Mom's No Bake Cookies

My mom always bakes cookies and brownies, but it the summer its way too hot to turn on the oven so she makes No Bake Cookies. I funny thing is I don't remember her making them, just a half empty cookie sheet in the frig.
Mom's No Bake Cookies
makes 24-36 cookies
2 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 cups quick oatmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
Mix together sugar,butter, milk and cocoa in big pot over med high heat. Bring to rolling boil for 90 seconds, timing very important. Remove from heat. Add the oatmeal, vanilla and peanut butter. Mix well and drop by teaspoon onto wax paper lined cookie sheet. Chill in the frig.
I always thought No Bake Cookies where super healthy (because of the oatmeal) but I had no idea how much sugar there was so I halved recipe.

Peach Salsa with Homemade Corn Tortillas

You can't really buy real Mexican or even Tex-Mex in Ireland. Sure they sell flour tortillas and mild salsa but who wants to eat that??? What I miss most are corn tortillas. So I had my sister bring me a bag of masa mix so I could make my own.
Corn Tortillas
Makes 12-15
2 cups of Masa mix
1 1/4- 1 1/2 cup water

Slowly mix the water into the masa. Kneed with your hands. The dough should be really smooth and not too wet or dry. Divide and roll into golf ball sized balls.

Flatten each ball into a tortilla using a press (I don't have a press so I used a book). Place one ball inbetween baking paper or wax paper and flatten with big book. Put the flatten ball in the big book and sit on the book.

Bring a dry frying pan to a med high heat cook each tortilla for about 30 sec a side or until lightly browned.
Peach Salsa
makes 1 1/2 cups
2 ripe peaches
1/2 small red onions
1/2 sweet red pepper
1 hot red or green pepper
1 small handful of fresh coriander or cilantro
1/2 tsp cummin
salt and pepper

Chop the peaches, onions, peppers and coriander. Mix together with cummin, salt and pepper. Enjoy right away or chill in the frig for a few hours frist.

Green and Purple Zucchini Salad: dressed with elderflower vinegar

One of my many elderflower experiments that I've made in the last few weeks is Darina Allen's Elderflower Vinegar from her Forgotten Skill of Cooking. A simple just warmed vinegar and elderflowers but wow! I've been dressing all my salad with it including this Green and Purple Zucchini Salad.
Green and Purple Zucchini Salad: dressed with elderflower vinegar
For 1-2 people who love salad
1 zucchini
1/2 cup fresh green herbs chopped: musted cress, chives, mint and oregano
2-3 heads of purple chive flowers
a few purple thyme flowers
1 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp elderflower vinegar
salt and pepper

Peal the zucchini into long ribbons with a veggie peeler. Mix with green herbs and purple flowers. Add salt and pepper and dress with olive oil and elderflower vinegar.

I like raw zucchini but if you don't then pop the dressed ribbons on the grill and enjoy the salad warm.

Elderflower Cordial

The Elder is blooming. Last weekend I picked about 40 heads and I used half of those to made my first ever elderflower cordial. I used a recipe from selfsufficientish.com but I used 2 limes rather than a lemon.
I've never even seen cordial of any kind in Kansas but here in Ireland elderflower cordial is sold everywhere. Cordial is a very sweet fruity syrup which is diluted with water or soda water.
Elderflower Cordial
Makes about 1 litre
20 elderflower heads
2 limes (sliced)
2 tsp citric acid
1.5 kg sugar
1.2 ltr water (boiling)

Dissolve the the sugar in the water. Add the elderflowers, limes and citric acid. Cover and leave for a few days (some recipes say 24 hours, 48 hours or even 5 days). I went with the 4 days as I kept forgetting find some bottles! Make sure you give the brew a mix everyday.

Strain using cheese cloth or muslin and funnel into sterile bottles.

Enjoy right way and or keep in the frig for the next year. I've mixed mine a few ways so far water, soda water, mint tea, and orange. I think I like it best with a slice of orange.

Wild Irish Garlic Kimshi

As soon as I filled my kitchen with wild garlic it smelled like Korea. So i figured might as well make kimshi! Kimish can be as hot or not as you like. I really like the taste of Korean hot pepper powder so I used 1 Tbs but if you don't like it hot kimshi can be made without it.

Wild Irish Garlic Kimshi
Makes 1 jar (8oz)
4-6 cups wild Irish garlic leaves
1/2 inch grated ginger
1 tsp salt
1/8-1/2 tsp fish sauce or dried scrimp
1/2-1 Tbs Korean dried hot pepper powder

Wash the garlic leaves well. Soak the leaves overnight. Dry the leaves and mix with the ginger, salt, fish sauce and hot pepper powder. Mix well and don't worry if its dry the salt is going to bring the water out of the garlic leaves. Put into something with a lid and leave out at room temp for a few days stirring eat day. Move into the the warmest place in the frig and enjoy right away if you like young kimish.

I like older kimshi so I left mine for a month and its still not to my taste yet!!! I check on it about once a week to let out the gas.

Rosemary Parsnip Chips/Fries

I'm not really one for frying. I guess its because my mom would bake things in a bit of olive oil rather than fry. But I love fried rosemary and its way to hot to turn on the oven.
Rosemary Parsnip Chips/Fries
severs 2
2 med parsnips
1 tsp fresh rosemary chopped
oil to fry
salt

Peal and chop the parsnips into thin chip/fries. Add oil to a large pan (I used 2 Tbs, should be minimum 1/8 inch deep.) Bring to a med heat and add the parsnips. Cook for about five min, keeping an eye on them and turning every min. Should turn a lovely dark brown. Add the rosemary for the last minute of frying. Fish the chips out of the oil and drain on some paper. Top with salt and enjoy hot.

This is fast food fast!

German Cucumber and Radish Salad

For the last two weeks my sister was visiting us. She said that she did not like radishes, but as her older sister I made her try one and now she loves them. I guess its because the radishes were fresh from the garden. My lettuce and rocket is in and we had a nice little salad every night. We even had radish sandwiches.
But cutting up a few radishes is not really a recipe so I'm posting a German salad which is based on a dill salad dressing packet which my mom used to use when I was child.
German Cucumber and Radish Salad
serves 2
10 radishes
1/3 of a seedless cucumber or 1 whole cucumber de-seeded
1/2 tsp of caraway seeds
1/2 tsp of dried dill
1/2 tsp of walnut or olive oil
1 tsp of lemon
dash of salt and pepper

Thinly slice the radish and cucumber. In a hot pan dry roast the caraway seeds for about 10 sec or until they start to pop. Add the caraway seeds, dill, oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Mix.


This is a very refreshing summer salad. The dressing would also be nice on just cucumbers, daikon radish or boiled potatoes.