We Love Cooking!:
lifestyle

I recently watched "Food Inc." a movie with a tagline which promises "You'll never look at dinner the same way again" and let me just say it does not disappoint. If you have seen other sensationalist style movies about food before, don't be put off, "Food Inc." is very different, not only does it reveal the shocking way in which food is produced and its links with causing life threatening illnesses, it also provides viewers with a look at the alternative lifestyle. A visit to a free range organic farm shows the stark contrast between the production values of food. One of the best points made in the movie is that we, the consumer can change the way food is produced by demanding honest healthy food when we shop. The big companies will respond to consumers needs.

Here are some of the closing lines from the movie which really drive home the changes that you can easily make:
- You can vote to change this system, three times a day.
- Buy from companies that treat workers, animals, and the environment with respect.
- When you go to the supermarket, choose foods that are in season. Buy foods that are organic. Know what's in your food. Read labels.
- Know what you buy. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to the supermarket.
- Buy foods that are grown locally.
- Shop at farmers' markets.
- Plant a garden. (Even a small one)
- Cook a meal with your family and eat together.
- Everyone has a right to healthy food.
- Ask your school board to provide healthy school lunches.
- If you say grace, ask for food that will keep us, and the planet healthy.
- You can change the world with every bite.

Hungry for change? Go to: takepart.com/foodinc

While I know there has been very little recipes on the blog recently, hopefully I can keep you going with another tasty competition! The lovely folks at Lindt, have tickets to give away for the Taste of Dublin Festival to celebrate the launch of their brand new range of excellence milk chocolate varieties, the lucky winner will also get a big bloody hamper of chocolate, the kind of prize that will brighten up the most miserable Irish summer day! Lindt will also be down at the festival itself, so if you really get hooked after eating all the chocolate in the hamper, you can pick up more when you attend Taste with your free tix!

Check out some of the great new varieties of Lindt now on offer:
Excellence Extra Creamy - A smooth and creamy milk chocolate with a velvety texture that melts in the mouth.

Excellence Crunchy Caramel - Creamy milk chocolate blended with delicate pieces of crunchy caramel.

Excellence Caramelised Hazelnuts - Milk chocolate with caramelised pieces of roasted hazelnuts.

Excelence Roasted Almonds - A delightful contrast of creamy milk chocolate with slivers of gently roasted almonds

For all passionate Lindt followers, and chocoholics in general, dying to get their hands on the new Lindt Excellence Milk chocolate bars and the rest of the Lindt Excellence range, head down to Taste of Dublin in the Iveagh Gardens, June 10th-13th, where the new varieties will be available to try and to buy with a special offer of 3 bars for 5 Florins (1 Florin = €1.00 – normal RSP in retailers nationwide is €2.19). To buy tickets for taste of Dublin log on to www.tastefestivals.ie

The winner of the competition is Sarah Traynor! Congrats and thanks a million for all the entries- lots of fantastic chocolate desserts! :)

A big thank you to everyone who entered the juicer competition, there was over 350 entries! However I can announce we do have a winner!
The lucky winner of the Good4U juicer and goodie bag filled with healthy seeds and sprouts is Trish Patton! Congrats Trish, let me know how you get on with your juicer! :)

As I have mentioned, I am big a fan of Good4U shoots and seeds, so I asked the lovely Laura, if she could provide a prize for the blog. I am very excited to tell you that I have a great goodie bag of Good4U shoots and seeds and a fantastic Good4U juicer worth €320 to give away on the blog this week!

To be in with a chance of getting your hands on this fantastic prize, all you gotta do is answer this simple question.

Which of these seeds are not in the Good4U product range?
A: Pumpkin Seeds
B: Sunflower Seeds
C: Melon Seeds
Please note that by entering this competition, you will be signing up for The Good Mood Food Blog newsletter, but if you don't wish to subscribe, please put "NS" after your answer. The competition will close on Thursday evening (11th of Feb) at 9.30pm. Only one entry per person please!

Follow all the folks taking part in the world's first Twitter dinner party over here. Everyone has been busy cooking all day today and now we will all be enjoying these delicious dishes:

I have put together the shopping list for tomorrow's Twinnerparty which you can see below, I haven't included the following as I felt most people might have these in their storecupboard but if not make sure to pick up:

- Dijon mustard
- Olive Oil
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Sea Salt
- Ground Black Pepper
- Honey

Here's the shopping list! Remember if you have any questions I am on Twitter here, or leave a comment below.

