I had abandoned cooking new stuff for a while as I was content with the old favourites on regular rotation, so when I joined an evening of with prime Irish beef Derry Clarke and Tefal in Cooks Academy I was all set to open my mind and food hole to some tasty inspiration.

(pic: irishbeef.co.uk …of course it is)

Using the Tefal OptiGrill, Actifry Express XL and the Ingenio cookware set, Derry demonstrated how to make smoked haddock risotto, steak and chips and rhubarb and ginger crumble….

…All while we chowed on juicy prawns made in the Actifry Express, and teriayki salmon kebabs and mini lamb burgers grilled to perfection on the Optigrill.

…learn…chomp…learn…chomp…learn…chomp….

Let loose in groups, we set off to recreate the dishes.

As the other three in my group started in on the steak, fries and crumble, the risotto was all mine.

Having never eaten risotto before (please send help to Poola C, No. 1 Under A Rock, Frozen Pizza Box Way) and never bothered to attempt cooking it due to everyone making such a drama out of it, I was a tad nervous about ballsing it up. It turns out however, risotto (or at least this one) is a piece of p…cake!

Smoked Haddock, Spinach & Pea Risotto with Aged Parmesan

Ingredients

50g butter

1 small onion peeled & diced

300g Arborio rice

1l vegetable stock

300g diced smoked haddock

100g spinach leaves

100g aged Parmesan

Method

Melt the butter in a Tefal Ingenio pot and cook the onion gently for 5 minutes. Do not brown the onion. Add rice and season.

Heat stock and add to rice, ladle by ladle, letting the rice absorb the liquid slowly. Ladle wine liberally into yourself. This will take about 15 minutes.

Add the smoked haddock, peas, spinach and cheese (leaving a little cheese to sprinkle before serving)

Top the dish with crisp salad leaves dressed with a little olive oil and balsamic. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan cheese.

Seriously easy. Why complicate things? It’s perfect, and so tasty.

Using the Ingenio detachable handle, I moved the dish from the hob to the table, detached the handle and served right there. Saves time and cleaning!

While I was having a very zen time ladling stock into rice as thirsty as Robin Thicke at a meet and greet, the three others were tearing up the workspace prepping the steak and chips and the crumble bits and bobs.

Warm Rhubarb & Ginger Nutty Crumble

Ingredients

20 Sticks Rhubarb

1 tablespoon fresh chopped ginger

200g white flour

100g butter

100g white sugar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon peanuts, chopped

1 tablespoon pecans, chopped

1 tablespoon hazelnuts, chopped

2 tablespoons oats

Method

Clean and chop rhubarb, place in Tefal Ingenio pot with the white sugar, ginger and water. Taste and add more sugar if required. Drain off some water if it looks a bit liquidy after a bit of cooking.

Place rhubarb in tart tin

Mix flour, brown sugar and butter until you have a crumble mixture (not too fine)

Sprinkle over rhubarb mixture and bake in oven for 15 minutes at 180 deg C

Remove from oven and sprinkle on mixed nuts and return to the oven for five minutes.

Grilled Rib Eye Steak with Beetroot, Bacon & Black Pudding Dressing and Horseradish Cream

Served with Actifry French Fries

Ingredients

2 x 300g Rib Eye Steaks

200ml red wine

1 tablespoon brown sugar

50ml cabernet vinegar/ red wine vinegar

50ml olive oil

100g diced dry cured bacon

100g diced black pudding

1 beetroot cooked and diced

1 tablespoon horseradish

2 tablespoons creme fraiche

Watercress for garnish

1kg potatoes

Method

Peel and slice potatoes into French fries. Cook for 25 minutes in the Tefal Actifry Express XL as per instructions. The Actifry turns the chips as it cooks. ‘Tis hard to look away. Hypnofries, man!

Heat the Tefal OptiGrill and season steaks with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper on both sides. Place on Tefal OptiGrill and cook to preference; rare, medium or well done.

