Irish Country Magazine, July Issue

(c) Carol Dunne

If you haven't already picked up the current issue of Irish Country Mag, then grab one quick as it is flying off the shelves. The magazine is a great new publication packed with all things home, garden, fashion, family and of course food. My kinda magazine!

Of course I had my finger in the pie and prop and food styled a couple of features. Catherine Fulvio's BBQ recipes were delicious and if I could cook and style them in the rain then you can too! The God's were against us that day but it didn't dampen our Summer spirit as you can see from the summery shot above.

The second feature was with fabulous Irish Cheese producers which was a very tasty job indeed. We won't mention the calories piled on from excessive cheese eating on the day. I couldn't name a favourite between Wicklow blue, Triskel, Knockdrinna and Durrus and the people behind them were equally as charming. Actually, it was lovely to read a bit more about their interesting stories recently when i nabbed a rare five minutes peace.

Try the mag yourself, a very enjoyable and relaxing read altogether!

Some snaps from overhead...

(c) Cliona O'Flaherty

These are some photos from an Udo's Oil shoot that I worked on as mentioned in a previous post. 

As you can see, the photo's were taken from over head which really shows off the food. However, when shooting food in this way you really have no where to hide so it's important to pay extra attention to the placement of each piece of food,  the shapes created and the props that you use. What looks great side on may not translate as beautifully from above and vice versa. 

Shooting everything in a collection in this way might be a bit of a headache to look at, so these shots were mixed with others shot in a more normal way.

Anyhow, pretty pretty..

Banana Breakfast Booster!

(c) Cliona O'Flaherty

A delicious recipe from a recent recipe booklet shoot for Naturalife's Udos Oil.

BANANA BREAD SUNSHINE TOASTIE

This is a great energy booster in the morning. It is really tasty,very easy to make and will keep you going until lunch.

1 thick slice of wholemeal bread

1 large banana

sesame seeds

15ml of Udo's Choice Oil

Mash up the banana and spread it over the bread Scatter the sesame seeds on top and place under a warm grill for a few minutes or until it has toasted a light golden brown. Remove the toast from the grill and let it cool slightly before drizzling the oil evenly over the top.

A Peasant Chic Picnic

Images show some behind the scenes action on an Irish Country Magazine feature on Irish Food Bloggers, featuring Imen McDonnell, Lorna Sixsmith, Pat Whelan and Ella McSweeney.

The theme was a 'peasant chic' picnic. Luckily we shot on location at the lovely Village at Lyons which housed us in a cosy conservatory to shield us from the elements.

Check out the contributors food and interviews in the first fabulous issue of the mag out on March 29th 2012.

Fruity Fashion

Here are some finished snaps from a shoot (way back) where food met fashion on a fun jewellery shoot. They scream summer....just wish we had the weather now!

Photographer: Cliona O'Flaherty

Jewellery Designer: Alice Moyon from www.aliquoboutique.com

Model: Caoimhe

Fashion Stylist: Jemma Connolly

Food Stylist: Me!

Make-up: Rachel Matthews

Snowy Supper

So it's a snow work day! Sounds great in principle and brings back amazing memories of being sent home from school because of burst pipes, but in reality missing work because of it now means for me the diary being thrown into all sorts of disarray. I'm furiously trying to get work done for upcoming jobs so that I can free future days up to give back to the postponed jobs.

Anyhow, at least it's all happening in the comfort of my PJ's and bed hair (something I never normally do when working from home, promise!). It also means I can sneek some time to catch up on some blogging (once and for all) and most importantly cook lots of comforting snowy suppers. Here's a favourite recipe from the new Superquinn cookbook (which is now reduced instore to about E15 I think and so makes an excellent christmas pressie!) as promised. This is delicious just on it's own even!

Irish stoved potatoes with vintage Cheddar

This is a variation on the traditional way of cooking potatoes in a cast-iron frying pan over an open fire. They’re delicious on their own with just a salad or try serving simply with grilled fish or a steak.

(c) Harry Weir

Serves 4

675g (1 1/2lb) potatoes

knob of butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, thinly sliced

100g (4oz) vintage Cheddar cheese, grated

maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice thinly on a mandolin or with a very sharp knife.

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-based frying pan that is about 20cm (8in) in diameter and about 5cm (2in) deep. Remove from the heat and cover the base with a layer of the potatoes.

