The Irish autumn has been full of warm, sunny days and crisp cool nights. After a busy summer of cooking and struggling through another rainy season it’s been a pleasure to get out and visit good friends. This beautiful, very robust girl of only 10 months is the best example of a vegetarian diet that I’m sure I will ever see! Reared on fresh homegrown vegetables, fruits, grains and irish dairy products and the west of Ireland’s fresh air she is the picture of good health and activity, interested in everything around her. A real tribute to both of her parents for such good cooking, love and care. So, if you any doubts about whether a vegetarian diet is a healthy one for babies, take another look at her! If you know the right combinations of foods and diversify your menu to make it tasty and nutritious it can be done.
These two cuties are also reared on homegrown veggies and a healthy diet, surrounded by geese, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, goats and cows on their small farm in Clare. Free to roam, they are full of spirit and adventure and love to help out in the garden and sell the veg from mom’s roadside stand.
As I drive around Ireland, finishing up this season’s book business, visiting shops that are selling Coming Home To Cook I hear a lot about the hard times we are facing here and it’s sad to see a country that had such recent boom sink back into poverty yet again. The world wide recession hits a small country especially hard, as does the greed of big business. But, I’m seeing a lot more polytunnels in the yards, more land being rented as community gardens and hear a lot about getting back to basics and keeping it simple. I wonder what Ireland will be like a year from now?
The days are getting shorter and the sun is setting earlier in the west. The sun is finally shining, as predicted! The roads are lined with scarlet fucsia, orange montbrecia and up in Donegal the indomitable heather covers the mountains and valleys alike. Blackberries, rose hips, sloe berries, and hazelnuts are ready for picking along the hedgerows. Traveling through West Cork I marvel at the green of the meadows. I notice how the cows are such communal animals, standing, sitting, always in pairs or groups. They glisten in the sun after two months of grey skies and steady rain. Was that a smile on that Kerry cow’s face? It certainly is on this new little donkey, and I bet Fina is smiling, too! 
He got a link to my posting - Win a
The first person who guesses the exact location of where I am in this picture wins a copy of 
Sorrel is a common wild plant that grows in fields in Ireland. There are several different varieties. Terry Dunne has a bumper crop of sheep’s sorrel behind his cultivated gardens and I bet if you look around you’ll find this or clover sorrel (small leaves that look like a 4 leaf clover),close to home. A fresh picked leaf tasted salty and tart and a salad of mixed greens with a lemon infusion came to mind. Young spring sorrel is best used raw and summer sorrel is good in soup, stew, cream sauce and steamed as you would spinach and chard. It is high in Vitamin A and C, potassium, calcium and magnesium and is a natural laxative (if eaten in large quantities). Here’s a recipe for sorrel cream sauce. Wash and dry 4 packed cups of sorrel leaves Coarsely chop the leaves and sute in 3 Tbl. butter until completely wilted. Into 1 cup of hot vegetable stock add 1 cup of light cream or creme fraiche. Boil until sauce begins to thicken, add 1 TBl. of plain white flour, sea salt & cracked black pepper to taste, sorrel leaves and cook until thick. This sauce is lovely over blanched fresh garden vegetables, for use in cream soups or over the savory dinner loaf from 