The blog and the book got a great bit of press this month, check out some of the pieces below!

Last week I went along to do a cookery demonstration at an all girls school, after being asked by the lovely home economics teacher Breda who came to the book launch a few weeks ago. Now I'm fairly relaxed when it comes to demo's and I've done a few school cookery demonstrations before, but never to an all girls school! The funniest part of the whole day was when Breda revealed that she had sent me a text saying "Hi Donal, I hope you're ready for 40 screaming girls this afternoon, they're already excited about you!", but instead of sending it to my phone, she sent it to her plumber whose name is also Donal! As you can imagine she got a text back straight away saying "who is THIS!", I think she was far to embarrassed to even text back to try and explain herself! My Aromatic Duck Salad was on the menu, and the girls were really great, I had lots of volunteers to chop, peel, and grate! They were all really enthusiastic, everyone tried the salad and I didn't even have to wash up! I had a brilliant time and thoroughly enjoyed it! Check out the pics below!

If you want a food demonstration at your school or event pop me an email and we can have a chat!

HO HO HO! It's Christmas baby! Struggling to think what to buy a loved one for Christmas? Why look no further...

How about their very own personally signed copy of "Good Mood Food: Simple, Healthy Homecooking!"?

Yes that's right to celebrate the Christmas season which is well underway, well in my house anyway, I will be busy signing what ever you request on my book for your loved one. I will write whatever you want how you want it and your book will arrive wrapped in elegant recycled newspaper complete with big sticky red lipstick kisses if you so wish.

But be quick, I have a limited amount of stock, and I have team of trained monkeys who are sitting idle and waiting to get packing!

If you want your copy to be delivered in time to pop under the Christmas tree please make sure to order before the latest following dates...
Ireland: 19th of December
UK: 18th of December
Europe: 13th of December
Rest of the World: 6th of December

Ok that's all the talk, now time for some clicking pleasure, go on click it you know you want to!

Great response to the Harumi competition with 179 entries! Big congrats to Katie who won herself a copy of the Harumi cookbook!

If you weren't lucky, head over to my twitter @donalskehan and follow me, then tweet the following message:
"Win a copy of Everyday Harumi with @donalskehan and http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com by RT'ing this msg" I'll pick a winner tomorrow! Good luck!

A few weeks ago, myself and the lovely Aoife decided to head to Powerscourt waterfall to take part in Slow Food Ireland's mushroom hunt. It was my very first mushroom hunt and to be honest I didn't really know what to expect.

The whole thing kicked off in the middle of a quiet field where all the participants had parked the cars. We were given a brief talk by a mushroom expert about what to look for, edible and poisonous. After being warned that mushroom hunting was even more dangerous than most extreme sports, we left in groups quite ominously not knowing who would return!

We paired up with some lovely ladies who were fairly new to the slow food movement like ourselves, and our hunt quickly became less about extreme sports and deadly ingredients and more about getting to know each other. After lots of chatting we realised we hadn't actually found ANY mushrooms! Then there was talk about heading down to the local shop to pick up a few if we were stuck as we couldn't return empty handed!

Luckily we didn't have to resort to that and the competitive streak really came out when we met fellow hunters who had baskets full of strange and interesting mushrooms! We began to look a little harder and it was a case of once you saw one you saw hundreds. After a lot of talk over which varieties we should pick, we decided to pick them all and let the expert decide!

It was quite funny to notice passer by's reaction to us bending down and inspecting these little mushrooms. Almost everyone we passed wanted to take a peak into the baskets and look very worried when we told them we were planning to eat them!

We headed back to the field where the organisers had setup a little picnic and were serving mushrooms soup and cooking up some of the mushrooms which had been picked. Everyone had brought there own dish for a cold buffet and there was a great selection of different dishes, someone even brought along a basket of delicious apples picked from their garden!

Overall it was a lovely experience, but after eating the mushrooms that were cooked after we had picked them I felt slightly unnerved with the knowledge that had any mistakes been made, I could be making a swift visit to the hospital! Hope you enjoy the photos!

Harumi Kurihara is one of Japan's most popular cookery writer, you may not have heard of her but she is already being dubbed the Japanese Martha Stewart! Her new book "Everyday Harumi" focuses on Japenese homecooking with simple recipes which are easy to read and even easier to prepare!

