Honest2Goodness | The Market | Market newsletters | Market Newsletter 21st October 2010

Honest2Goodness | The Market | Market newsletters | Market Newsletter 21st October 2010

Honest2Goodness Farmer's Market Newsletter 18th March 2010

Welcome to this week’s Market Newsletter!

Tune into Pat Kenny’s show tomorrow (Friday) at 11.20 to hear Mary Kelly of Moonshine Farm being interviewed by Pat, as a result of winning an Irish Food Writers Award 2010 (and congrats to Mary and Gerry for winning the award!). Mary has promised to give the market a plug, if at all possible, during the interview. We wish her the best of luck with it!

Many thanks to those of you who brought along some much-needed extra books for our Charity Bookstall last Saturday. There is still plenty of scope for more books on the stall, so if you forgot to bring them along last week, throw them into the boot of the car, or beside the bicycle this evening.

Talking of cycling and charity, our charity of the month for March is Mission Malawi (http://www.missionmalawi.co.uk/index.php), as our brother Iarla is doing a 500k cycle in Malawi and Mozambique in May, and he is looking to raise money to support this charity. We think that this is a great cause (although we also think that he may be a bit mad to attempt the 500k cycle!).

As we have noticed quite a few people coming to the market on their trusty bikes, we have now installed two bike racks just inside the door of the market, sourced by our intrepid occasional guitar-playing guest act – thanks Matt! Feel free to use the bike-racks when you come to shop at the market.

Have you heard about Phizzfest yet? There are great plans coming together for a community Arts Festival this September (9^th to 12^th) in Phibsboro, including a food market. To help raise funds for the festival, there is a pub quiz on the 26^th of March in the Bohemian Lounge, starting at 8pm. The website for the festival is at www.phizzfest.ie

Stallholder news:

There will be lots of great fish available again this Sat from Gannet, and as usual, Cailean is happy to fillet, skin or otherwise prepare your fish of choice. We got some great hake from him last week – cooked it simply coated with a little spelt flour, then pan fried in olive oil and a little butter for about two minutes on each side, then finished it off in the oven for about another three minutes – it tasted great!

Dublin Meath Growers are now stocking selected fruit at their stall, alongside their great value veggies, and their David Llewellyn apple juices and apple cider vinegars.

Jim Ryan tells us that his special this weekend will be on sausages – he is reducing the price by 20%, making them €6.15 per kilo. So, Sunday morning brunch can feature a feast of sausages!

Trevor from Manuka Honey apologises for his continued absence - he wont be at the market on Saturday.

At the wine stall, where Brid will be covering for Colm this weekend, the wine specials are a French red wine from Bordeaux, Dasvin Bel Air and an Italian rose, from Masciarelli. The red is a medium to full-bodied wine, with ripe tannins, priced at €17.75 for one bottle. It is on special offer of 10% off when you buy two bottles, and 20% off when you buy six.

We all sampled the rose recently when Angela from Masciarelli and Luigi Valori visited us, and while it may be a little early for summer wines, this rose is so good, we wanted you to try it out sooner rather than later. This rose wine is made from the Montepulciano grape which gives it excellent depth of flavour & colour. Its really a cleverly disguised red wine that you can drink at lower temperatures and with lighter foods like fish and seafood.

€13.50/btl

less 10% for 2

or 20% off 6

We also have Montalto Sauvignon Blanc 'Collezione de la Famiglia' - a medal winner from Decanter, Mondus Vini & International Wine Challenge competitions - on promotion. The wine shows warmer climate flavours than usual for Sauvignon with passionfruit to the fore.

€12.00/btl

less 10% for 2

or 20% off 6

As you can see from the photo (and apologies for the picture quality), we really enjoyed the visit from our Italian suppliers!

Photo showing (left to right): Aine, Angela, Luigi and Colm

At the café, the hot dish of the day will be our spicy Indian Lamb casserole, and our soup will be Thai Broccoli.

