Be My Valentine

I love Tastespotting but over the weekend there were a selection of rather dubious 'Valentine's' offerings, beet sorbet anyone??. The perfect Valentine's dessert should be just that little bit decadent and special, but not necessarily lurid pink. I found the perfect recipe in my Ice Cream Ireland book. I used a pink champagne which added just a hint of subtle colour.

Still in Italy

……….I wish

We arrived back to on Friday evening and decided to continue the Italian theme for dinner on Saturday. The structure of a full Italian meal is usually some kind of antipasta followed by gnocchi/pasta, then a meat/fish dish and finally dessert.


We started with a simple melon and parma ham salad – simply drizzle over some olive oil and lemon juice (if there wasn’t mozzarella in the next course I would have followed Nigel Slater’s lead an added some good quality buffalo mozzarella, flat-leaf parsley and served it on a bed of rocket).

Next was the gnocchi course – for this recipe I turned to Lorraine’s site. I used 500g for 6 as we were having four courses.

Take T-bone steaks. Sear. Rest. Olive oil + rosemary. Serve on bed of rocket. Could it be any easier?

For dessert you are going to get an actual recipe. These semifreddos come from Bill Granger’s Everyday. He marbled the raspberries and nuts into the mix halfway through freezing whilst I kept the overall flavours the same by serving mine with a raspberry coulis and a sprinkling of pistachios, (the assigned plates are The Doc's attempt at decoration).

Rosewater Semifreddo
(adapted from Everyday by Bill Granger)
Serves 6

6 egg yolks
3 tbsp honey
250 ml cream, whipped
2 tsp rosewater (the best place to buy this is middle-eastern shops – it’s cheap and hasn’t been sitting on the shelf for a year, I got mine in Spiceworld in Portobello)

• Beat egg yolks and honey together until pale and doubled in size
• Fold in the cream and the rosewater
• I froze mine in individual dariole moulds which I lined first with cling film

Definitely not Muesli

When I saw this recipe on Kieran's site I knew I just had to make it. What's not to like about orange ice-cream complete with little bits of Jaffa cakes? I made just two small alterations to his recipe, a 1/2 tsp of orange extract in the milk and I put in 2 extra Jaffa cakes - less left for me to scoff then.

btw the container is from Stable Diet Toasted Muesli, my breakfast staple. This company from Wexford (my hometown) makes lovely mueslis and flapjacks - you can get them in Superquinn. My freezer is full of soup and ice-cream in these empty containers!