In an Ingenio pot, reduce the red wine vinegar and sugar by half over a low heat. Add vinegar and reduce in a separate pan. Sauté the bacon and pudding. Add the beetroot, place mixture in reduction. Add olive oil.

Place cooked steaks into the sauté pan, spoon over the bacon vinaigrette.

Mix the horseradish and creme fraiche. Top the bacon dressing and garnish with a little watercress.

We served the steaks in the Ingenio pan on top of the Actifry chips.

With the detachable handle, the Ingenio set can be moved from counter to hob/ oven and then served directly on the table. Being able to remove the handle frees up space on the hob and table, and adds the safety aspect of keeping the little ones away from knocking it over.

Knowing plenty of folk whose emotional attachment to ‘proper’ chips is as deep as their fryers, the Actifry is a revolution. If my plus one for the evening, a staunch Deep Fry Fah Lyfe advocate is anything to go by, the Actifry is the way forward. Just a small spoonful of oil in the Actifry gives the same result as a the traditional big pan fry up of taters, but a ton healthier.

Get yourselves an ACTIFRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

(pic: Instagram/Oprah)

As my fave quote in Maeve Binchy’s Tara Road about the Irish mentions, “We didn’t invent the potato, we just perfected it”, the French have certainly improved the fry-y goody perfection with the Actifry.

The new Tefal Actifry Express XL (RRP €229.99), the latest addition to the Actifry family, is healthier, convenient and versatile; up to 30% faster than the original model and can cook and brown 1 kg of fries in less than 30 minutes using just one spoon of oil. Not just for fries, the ActiFry Express XL will also revolutionise dinner menus and can make curries, stir frys, casseroles and much more.

 The OptiGrill (RRP €169.99) is like having a professional grill chef at home cooking meat to personal preference each time, whether rare, medium or well-done – removing any worries about over or under-cooking. It is the first electric grill that cooks food automatically by measuring the thickness and temperature of its ingredient, making it perfect for people who lose confidence when cooking certain types of food for other people.

The Ingenio (RRP €7.95 – €304.99) Cookware concept is built around patented detachable handles that attach and detach with one click, allowing home chefs to transfer cooking from the hob to the oven and then direct to the table – all in the same dish; a revolutionary concept that brings a whole new take on versatility.

 Tefal products are available from electrical retail stores nationwide.

(Pic: 9gag, gif: imgur)

This. Always and forever.

Trailblazing vodka brand, Absolut and electro giants Le Galaxie joined forces to host a party of mesmeric proportions on the 9^th October in The Academy for the launch of the new single Carmen and the exclusive reveal of a collaborative project six months in the making, the Carmen video.

Over 500 invited guests, which included influential members of the capital’s art and music scene…and moi, a lushy rose by another surname, HOLLA….

…were welcomed into an Absolut…ly transformed Academy where they were treated to an Art Battle with artists Steve Simpson and James Kirwan, DJ battle from Nialler9 and Philip Boyle Aka Ghostboy, Remix by Absolut run by Jamie White of Youth Nation, a set from electronic duo Faune and the main act the electrifying, Le Galaxie.

On the night guests were treated to a selection of Absolut cocktails including Absolut Crush and Absolut Raspberri & Lemon from the Andy Warhol bar.

Guests got involved on the night with the Art Battle being fuelled by suggestions which were sent to the Twitter wall.

Over the last six months, the collaborative video project known as Pulse by Absolut captured electrifying reactions of Le Galaxie’s fans to their brand new single Carmen and digitally transformed them with special effects, filters and finally polygonal shapes to include them in this futuristic video.

Take a taste of the most flavoursome food West Cork has to offer this November as Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa bring back the popular event with a winter twist on the 14^th November.

Inchydoney’s Taste of West Cork sumptuous seven course tasting menus will bring guests on a culinary tour of West Cork as Head Chef Adam Medcalf showcases the best produce West Cork has to offer during the colder seasons as well as the hotels own artisan produce.