Recipes from last weekend are now on the website: the carrot and cumin soup is here, the Thai Chicken is here and the cookery demo recipe of tomato and fennel marinade for pork is here. Because Brid is covering for Colm at the Wine Stall at the weekend, there wont be a cookery demo on Saturday – sorry about that! She is still available to answer any culinary questions, and might even be able to answer some of your wine queries as well.

Once again, please forward the newsletter to any food or wine lovers that you know and if you have yet to visit the market, this is the link to our location map. Let us know by emailing us at brid@honest2goodness.ie if you would like us to send you your own copy of the newsletter each week.

Hope you have time to visit us this Sat!

Brid & Colm

Honest2Goodness Indoor Farmer's Market

www.honest2goodness.ie

'Quality starts at the point of origin'
contact Brid at 087-6294713 for any market information

Honest2Goodness Farmer's Market Newsletter 11th March 2010

Welcome to this week’s Market Newsletter!

Springclean your bookshelves!

Our Charity Bookstall shelves are looking a bit bare! So, why not do a quick spring-clean of your bookshelves and other book hiding places and bring them along to the market on Saturday? You’ll be clearing out clutter, so you’ll feel good about that, and knowing that your books will end up turning into cash for charities, will make you feel even better! If you are involved in a local charity or voluntary group or club and want to take-over the bookstall for a couple of weeks to raise money, then talk to us at the market about it.

Jim Ryan, the market farmer & butcher has started an online farm diary, and here is the link to it: http://ryansfarm.com/diary/. You’ll be able to follow the farm news and stories over the coming months.

Dublin-Meath Growers asked me to let you know that as unfortunately Irish carrots are now out of season, their carrots this weekend will be of English origin.

As an extension of our cookery demonstrations, we are pleased to announce that Brid will be running a bread-making workshop on 27^th March 2010. The workshop will take place in the afternoon in our Market kitchen and numbers are limited to 6. Participants will be hands on and will be guided through the making of focaccia bread (we will have tastings of this available at the pantry on Saturday) and our healthy spelt bread, which we already sell through the café/pantry. You can reserve a spot by emailing us.

Manuka Honey will not be at the market this Saturday, and Trevor sends his apologies to all his regular customers.

However, Mico of Kingfisher Teas will be there with her wonderful array of teas, herbal tisanes and other interesting concoctions. My own favourite is her peppermint tea, but you’ll discover your own by trying out any of her dozens of options at the market.

At the café, we will have a small supply of carrot cake, chocolate cup-cakes & Tunisian orange cake – if you would like us to put some aside for you, let us know by return email and we’ll reserve some for you. We have started using Moonshine Farm’s organic milk for our hot chocolate, cappucini and lattes, so they taste even better! Our soup of the day on Saturday will be carrot and cumin and our hot dish of the day will be Thai Chicken. Both our soups and hot dish are available to take home with you so that you can have market produce already prepared for you.

At the pantry, the Carrigaline cheese which went down really well when we had it on tasting, is due to be delivered to us before the market starts on Saturday. Its taste profile is very mild, with a nice texture and nutty flavours. Anybody who tasted the Moonshine Farm cheese (an Emmental-style cheese) also loved it!

The Wine Stall specials on Saturday will be Burgundy delights, the white being a Saint Veran from the Cave des Grands Cru (2007). A full-bodied, rounded and buttery wine, it is usually priced at €14 – it will be on offer on Saturday for €11.90 (15% discount) when you buy one bottle, or an even better value of €10.50 a bottle when you buy six. On the red wine front, we have our Chateau de Bois, AC Bourgogne 2007. Tastes of red-currents, liquorice, cherry and pepper, in a medium-bodied wine. The usual price is €15, and it will be available at €12.75 for one bottle, or again with a 25% discount on purchases of six bottles – bringing the price down to €11.25 per bottle.

New recipes on the website this week – carrot cake is here and celeriac and garlic soup is here. Talk to Brid on Sat if you want any detail of the recipes explained!

