When I was a child it was my father who would read to me each night, even though generally he would only be in the door from a hard days work, this was never made an issue of and he would  deliver each story, mostly from memory, with such dramatic expression I felt as though each night I was at the theatre. I so loved his story telling but only now as a busy parent do I truly appreciate what he gave to me. My children love books and I equally love to read to them. I adore that little magical look that comes into their eyes, when the images of the stories are being made clearer to them. Jack has always been an avid reader and for years it has not been unusual to find him under the duvet, with his flash light, frantically trying to get a few more pages read before sleep. We generally have one rather large and ambitious book to read as a family, of which I or Diarmuid will read whenever we can steal a few spare minutes. We are currently half way through reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Even though Tiarnan, Fionn and even Millie will snuggle up for the story, it is really Tiarnan who eagerly awaits the next instalment from Hogwarts. Fionn's favourite books are ones that require a little interaction from the reader, ones that ask questions at the end of each page, such as the Richard Scary books. Big favourites for Millie and actually all the children, especially when read with varied voices and lots of gusto, are Julia Donaldson's books. No matter how many times the Gruffalo is read laughter will always ensue.
A couple of months ago I was very kindly sent some books by Westmeath author Dolores Keaveney. I was already familiar with Dolores's books as we had taken them on loan, on a couple of occasions, from the library. It initially was Fionn who was attracted to the look of the books, as they are so vibrant in colour but also contain the beautiful illustrated paintings which are familiar scenes of hens, bees and gardens. Dolores is one talented lady as she not only writes the stories but also illustrates each book. She currently has written one spiritual book and four children's picture books including her latest book Beelicious -Recipes with Honey, which is a cookbook for children. The beautiful part to this cookbook is the involvement of Dolores's family, especially her young granddaughter Ellie, who helped devise the recipes. Again this book, no different from the others, is beautifully illustrated and as an added bonus, throughout the book there are interesting facts about bees and honey. A few evenings ago Tiarnan and I made Ellie's Flapjacks from Beelicious and they really worked out a treat. This little cookbook has some real gems of recipes and ones that are especially tailored for the younger cooks in the house.

Ellie's Flapjacks

250g / 10oz butter
100g/ 4 oz soft brown sugar
30 mls honey
20mls golden syrup
350g/ 14 oz porridge oats

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C(fan)/390°F/gas mark 6. Grease a baking tray.
2. In a medium sized saucepan add all the ingredients, apart from the porridge oats, and slowly melt stirring regularly.
3. Take from the heat and stir in the oats.  Turn into the prepared tin and with a wooden spoon press down well.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 -25 minutes. Cool, in the tin, on a wire rack.

Below is a recent article I wrote for the Westmeath Independent, which I wanted to share with you.

For the past year, one of my young men has wanted to start every afterschool activity that has come his way. From speech & drama to badminton, there is never a note brought home without profuse pleading and stories of how he has always wanted to do whichever particular activity is being advertised. I generally have a rule that unless the children genuinely love their afterschool activities and are in some way benefiting from doing it I don't send them. After all, it costs both money and time for these activities and evenings can be much better spent when not taxiing for hours on end. Last summer this little man got the notion that he would very much like to commence horse riding. We had been to Moate Show and stood for an hour watching horses being groomed and then partake in the show. They looked so magnificent and on seeing a child, similar to his age, jumping very confidently, he decided that this could be his next afterschool endeavour. He is an avid animal lover so I wasn't surprised by this suggestion. We decided to stay local to Moate and try a few lessons at Hall Farm. Never before had we been out there and it really is a beautiful, idyllic spot. A gathering of ducks and hens met us on hopping out of the car, as we parked in front of an orchard full of heavily ladened apple trees. We were instantly impressed, even before seeing the horses. The first few visits brought some early day nerves, but confidence was soon gained and almost a year down the line my little man is still heading out to his lessons, rain or shine and after the last few weeks he is now dreaming of gold for Ireland. That’s possibly a little ambitious, but never the less he's enjoying himself while getting plenty of exercise.

