Quit the plastic habit....

I have been thinking of ways to try reduce my use of plastic and other single use items. Here's a list of all of the ways I can think of - let me know if you can think of any more ways.

1. Bring a cloth bag to the shop for your groceries - say no to a plastic bag.

2. Use a reusable coffee cup instead of a takeaway cup (and save money too - many places give money off for bringing a cup)

3. Say no to straws or only use paper ones

4. Switch out a bar of soap for shower gel - check out this palm oil free soap that is made in Ireland

5. Stop buying bottled water - I do this with fresh water but I need to stop buying sparkling water or 500ml bottles of Coke Zero

6. Use beeswax wraps rather than cling film 

Can you think of anymore?

Just thought of another one! "Reuse" - Buy secondhand :-) 

Picking up after the mutt!

As anyone who has a dog knows a large part of dog ownership is picking up after them when they take a bathroom break when out walking.

For the past few years I've been using this brand of bags as I find them convenient because of the handy little roll that they come on. They also feel strong and give you a sense of security that they are not going to split in your hand when you are carrying out a particular action.

The other good thing is that they are biodegradable and good for the environment.

The only place that I seem to be able to find them in here in Dublin is TK Maxx. I was in TK Maxx in the Ilac Centre this morning so I picked up a large box of them that has 375 in total. That's about a years supply and at €12.99 it is only a few pennies per bag.

Back on the Keto train!

After the excesses of Christmas I am back eating Keto.

I got straight back in to making Keto bread which is beyond easy to make. Basically you just mix up the ingredients in a bowl and then bung it in a tin and in to the oven for 45 mins.

The ingredients for this Keto Bread are:

Half cup coconut flour

Half tsp baking powder

6 eggs

Half cup melted butter

Some salt to taste

And then I add chili flakes too!

I've been making the tastiest tuna melts for dinner on this bread. I layer avocado, tuna & mayo and then melt cheese on top. Delicious!

But personally I think this bread is best toasted in the oven and then slathered with Kerrygold butter.

So breakfast this morning I had Nespresso coffee with cream and then some Greek yoghurt with added cream.

 My new find is this Greek yoghurt from the Tesco Finest range. It's delicious! It's been strained so it is really thick and creamy. Previously I enjoyed the Lidl Greek yoghurt but this is my new favourite.

I like to add cream to my yoghurt. It adds fat but it also takes down the sharper taste of the yoghurt if it is not quite to your taste.

I feel so much better eating this way. Not eating sugar gives me more control over my eating and stops me acting like a Sugar Monster!!

The year of the Gift Bag

Just  before Christmas, I discovered that wrapping paper is not recyclable - particular if it is shiny. An alternative is to use brown paper but I wasn't sure that I wanted to do that even if I do think brown paper parcels can look very nice when tied up with cute ribbons. Looking on eco websites, I saw another alternative to wrapping paper is to wrap presents in tea towels that can then be used by the recipient.....I don't know about this one!!

So in the end I decided that this would be the year of the Gift Bag. I thought this was a good option as hopefully the bags would be reused by whoever I gave the present to. I also chose fairly non Christmas looking bags (I selected a few red and gold tartan bags in Dunnes) so they could be reused for any other occasion than Christmas. 

I didn't take any pictures so I'll just share a Christmassy snap of Ciaran and myself!

Handmade Irish Soap

One of my favourite things in the world is homemade soap. Once you start using homemade soap it is very hard to go back to the commercial variety.

I was very lucky to receive a lovely  thoughtful Christmas gift of some really gorgeous eco friendly Irish handmade soap.

It's Palm Free Irish Soap and it is made in Co Clare in Ireland.

There are three lovely flavours in this box. Pictured below is Lavender & Seaweed and I also got lemon flavour which I promptly put straight in my shower. I love lemon and this one is really nice as well as being lovely and bright coloured which is so cheery.

If you want to order some lovely soap, head over to their website or go to their Facebook page to give them a follow. 

I'm intrigued by the "Feile" soap. I wonder what it smells like. Feile is the Irish word for Festival so it sounds like a fun soap!

Pizza time! Rita's in Ranelagh

I've written about different restaurants in Ranelagh before and from reading them it should be apparent that Ranelagh is quite the foodie village and should be a destination for any food lover. Over the past few weeks there has been a few new openings that make great new additions to the area.

There has been The Devlin (I never knew Ranelagh was missing a boutique hotel until this place opened!) which offers food in their rooftop restaurant Layla's or the American Bar on the ground floor. Hobarts closed but reopened as Scoff with Gigi's going in next door.

However, the restaurant I was most excited to visit is the very recently opened Rita's which I had heard serves top class pizza. We were out in Dun Laoghaire where we went on the vintage Ferris Wheel from Grease and on the way home we decided that we would pop in to Rita's "for a slice" ....or even a pie!

Rita's is in a central location in between  Kinara Kitchen and Host Restaurant (in the old Bow and Pearl location) and it is nicely decorated with cool stencil work on some of the walls. ** EDIT - Rita's is now relocated to the old Brioche location on Elmwood Avenue Lower in Ranelagh Village (across from Lidl) ** It's got a great atmosphere and when we visited it was packed with a great buzz in the place. It is small and cozy and of course it's got a great big pizza oven in the restaurant.

Once we were seated we got down to the business of ordering our pizza. The menu is interesting and included some pizza toppings that we had to google before we ordered. For info, Nduja is a spicy pork salami!

I ordered a pizza with blue cheese on it. I love blue cheese and this pizza did not disappoint - it worked well with the glass of red wine that I ordered too.  Ciaran went for the pizza with nduja and also scamorza cheese which he washed down with a couple of bottles of Peroni.

The pizza was really superb - beautifully cooked, thin base with a soft doughy crust around the edge. We ordered a portion of garlic dipping sauce which was perfect for dipping the crust in to. These are seriously good pizzas.

Rita's certainly is an asset to Ranelagh and I hope it does well. It will appeal to all and is perfect for big groups who are looking for a fun reasonably priced meal or couples out for a nice bite to eat. It will be sure to prove popular with families also. If you visit, let me know!

The above pic is the huuge pizza oven where they cook those pizzas at 500 degrees!!!  That's one hot mama of an oven!

It's a Wonderful Life!

We had a wonderful Christmas day yesterday. After a slow wake up, I made myself a Baileys coffee (Hello, Reindeer Antlers handled mug from Starbucks!) while Ciaran poured himself a cup of tea before we started in to our present opening,

Breakfast was a light option made by Ciaran. We just had poached eggs and Clonakilty black pudding because we wanted to save our appetite for the main event later on!

Santa truly spoiled me this year. Every present I got was a surprise and they were all gorgeous.

I was  especially happy when I saw that Ciaran got me the "A Star is Born" soundtrack.

I promptly poured myself a glass of prosecco and put the record player on.

This is the cutest little glass to drink from.  My mam bought it for me on her recent trip to Amsterdam and she got it engraved with my name in the Heineken museum.

We also listened to David Byrne's American Utopia which I had bought for Ciaran.

Dinner was lovely. The turkey and ham were cooked by the Butler's Pantry and it was lovely and moist. We had some nice wine with dinner and afterwards we sat down and watched "It's a wonderful life" which was so good - surprisingly, neither of us had ever seen it.