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday,

Brid & Colm

Honest2Goodness Farmer's Market Newsletter 4th March 2010

Market Newsletter 4^th March 2010

Hello and welcome to this week’s newsletter from Honest2Goodness Farmer’s Market

We are delighted to welcome a new stallholder to the market this weekend. Mary and Gerry Kelly of Moonshine Farm in Westmeath are joining our growing community and will have organic dairy products available at their stall, including milk (available in 2 litre containers), cheese and yogurts. Already active at the Food Co-op Market for many years, we look forward to their joining us on the northside!

Talking of organics, we’ve had quite a few enquiries from people asking if we will be doing organic vegetables and fruit. We have taken that on board and we are talking to someone at the moment who may be able to supply us with organic in season salad leaves, vegetables and fruit. So, watch this space for further information, or ask us at the market.

Sunday week (14th March) is Mother’s Day. And, while we hesitate to buy into the whole commercialism around such days, we do think that Mothers deserve (and probably expect!) some token of appreciation for all their efforts over the years! So, why not think about some of Aine’s chocolates, or a nice cake from Blazing Salads or the Honest2Goodness café (taking orders this weekend for cup-cakes, carrot cake and Tunisian Orange & Almond Cake), or even simply a pot of preserves, jams or some Manuka honey; a bottle of wine would also fit the bill nicely!

As the weather is finally improving (we hope!), we should have some potted plants available at the Vegetable stall, and we are expecting a sample pot to be available on Sat. They will happily take orders for next weekend.

Specials this week include:

From Gannet Fishmongers: ‘Our special this week will be John Dory, lots of it and monk fish, we re expecting a very good landing tomorrow’, according to Stephane

From Dublin/Meath Growers: special on Celeriac – buy one, get one free

From Jim Ryan, Butchers - special on bacon joints

From the Spud Man – special on the last of the seasonal oranges – big juicy oranges for just 75c

From Trevor @ The Manuka Honey stall

‘For the month of March we are giving away a free jar of 5+ 250g jar when a 500g jar of 10+, 15+ and 20+ is purchased and a free packet of sweets with a 500g jar of 5+. Also we have gift bags available for Mothers Day.’

Colm's Wine specials:

White wine special is from Burgundy in France, and is 'Macon Lugny La Sandarine. This is a full-bodied creamy white wine, and matches excellently with chicken dishes. Normally priced at €14, it is on special offer of €11.90 for a single bottle, and if you buy six, each bottle will only cost €9.80.

On the red wine front, we have a great Italian wine from Sicily. The main grape is Nero d'Avola, a native local grape, with some merlot added in to round out the wine. Very drinkable, so be warned! Normally priced at €9.99, a single bottle will coswt you €8.50 on Saturday, while if you go for 6 bottles, each one will only cost you €8.

This week's recipes:

Our recipes from last weekend are now on the website: the goulash recipe is here and the bean & bacon soup is here. A few people wanted the mayonnaise recipe again, so it is here.

If you have any great recipes that you would like to share with the Honest2Goodness community, then please forward them to us, and we'll publish them on the website!

Soup of the day on Sat will be Celeriac and herb, and dish of the day will be a French peasant-style Lamb Casserole

As usual, please feel free to forward the newsletter to friends and neighbours, we are delighted to share our news with one and all! If you have received the newsletter from a friend, and you wish to be included directly, just drop us an email at brid@honest2goodness.ie

Hope to see you on Saturday - as usual we are open from 9.30 to 4pm.

Anyone needing directions, ring Brid at 087-6294713

Brid & Colm

Honest2Goodness
www.honest2goodness.ie

'Quality starts at the point of origin'

Honest2Goodness Farmer's Market Newsletter 25th February 2010

Thinking of spring planters and window boxes to brighten up your garden?

I was talking to John Hogan of the Dublin Meath Growers last week about getting a few planted up pots and window-boxes to have for sale at the market (I dont know about your front garden, but mine is looking very bedraggled and sad right now!). John's advice is to hold off for a couple more weeks before attempting to either plant spring planting in the ground, or buying any made-up planters. The weather has been too bad, and the ground too cold, so that most plants will have a tough time surviving outdoors until things warm up a bit. He promises to have some at the market when the time is right.

_______________________

Another rugby weekend beckons...