Thanks to the lovely folks over at Octopus Books I have a copy of "Everyday Harumi" to give away on the blog! To be in with a chance of winning, enter your details below and submit your answer to the following question:

What is Harumi's surname?
A: Kurihara
B: Takahashi
C: Suzuki

A winner will be chosen at random from all the entries, one entry per person, and the competition closes 13th of November at 9am! Best of luck! :)

Apologies for the delay in this post, I am still try to get over all the excitement. The launch of the cook book took place on Wednesday evening and it really got a great turnout, I was so thrilled! So now it's official the book is finally launched! I have to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along on the night, it was so lovely to meet regular readers of the blog, and of course all my fellow Twits who attended too!

With the help my lovely aunt, we provided the nibbles, inspired by recipes in the book. We had Lemon and Poppyseed Cupcakes, Swedish Cinnamon Buns, and Roast Vegetables and Feta Crostini!

Niamh Hatton from Mercier Press spoke briefly about the book and the other books they had coming up in the next few months, she was followed by Eoin Purcell who commissioned the book way back at the start of 2008 and spoke about working on the book! Normally I prefer to speak off the cuff at these sort of events but there was so many people I had to thank, that I knew I had to write it all down!
Thanks to everyone who turned up, hope you like the pics taken by the lovely Aoife Nathan!

Big congrats to Ronan B who won a delicious tin of confit duck legs with thanks to Confit De France!

I have a competition which is very close to my heart coming up so stay tuned! :)

The "Good Mood Food" book has been getting a great reaction so far, here are some of the interviews I did this week on Irish radio to promote it!

I would personally like to invite all readers of this blog to the launch of my very first cookbook, "Good Mood Food: Simple Healthy Homecooking". Myself and the blog have come a long way since my very first post here way back in 2007 and I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has emailed, commented and called about the recipes on the blog and in the book! I really hope you will join me next Wednesday the 21st of October to support the launch of the book in Dubray Books on Grafton St., Dublin! See you there for a great night!

If the last recipe had drooling, well then I have a special treat for all you Duck Confit fans! The lovely Laurent from Confit De France has provided me with a tin of 4 Confit Duck Legs to giveaway here on the blog.

The duck legs come in a tin and are stored in duck fat which is perfect for roasting crispy potatoes! I decanted all the fat into a big jar which will last me at least 4 roasts! Brilliant!

The duck itself is so easy to prepare, just stick it on a baking sheet and shove in the oven. For such a little amount of work in the kitchen the results are absolutely amazing, the duck meat practically falls off the bone and is so delicious!

If you want to get your hands on your very own tin of these gourmet delights all you have to do is leave a comment telling me about your favourite French food!

The competition will close Tuesday 20th of October and is open to residents of Ireland. A winner will be selected at random from the comments!

Best of luck!

Big congratulations to the Jelly Monster, you have won the super cleaning pack from the lovely people at Lilly's!

Not only that but for all you lovely people who entered with your worst stains, the folks at Lilly's have decided to suggest the best ways to get rid of them! Check out the answers below!

Ian Healy said...

Curry on white clothes is a fecker :( Oh, Jagermeister on a white shirt! That's messy. Spaghetti bolognese on white. Actually, I should stop wearing white...

The Secret Gardener said..
Red wine on a cream plush carpet in a rented house that I attempted to remove with washing up liquid so adding a nice green tinge. Added some salt and a bit of water and hey presto an almighty bloody mess and my deposit gone in an instant.

Dazzledust25 said...
My husband always gives out to me about being so clumsy. One afternoon there we were having a coffee and I rested mine on the arm of the sofa. He warned me to be careful and then in an instant knocked his own cup flying and destroyed out new cream fabric couch! Nothing got rid of the massive stain. Now when it gets warm our couch has a lovely coffee aroma haha so wrong!

Or shoe polish on himself's new fancy white shirt.... I got in sooooooooo much trouble ha ha ha

Oh I so hope I win I love cleaning products and have been wanting to try more eco friendly stuff!

My daughter was playing on the green with friends. She got grass stain on her pants. Then she was on her bike and fell from her bike and cut one knee. Blood and grass stain mix does not remove!!! I tried everything!!!

Thanks to all at Lilly's for answering the comments and I'm sure if you have any more stain related troubles they would be happy to help!