Myles, who runs Hall Farm, is a true entrepreneur, when not taking care of the horses and giving lessons he's in the kitchen, using local ingredients, to create some amazing dishes for his restaurant at the farm. During one of the lessons recently he shared with me a liver dish recipe, which he makes as a starter at the restaurant. My Dad has had some difficulties with low iron levels recently, so I generally try to include iron-rich foods in his diet. He is a great fan of liver, which happens to be very rich in Iron and as I'm ever keen to find new ways of serving it, I decided to try out Myles’s recipe for Liver with Cream & Mustard and it was delicious. It's certainly no great task to bring Tiarnán to his horse riding lessons as myself and the children can wander through the orchard, admire the ducks and I even get the opportunity to do a little chatting about food!

Pan-Fried Lamb's Liver with Cream & Mustard

Ingredients

4 lambs’ livers

Salt and freshly ground pepper
Knob of butter

1 tbsp olive oil

250mls cream

1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

8 baby potatoes, cooked and cut in half

1 tbsp parsley, roughly chopped

Method

1.  Heat a frying pan, add the butter and drizzle in the olive oil. Season the livers with a little salt and pepper, on both sides.

2. Add to the hot pan and fry for 3 minutes on each side.

3. Pour in the cream and let it bubble for a couple of minutes. Turn down the heat and stir in the mustard. Add the cooked, chopped potatoes and heat through for 2 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and vegetable of your choice. 

Summer Holidays - With four children it really doesn't matter what the season, as day to day life is always guaranteed to be busy. This summer was no different and even-tough I was kept on my toes I felt that it was much more relaxed than previous ones. It was the first summer in many years that I either didn't have a baby on my hip or was pregnant, so heading out to the garden, even with a flock of helpers was very refreshing. I have also been kept busy with food-related projects, lots of writing and photography, so we were all suitable busy for the summer months. On the last week of the summer holidays, we got to take in a holiday to Tuscany. Some of you may remember that I won a holiday last year with Ireland AM so we finally got to take this trip. We stayed at a very beautiful campsite -Norcenni Girasole Club - in the heart of Tuscany, which was a real treat as we had never before been on a sun holiday with the children. The boys loved the pools and all the fabulous campsite facilities, but poor Millie found the high temperatures very overwhelming. Tucking into ice-creams while dipping their toes in the pool are now just distant memories as the boys are back to school, with my little Fionn just at the very start of his academic adventures.
I hope you have all had an enjoyable summer, even if it was recorded as Ireland's wettest summer in twenty-six years!

The restaurant food at the campsite was actually very tasty. 

The mini-golf on-site was a great hit with the children.

Thank you to all who entered the give-away, for the lovely hamper from Keogh's Farm. All the names were put into a hat and the name Millie pulled out was... Emma.
Congratulations Emma and please contact me with your postal address.

I have mentioned here before that I am a great fan of the Co.Dublin based farm Keogh's, who produce the tastiest crisps. So following on from their success with last week's National Potato Day, Keogh's Farm would like to celebrate by offering me a very delicious hamper to give as a prize to one of my lovely readers. The hamper includes Easy Cook Baby & Rooster Family Meal packs, Easy Cook Pod, I Love Spuds T-shirt & Tote bag and a packet of each flavour crisp 4 x 50g. 

How To Enter: All you have to do, to be in with a chance to win this lovely prize is 
A. Be a follower of Nessa's Family Kitchen, see the sidebar on the right
B. Answer the question, using the comment box below.
The Question: In what county is Keogh's Farm located?

OPTIONAL:
* Like Nessa's Family Kitchen on Facebook.
* Follow Nessa's Family Kitchen on Twitter.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: you must be a resident of Ireland (north or south); you must be over 18; no cash alternative is possible, the competition will close at 12m/d on Wednesday 5th September. The winner will be picked at random from the correct entries.

Best of Luck!!