_________________________

With that in mind, you can check out our recommendations for food management on Saturday evening on the website here. We offer you some great ideas for before, during and after the match! One of them is based on Jim Ryans special offer of the week, which is a special offer of 20% off his round roasts.

Veggies – Dublin Meath Growers remind you that in season vegetables include: Carrots, Celeriac, Parsnips, Potatoes, sprouts, cabbage, turnip.

There is a special offer on brussel sprouts this Sat, with a packet of sprouts available at 50% discount.

The Spud Man has four types of potato currently available - they are Records, Golden Wonders, Roosters and Kerr Pinks, all from Stephen and Marina Hatton's farm in Wexford

Café News:

Last weekend the Tunisian Orange Cake and lemon and poppy-seed muffins were consumed with gusto, alongside the excellent mini-apple pies that are proving really popular, so they will be available again this coming Sat! We will also be experimenting with some strawberry yogurt muffins.

Soup of the day will be Bean, Bacon and Vegetable and the hot dish of the day is Beef Goulash (based on a recipe that I spotted on Dermot Skehanes food blog... which I then proceeded to make changes to his recipe! He has a really nice food blog which you should check out! ). The Goulash would be ideal for that easy option for the rugby-focused fans!

Pantry:

Our tasting of the Carrigaline cheese went down really well last weekend, (the cheese is semi-soft, with a delicate flavor, becoming piquant with age). We will be stocking it in the coming weeks, so if you want to buy some this weekend, get there early as there is only a half block available til the full stock comes in next week.

The Goats Log is perfect for grilling at the moment, and we are offering it at an even better price than usual at €1 for 100g, which is a 30% reduction.

Wine offers and tastings this week:

To match Jim Ryan's roast beef, we have a red Bordeaux on special offer this week - 15% off for one bottle, and 25% for 6, so instead of the usual €12.50, you pay €10.60 when buying one bottle and €9.35 per bottle when buying six. The wine is our Chene de Margot, from the Cote de Blaye, and it is a medium to full-bodied tannic red wine.

On the white wine front, our special of the week is an award winning Italian white from Montalto's 'collezione di famiglia' (which I think translates as 'family collection' - anyone who has better Italian than mine can correct me if I am wrong!), a really delicious sauvignon blance from Sicily. Price-wise it is on at a special offer price of €10.35 per bottle for single purchases and €9.20 when buying six.

Recipes:

As usual, we have published a couple of new recipes to the FOOD section of the website. Our Thai Chicken recipe is here and our cauliflower and Cashel blue Cheese soup is here.
If we have forgotten to publish a recipe that we demonstrated or cooked in the kitchen, dont hesitate to ask us for it!

And, finally, finally, please forward the newsletter to other food & wine lovers. If you received the newsletter from a friend, and you would like to be on our mailing list, please email us at brid@honest2goodness.ie and we'll send you your own copy each week. Attached is a map of where to find us in Dublin Industrial Estate - just take the right turn after Lidl - check it out before you travel, as we are a bit off the beaten track!

Brid (& Colm)

Honest2Goodness
www.honest2goodness.ie

'Quality starts at the point of origin'

Honest2Goodness Newsletter 20th February 2010

Spring is definitely in the air, lots of bulbs starting to appear in gardens, so this is the best time to get fit and healthy after the winter blues. Come along to the market for great fresh food, a chat with stallholders, lots of food and wine tasting, cookery demos, meeting your friends and others in the Honest2Goodness community – what more could you ask for? Well, maybe an improvement in the weather, but… we’re not miracle workers!

Kingfisher Teas are joining us this Sat!

Kingfisher Tea 'provides the refreshing flavours of whole-leaf teas and the relaxing fragrances of flowers and herbs to your tea cup. We bring you the affordable luxury of the finest loose-leaf tea in attractive packs to enjoy yourself or give as gifts. Unique teapots, cups and strainers for optimal loose-leaf tea preparation are also on offer'. Mico Hassett will be with us on Saturday with lots of teas for you to try!

