Vlog Tutorial: Cooking Beef Olives (German Rinderrouladen)

One of the things I really enjoy about this time of year is getting back into cooking really hearty meals, especially for a Sunday dinner. On Sunday just gone, I was cooking beef olives, a dish that you never really hear of any more in Ireland or the UK but which is really popular in Germany. 

The first time I ate it was on my second visit to Germany with The Bavarian. His mother cooked them for us for Sunday lunch and I was hooked. Luckily my big fat German cookbook, a present from my au pair family years ago, has a great recipe for beef olives (Rinderrouladen in German), so I quickly learnt to make them myself.

Per person you need:
One escalope of beef (approx. 200g)
Salt and ground ground black pepper
1/2 tsp mustard
3 slices of streaky bacon, very thinly sliced
1 cornichon or 1/2 a gherkin, sliced lengthwise thinly
3-4 slices of onion in rings

Take a look at my little video to see how to cook the recipe.

This Week I've Loved - Filming with Number Two

There are times in life when you ask yourself "Why did I do that? It was obviously a bad idea" and then it turns out it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Like me moving to Germany with no money and no job. But twelve years later I am still here, happily married and with three sons and a lovely house.

I had one of those bad idea moments this week, albeit on a much smaller scale. I had a notion to make a yeast bread video tutorial. When I couldn't get my phone to the right angle to film from, I asked Number Two (my almost 5 year old) to hold the phone steady for a few minutes. It started off well but then he decided to get creative and take a few photos of me. As he did so, he chatted and waved the phone about, leaving me a video in need of severe editing. But what I also got were some candid shots of me in the kitchen, just doing what I normally do while baking. Number Two enjoyed filming and photographing as he pleased while I had floury hands.

I loved this shared moment with Number Two, interrupting our usual routine of breakfast, chatting and getting ready for the day by adding a phone set to video mode into the mix.

I never got to re-film the start of the tutorial, but here is what i was able to salvage. If you are interested in the recipe, leave me a comment and I'll post it soon.

A Vlog Tour of Our Garden

I'm not quite sure what came over me in the garden on Saturday, but I ended up making a little video tour of the fruit, veg and herbs in our garden for you. It was a lovely blustery day, the kind of weather I love but that we rarely get here unfortunately. 

As I say, I got a sudden urge to share our small but flourishing garden with you. It was all very spur of the moment and my editing skills are still fairly basic, so please forgive my little slips of the tongue. I know that tomatoes don't grow on trees and I couldn't edit out the part where I nearly said "shite". And before any of you start feeling sorry for me and my wierd tick, I don't have one. There was just a bit of coconut stuck in my tooth, so that is what those couple of wierd facial expressions are about. 

So here's me in the garden. Enjoy!

Hello Cinderella (My Vlogging Premier)

I've been called many names in my life, from my two-year old cousin calling me Snu-la to an American customer mishearing me on the phone and calling me Cinderella. So it naturally occurred to me that many of you reading my blog may have absolutely no earthly idea how to pronounce my name. I can't really blame you. I'll admit it is not the most common of names, nor it is easy to remember how to spell. So I thought it might be nice to share with you the proper pronunciation.

Firstly though, here is a guide to what my name is not:
 - Vanilla (for years I kept the fax message from the UK sarting "Hi Vanilla")
 - Flonula (what my au pair family thought my name was due to a typo on my letter of application)
 - Viola (my work mate called me this for 2 years!)
 - Fiona
 - Xionnuala
 - Sionnuala
 - Fin-you-la (my son's best friend calls me this)
 - Fan-lu-na (ok, it was a child calling me this, but still)
 - Fee-nula 
 - Vee-nula (my father-in-law's attempt at correct pronunciation. It took a while to get past that).
 - Fee-oh-nu-a-la (the go-to pronunciation for most non-Irish people)

Fin-ooh-la (as in ooh la la, but without the last la!). Got it? Good.

P.S. I'm not so sure I'll be doing much of this vlogging craic. I haven't really got the flair for it, have I? (You can be honest).