Keogh's farm are gaining a lot of interest in the media, with numerous write ups in the papers, as well as television and radio interviews. If it's true that consumers buy products because of the people behind them then this would certainly be the case for Keogh's, who each can sell the potato, and how they farm them, with lots of passion. It also helps that the products they produce are fantastic. They have excellent quality potatoes and in recent times they have been making the most perfectly seasoned, irresistible crisps. Traditionally potatoes were the choice for the Irish dinner table but in recent years pasta and rice have been taking their place. When choosing potatoes as part of our diet we are not only choosing a low fat, nutritional and economical food but quite importantly we are supporting local Irish producers. Keogh's are now on a mission to crown the potato the National Vegetable of Ireland and would like to encourage everyone to sign their potato petition. http://www.keoghs.ie/potatopetition.html

If you would like to celebrate all things spud, the second National Potato Day occurs next Saturday. The Tall Ships Festival is happening in Dublin this week and the guys at Keogh's have decided to set up a pop up farm in the city centre. They will be bringing crates, hay, tractors, and naturally lots of potatoes to the farm stall on the North Quays. They will also have spud games and lots of fun activities, all focusing on tastings and nutritional info about potatoes. To add to this there will be lots of goodies given away. The farm will be there from Thursday until Saturday but National Potato Day is on the Saturday, Aug 25. To celebrate National Potato Day the lovely people at Keogh's will be giving me a jam packed hamper, which I will have a competition for here on the blog, sometime next week. 

The boys and Millie love to be outside mucking about, cycling their bikes and planing adventures,which normally involves some of the back-garden animals. Once outside there is rarely a row, as their agenda is always well packed and each of them have a place in these ever important games. What doesn't suit them is prolonged amounts of times indoors, with only each other to annoy. Unfortunately our miserable summer weather has seen many an afternoon spent indoors, which makes the boys quite prone to bickering, but to my surprise my little 'sweetheart' Millie has started to add her own piece to the bickering parade, with occasional little temper tantrums. Normally it is just the two of us, each morning, we're always busy and I find she is a great little companion to have about, but since the boys are out of school she must feel the need to demand my attention. Without any warning and for no apparent reason she will drop to the ground and scream, a lot. I think in some ways she is testing the water as most of her screaming is incoherent but she will often scream out 'lolly' or 'treat'. In a bid not to give into the lolly ransom I normally try to distract her by other means, like heading to the garden or getting one of the boys to coax her into doing a jigsaw, but these don't always work. 

If you have young children, you may of noticed that if there is a small child misbehaving, especially having a good tantrum where the parent is rightly embarrassed, maybe at the supermarket or a park, children find this fascinating, well mine certainly love it. So one of the mornings, while Millie was just kicking off a right wobbler, Jack by chance flicked onto Supernanny. Some of these episodes show children in such an awful state, that I wouldn't even have the boys watching it, but in this particular episode the young man in trouble, happens to be almost three and in fairness he wasn't terribly out of control, just very temper-mental. On watching a couple of minutes of this Millie completely calmed down, maybe because she identified or sympathised with this boy, but I'm not sure whether she ceased her tantrum as she realised she was just doing something similar or was she really taking a few mental notes for her own next outburst. For fear that it is the latter I don't think I will be using it as my regular tantrum-calming technique, but it did work very well that morning. I dread to see how upset she can make herself, when she is normally so happy-go-lucky. Millie is only two and a half so I had reassured myself that this phase will pass, after-all it did with the boys, and once this girl is out and about, and most importantly kept busy, our days are tantrum free. In the past few days the weather has been quite lovely, which has the children outdoors almost all day long and to my delight my happy little miss seems to be back to normal. At least I really hope she is!  

While I'm in the garden, I will always have a few willing helpers, digging weeds and watering plants. From an early age I let the children have their own area to plant with a few seeds and they are always proud-as-punch when something starts to sprout from the ground. We have lots of lovely lavender in the garden and I probably should of picked it a little earlier, as I read on Sally McKennas Blog - Kitchen Lifeskills, that it should be picked before the flowers begin to burst. It is such a beautiful herb and holds the most amazing scent. It is very easy to dry lavender, just hang a tied bunch, upside down, in a cool dark place. Each year I like to dry some lavender, to use throughout the year as a very pretty garnish for any sweet cake, but mostly I hang a few bunches in the wardrobe and also the kitchen, for that wonderful sense of calm that we sometimes need.

The garden is a very exciting place for children, especially when there are so many bees, busy at work, to watch and follow.