Veggies – Dublin Meath Growers remind you that in season vegetables include:

Carrots, Celeriac, Parsnips, Potatoes, sprouts, cabbage, turnip. In season fruit include Irish apples, and Spanish Oranges and lemons.

Café News:

To celebrate the availability of in-season oranges and lemons, and the arrival of Spring (!), the café is lightening up the menu with some Tunisian Orange Cake and lemon and poppy-seed muffins, alongside the excellent mini-apple pies that are proving irresistible! Soup of the day will be Cauliflour & Blue Cheese and the hot dish of the day is Thai Chicken. The Killowen yogurt compotes are now available for purchase at €1.60 each – the tasting panel approved!

Pantry:

Following customer requests, the cheese end of the pantry has got in a sample of a mild cheese called Carrigaline, made in West Cork, handmade in the traditional manner by Ann and Pat O'Farrell on their farm of Friesian cows. The cheese is semi-soft, with a delicate flavor, becoming piquant with age. For full flavour, it is best eaten at 12 weeks or older. Carrigaline may be enjoyed in sandwiches or a cheese board and is excellent for cooking. It is best served at room temperature. We will be delighted to offer you a sample on Saturday.

Wine offers and tastings this week:

Our two wines on offer this week are both from the same Italian producer Luigi Valori (read about him and the wines here).

Our Trebbiano (aromatic, dry white wine) normally retails at €14 - we are offering it with a 15% discount per single bottle (€11.90), or a 25% discount on 6 bottles

Our Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (full-bodied, smooth red wine) normally retails at €14.50 - we are offering it with a 15% discount per single bottle (€12.33) or a 25% discount on 6 bottles.

Finally, we have published a couple of new recipes to the FOOD section of the website. How to make mayonnaise is published here, and the easy to do potato wedges recipe is here
If we have forgotten to publish a recipe that we demonstrated or cooked in the kitchen, dont hesitate to ask us for it!

And, finally, finally, please forward the newsletter to other food & wine lovers. If you received the newsletter from a friend, and you would like to be on our mailing list, please email us at brid@honest2goodness.ie and we'll send you your own copy each week.

Oh, and dont forget to ask us about the hot-air balloon sculpture that is now hanging in the large market area!!!

Honest2Goodness Market Newsletter 11th Feb 2010

Welcome to this week’s news and special offers from the market!

As Sunday is Valentine's Day, we start this week's newsletter with Aine's Chocolates and their wonderful heart-shaped chocolates which anyone who visited their stall last Sat will have seen. They have some really beautiful ideas for that special person in your life, at very reasonable prices, so no excuses not to be sorted with a pressie by 4pm on Saturday - you wont be running to the local petrol station for that bedraggled bunch of chrysanthymums on Sunday morning! And you have the added bonus of being able to eat half the chocolate yourself...

Fish!

Still great fishing on the west coast, so expect more of the great produce that Cailean presented us with last Saturday. Remember, he is more than happy to prepare any fish for you - he will fillet your flat fish, tell you how to cook it (although he and I disagree on the use of lemon juice on fish!), give you advice on shellfish - he was even spotted shelling fresh prawns last Saturday, and anything else you want to ask him about!

Meat!

Jim Ryan’s Butchers are repeating their special on his great mince/stewing beef – at an amazingly good price of €5 per kilo. Jim himself is very busy with the lambing season, so his colleague Ray Doran will be manning the butcher's stall on Saturday. Ray will also have a small quantity of well-aged striploin available, so if you like your aged beef, get there early to get some.

Free-range, organic Eggs!

We ran out of eggs again last Saturday - I think the stallholders and staff are buying up lots of them before any customers make it in the door, so we hope to have a larger quantity available on Saturday. Our eggs are proving one of our most popular additions - they are organic, free-range eggs from Boyne Pastures, Stackallen, Co. Meath, which is near Slane. They are being sold through the Spud Man's Stall. Alternatively, let me know by email and I’ll get some put aside for you.

Wines on tasting and on offer!

Valentines Day Sparkling Special - All sparkling wines from our award winning producers in Spain and Italy 15% off for Saturday Only .

