always call them biscuits!

Unbelievable with a glass of milk. Equally gorgeous with a cup of tea. Isn't everything?

Communication Rocks!

My brother Oliver is a geoligist and he will be so delighted that I am finally dedicating a post to Rocks. As he predicted I would someday do... Anyway Oliver you were right, Geology Rocks!
The weather here in Ireland is not yet warm enough to go swimming or even paddling but it is lovely to go to the beach anyway. And here is a project to do next time you visit your local pebbley beach with some young kids in tow!

Quilty Pleasure...

I seem to have taken a million photos for one post again! I'm so visual. I know. So I'll keep the chitchat to a minimum and we'll get straight down to it.
I had a load of scrap fabric. I know a 5 year old that really really wanted a quilt set for her wrecked old pram that she loves. Perfect!

Chocolate for breakfast

Long weekends are brilliant because a bank holiday Monday seems like a bonus day. An extra day added to the week just so that you can stay in bed or read every page of the Sunday newspapers. Long weekends to me mean leisurely breakfasts and starting the day off with something gorgeous.

I made these last weekend and hope to do the same again tomorrow! You could easily make these the night before and keep them in the fridge to bake the following morning.