Add a layer of onions over the potatoes and another of grated cheese, seasoning generously as you go. Continue these layers, finishing with a layer of potatoes and a sprinkling of cheese.

Cover tightly with tin foil and cook over a very low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour until potatoes on top are just cooked through with pierced with a sharp knife.

Preheat the grill. Uncover the stoved potatoes and place straight under the grill for 2-3 minutes to brown. Serve straight from the pan.

Chef’s top tip –Choose firm-fleshed potatoes for this recipe such as Roosters or Maris Piper as they will keep their shape during cooking and don’t break up. Of course this recipe could also be baked in the oven if you’d prefer.

Superquinn Cookbook

Firstly, big sorry for the lack of posts. I've truely been missing in action, so plenty to catch up with. I have tales from London, New York & well, Cavan. It's all glamour-glamour round here isn't it? Well actually, I don't think so. Here are some behind the scenes snaps showing as usual the far from glamorous affair that is my foodie world.

This time, I was delighted to come home from a trip to see the new Superquinn cookbook on their shelves. I told you about it here. Congrats to everyone involved, particularly my good friend Orla Brodrick who wrote the book & basically kept the whole thing afloat. She deserved the fab review in last Sunday's Times Mag, so well done.

Anyhow, I'll keep it short (& will be back with some finished shots & recipes soon). Here are some snaps of the food's adventure in making it onto those pages...

see? it looks all fancy-schmancy on the pages but not so glam in reality!

desperately trying to cool some bread down very quickly waving it about outside while a yoga class moved into the studio at the end of the day!

photographer Harry checking out the shots on screen.

Harry loved those shots from a dizzy height! a sweet little dessert in not such a pretty setting.

Superquinn Cookbook

Superquinn turns 50 this year and are publishing a fab new cookbook as part of the celebrations. I have just finished working on the shoot for the book where we shot 50+ recipes. And yes, ate them all too. I was in good company with friends Photographer Harry Weir and Writer Orla Broderick. Together with our new BFF's from Superquinn, Bruce & Alison and David the designer from the publishers Harmonia, we had really great fun.

It has been a tough few weeks though...think 12 hours of food shopping, 40 dishwasher loads, 15 crates of props & equipment and I'm not even going to think about the calories consumed! The shoot days were ultra busy so we didn't even have time to take many behind the scenes shots. You'll get the picture with the few we managed to snap the other day though. So anyhow, as I tweeted, it's been emotional...

On my knees praying and checking my biccies aren't burnt.

Lovingly tending to some luciously lovely leeks.

Harry being happy from a height.

checking out the goods on the big screen.

Orla, David, Harry & Alison tucking into pies for breakfast.

Me unknowingly snapped in action.

sweet smell of spring

Here are some snaps from a photo shoot last week. Luckily for me it was in my house, so for once I wasn't hauling loads of gear around. That makes me happy! The change in the weather and number of daylight hours makes me even happier...Spring is here...and Easter chocolates aren't too far away now either. Thanks to photographer Jack Caffrey for the cheery shots.

In Shooting Mood

It was lovely to get back to photo shoots last week, particularly as my first one was with the girlie gang! Photographer Cliona, assistant Aoife, designer Jess from Wonderland and I had a good girlie gossip and giggle (while getting on with some serious work too of course).

never work with kids and animals is the saying....cliona and Jess moving le chat out of the way. again.

cliona and aoife doin' their thang

not so happy to be back to lugging gear around. cliona gives up on it all too.

Denny Breakfast Competition

When drifting through blogesphere and the 'book of faces', I keep coming across the Denny Ad below. It links you to Denny's 'Home Is' site which currently has a competition where you can win a free breakfast. Cliona, Aoife and I created the shot above as part of the Denny repackaging project posted about previously.

I hadn't mentioned before about the propping for the shots - nothing like a good excuse to trawl auction houses and second hand and charity shops *squeels of delight*. Parents cupboards were also raided looking for those perfectly mismatched and homely looking table settings. Loving those egg cups!

And see, real people....Richard from Denny, Nik from Wonderland and fab assistant Aoife tuck into a Denny home(see, not studio!)-cooked brekkie!

Have a great weekend! I'm looking forward to having Sunday off to hang out in the Hamptons ;)

recent shoot

Here's me deep in concentration - or was it moodiness?! - on one of those January 'in denial about being back to work' shoots. It was with photographer Harry Weir and so we had fun....Check out Harry's new blog for some more snaps of our mischief!