St Veran VV Les Perrettes, 2007, A full bodied but refreshing white wine from southern Burgundy, great with chicken or meaty seafood like Monkfish. Usual price €16.25, down to €13.81/btl or €12.19 when you buy 6.

Clos l'Hermitage 2007, a single vineyard Rhone wine with plenty of zip as the vineyard is owned by ex F1 driver Jean Alessi! A full bodied, complex and smooth wine to warm you up over the weekend, great with red meats and casseroles.

Usual price €17.50, down to €14.87/btl or €13.12 when you buy 6.

Artisan Jams on tasting:

Sarah Doran-Glavic will be at the market on Saturday for a tasting of her great jams and other produce - including lollipops made from fruit juices and natural cordials. Her produce is stocked in our pantry area under the name of 'From Mother's Kitchen' a business she started last year with her sister-in-law.

Cheese!

On tasting this week-end is Cooleeney’s raw milk cheese – cheese as it should be! We also have a great new yoghurt compote on tasting from Killowen - which somehow didnt make it onto the tasting table last Saturday.

Recipes!

Two recipes from last Saturday - our vegetable and bean soup (from a few weeks ago) and our Lamb Casserole dish. Apologies for the non-arrival of our italian meatball recipe - I am still refining the recipe! If you would prefer me to send the recipes to you as an attachment, just drop me a return email and I’ll forward them to you.

Hot food at the market:

This Saturdays hot dish of the day is our Barbequed Beef Stew (which isnt actually cooked on a BBQ, despite the title!), and we'll be trying out another Winter Vegetable Soup. All made from market produce, and available in take-away dishes for you to pop into your freezer when you get home, there for that day when you cant bear to go shopping!

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday - please feel free to forward this mail to other food and wine lovers that you know! Remember to tell anyone who hasnt visited us before that we are the second market in Dublin Industrial Estate and to follow the H2G and Honest2Goodness Green signs.

Check out our Market facilities section for local information

Think you might get snowed in??

According to everyone, the current cold weather here in Ireland is the worst we've experienced since 1982. For most countries who are used to 'real' bad weather, it must be laughable at how poorly we are set up to cope with a few inches of snow and a couple of weeks of sub-zero temperatures. On the other hand, as we really only get this type of weather every 25 years or so, it would seem extreme to over-invest in things like gritting equipment and supplies on the off-chance that this winter would be the bad one! However, at times when money is extremely tight in public agencies, the chances are that stocks of salt and the like have been diminished due to lack of money to top up - and we already had a cold November to contend with. It is also somewhat amusing how everyone around the country is now sagely discussing the options we should have taken about importing salt supplies, the three ports through which we import salt, the numbers of days supply we have available, what will happen when it runs out etc - experts one and all!

If you believe the current weather predictions, it looks like we'll have similar temperatures of down to minus 12, and probably lots more snow, then it would be wise to stock the store cupboard with enough to get by in case shop supplies run short... so here would be my list (and sorry, we cant supply you with these at our farmers market, as we've had to cancel the one scheduled for this weekend!)

Stock up on fresh veggies and meat - you can always freeze meat til needed, and winter root vegetables keep well for up to a week to 10 days.

Brown rice and wholegrain pasta - lower GI so will keep hunger pangs at bay for longer

Why not buy some wholegrain flour and make some bread - if you are going to be stuck indoors for the weekend, at least be able to enjoy the taste of your own bread - lots of recipes on the web!

Check if you have enough olive oil, garlic, ginger, chillies, onions etc - they will liven up any meal, however simple...

Make sure you have a good supply of eggs in, as they are a great source of protein at all times

A few treats would go down well, so some nice cheese and a couple of chutneys, maybe some charcuterie and some roasted vegetables - also great if your neighbours decide to call, you can rustle up a quick supper in no time!

dont forget some wine - red wine would be my favourite during this type of weather - and it contains more antioxidants and polyphenols to ward off the winter colds and flu!

Of course, dont forget the practical side of things, such as loo-paper etc - wouldnt do to run out of lifes little other essentials!