This culinary feast will open foodie’s eyes to local businesses and produce and will be refreshingly complemented by wines from the hotels cellar.  With most ingredients being sourced within a 50km radius of the hotel, Head Chef Adam Medcalf’s unique feast will give guests a true ‘Taste’ of West Cork.

While the menu is top secret at the moment, previous menus have included Inchigeelah Wood Venison-Roasted Loin of Venison from Inchigeelah Wood, Dunmanway, caught by Dan McCarthy and served with a Celeriac Fondant, Homegrown Rosemary Potato Puree, and a Smoked Apple Cream; Smoked Tuna – Blue Fin Tuna Smoked by Shellfish de la Mer, Dinish Island, Castletownbere with a Tomato and Chilli Jam and Fresh Horseradish Cream; Mulled Apple Sorbet – Apples from O’Dowd’s Garden, Mulled, Puréed and Frozen with an Apple and Cinnamon Purée.

And of course no West Cork menu would be complete without Clonakilty Black pudding & sausages.

Tickets are €65 and are available at the hotel reception. 

Special overnight accommodation rates are available for guests who want to make a night of it with full access to the heated seawater therapy pool, sauna, steam room and relaxation areas.

Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa is located near Clonakilty, West Cork has been named Ireland’s Leading Spa Resort three times at the World Travel Awards, in the Top 10 Hotels in Ireland by the 2013 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards and is the perfect place for people who value time together.

For more information please visit www.inchydoneyisland.com, www.facebook.com/InchydoneyIsland or www.twitter.com/inchydoneylodge.

Additional photos from the Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa Facebook page.

First thing to sort is the meat marinade. This will work for chicken, beef, or turkey as I used here.

Fajita Meat Marinade

1 red chilli, finely chopped

Zest from 1 lime

A quarter of one red onion, chopped fairly small

1-2 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon of salt

A quarter cup of olive oil

Salsa

3-4 tomatoes quartered

3 cloves of garlic

1 small onion roughly chopped

1 green chili (half if you don’t want it that spicy)

A good handful of coriander chopped

1 teaspoon of salt

Squeeze of lime to taste

Griddling the Meat & Veg

I griddled the turkey first, set it aside in a pan to keep warm in the oven while I finished off the peppers and onions.

Dish up and tear some coriander over the top of the meat and veg.

Serve with sour cream/ Glenisk creme fraiche (my preference), grated cheddar cheese and tortilla wraps. You can add rice, but there’s plenty going on here for four as a main course.

Omelette, per person-

2 eggs

Handful of spinach

4 tablespoons cooked salmon

1/4 red onion

4 cherry tomatoes

Seasoning

Olive oil

Chunky guacamole, serves four-

1 avocado

1/2 large red onion

5 cherry tomatoes

Handful of coriander

1/2 teasp crushed garlic

Seasoning

Juice of half a lemon

To make the guacamole-

Finely chop your onion and tomatoes, add to a good sized ceral type bowl. Scoop out your avocado and squeeze over the juice of half a lemon. Add your crushed garlic. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Chop your coriander, add in and mix it up. Using a regular knife and spoon, chop into the avocado as you mix it all up, making it as chunky as you wish.

To make the omelette-

Chop the onion finely. Quarter the cherry tomatoes. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk.

Add a splash of olive oil to the pan, cook the onions for about five minutes before adding the whisked eggs. Break up your cooked salmon with a spoon and evenly distribute around the pan, following with the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the spinach over the top.

Once the edges start to firm up around the pan, transfer to under a grill. Make sure the spinach isn’t too close to the heat.

Once the omelette is cooked through and turning a little golden, remove from the grill and transfer to a plate using a large spatula.

Spoon the guacamole over the top in the centre and serve.

Everyone seems to have the Monday grumps today. Here, have  some cute. Ahem.