Denny Repackaging

Denny (an Irish institution for rashers and sausages!) commissioned photographer Cliona O'Flaherty (along with fabulous assistant Aoife of course) and I to style and shoot the food for the repackaging of their extended range of products (that go well beyond breakfast). That's what this post was all about. It is all to tie in with Denny's 'Home Is' campaign which is sweeping the nation!

We worked with the talented team from Wonderland WPA in London who designed the packs, gave us lots of ever-professional briefs, acted as fabulous models, drank LOTS of tea and ate lots of 'toasted specials'!

The brief was to use a very lifestyley and homely feel that used real people in real life situations. I even sometimes had my hand smacked for making things look too neat and 'styled', for God's sake! We had barmy conversations about why we were eating a particular product in a certain situation. The scenario had to make sense and be relative for all of us to be happy with the shot. Just like actors on stage i guess, where you have to believe it yourself if you want anyone else to! So yes, the food definitely looks real and very approachable for consumers.

So the first phase of new packs were launched a couple of weeks ago (so how excited were we all!?). Since then, we've all been like inspector clueso around supermarkets and snapping excitedly when we see the packs displayed (to strange looks of other shoppers). But more about that in future posts. In the meantime, heres a sample of a before and after of what we achieved.

behind the scenes of the Blueberry Pie business cards

When I announced my new business cards here I forgot to show you some behind the scenes snaps of the photography for the cards. By now, if you ventured onto my website to take a peek inside the cards you will see I came up with 6 recipes (so 6 different cards) and all in-keeping with the Blueberry theme of course! Photographer Cliona O'Flaherty took the fab shots to go with the recipes (and of course helped me eat my way through the goodies too!).

Empire Paul Rankin

Here are some snaps from a recent shoot with chef Paul Rankin for yet another string to his bow with the expansion of his food products. This time some great mushroom and sauce packs. I'll pop the finished packs up (shot by photographer Gary Jordan) once they are finished.

Paul being styled and then Paul styling his food

Cully & Sully Hot Pots

Cully & Sully have had their new winter warmer hot pots on the market now since before Christmas. There are four flavours in the delicious range as above. Didn't Sarah at Brand Union do a great job on the packaging design? Here are some behind the scene snaps from the shoot that resulted in the final packaging shots above.

Sully turns hand model

Photographer Trevor Hart with his assistant Rachel as hand model this time.

Rachel modelling again. This time draped in fabric and being steamed up!

Funny Photo Shoot

I recently worked on a shoot with photographer Harry Weir so lots of giggles going on (especially as he loves tiggling me when I'm not expecting it!). Here are some photos from the day...

Harry tried his hand at some food styling when I wasn't looking!

Harry pretending to be hard at work

Someone's in trouble, she's got the hand on her hip!

Sausages Sausages

Here are some snaps from a shoot a few weeks ago for Hodgins sausages. We shot some sausage recipes for their soon to be revealed updated website as well as product shots of their complete range.

The hodgin's sausage family portrait

I won't be getting a packing job at Hodgin's the length of time it took me to get the pack on the right looking up to scratch for it's portrait!

Photographer Ciona and assistant Aoife hard at work

Me, multi-tasking, zhushing some food while catchin up on the gossip with Cliona (with Maureen from Estuary Marketing in the background)

Happy Christmas!

I know, sorry, I probably shouldn't mention those two words yet, but take pity on all of those who work a season ahead and have christmas in the summer. I actually enjoyed this christmas shoot for once mostly because I got to relish in a yummy Christmas lunch (and for someone who is now without a kitchen at home, entirely to the point of having the wash the dishes in the bath, this is a very welcome thing!). The shoot was for Country Living Magazine in the Farmers Journal with photographer Jack Caffery and thanks to Denise for her fab help once again.

Back from the abyss

Oops, where have I been?! Well, I pretty much haven't taken a breath since I finished working on Neven's series (and in fact I haven't even unpacked the boxes of gear yet, now that i think of it, darn)....What with 'operation move office' going on around lots of busy jobs and generally trying hard (but not always succeeding!) not to have a complete meltdown (agghh!)....But I'm back and there's lots to catch up on which I will try and do over the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's a mad snap of mad photographer Harry Weir on a mad shoot we did at Phelim Byrne's lovely and calm cookery school in wexford...d-e-e-p b-r-e-a-t-h-s a-n-d r-e-l-a-x...