Saturday, December 3, 2011

AVRIL: ON THE ROAD FROM ROSS



ROSSCARBERY RECIPES


On Friday morning, I drove down to Supervalu in Ticknock in Cobh to see Avril Allshire-Howe who was on duty with her samples of her Rosscarbery black and white pudding. The black is very good but the white is really amazing and is a great match with scallops. Avril is on the road regularly and will be travelling all over the county every day ‘til Christmas and still finds time to help the food movement in West Cork.

Avril is the public face of Rosscarbery Recipes and Caherbeg Free Range Pork but she will be the first to tell you that husband Willie and the rest of the family are major players on the West Cork farm. On Friday, she was also serving sample slices from her delicious Cheddar and Stout Cake which is not commercially available but which goes well with the puddings.

But don’t worry. The busy Avril also produces a newsletter and the latest edition contains the recipe for the cake and much more foodie information besides. You can read most of it, including the recipe, at the end of this post.

I hope to meet up with Avril again in the New Year and do a full post and I have also featured her here  in a Buy Local plea.


Speaking of local, there were quite a few people showing their wares in the Supervalu in Ticknock and I really enjoyed meeting them. Loved the in-house mince pies (with custard) and also the rashers from Truly Irish.  Very tasty.

Also met a few of the staff as I walked around and must say I’ve rarely met a nicer friendlier helpful bunch in any supermarket. Great atmosphere there.

For the Rosscarbery Recipes newsletter


I really hope you enjoy this newsletter. Just a few things about it: it will never be more than 1 x A4 page long (stops me from waffling!); I will only write if I have something to say and never more than monthly, no matter what; and it will always include a recipe. If I have nothing to say, then there will be no newsletter.

For those who have tried and requested my Cheddar & Stout Bread recipe, here it is under the guise of the Rosscarbery Black Pudding Bread. All you do is omit the black pudding to change it to Cheddar & Stout. If you find a combination better than mine, please let me know. It is of course freezeable and thaws out beautifully.

As I have said, Willie, my husband, is obsessed with quality and also telling the truth. For these reasons, all Caherbeg Free Range Pork products are from free range outdoor pigs reared on our 17 acre smallholding. We have no indoor facilities and at any one time, we would have only about 150 pigs in total and that is everything from adults to babes. On the other hand, rather than using imported free range meat or even processing and selling it all under the Caherbeg brand, we have a second brand, Rosscarbery Recipes. All of the meat for this brand is sourced from a local factory, just 12 miles from us, and is 100% Irish – Staunton’s has the Bord Bia Quality Mark. We haven’t applied for the Quality Mark because having researched it, the cost outweighs the benefits. However we are very proud to be members of Love Irish Food.
Both brands are processed in our own unit here on the farm. Nobody makes anything on our behalf and we are not a marketing company.

If you have any queries at any time, please contact me and I will do my best to answer them.
The following are my Facebook pages: Avril Allshire-Howe; Caherbeg Free Range Pork; and Rosscarbery Recipes. Crazy as it sounds, I’ve also started blogging on BrilliantMe – this is still very much in its infancy.
Regards
Avril Allshire-Howe
Caherbeg Free Range Pork Ltd. & Rosscarbery Recipes

023 884 8474
087 914 0811

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