Mama Loves Ireland

A deliciously simple Irish Stew recipe perfect for a family weekly dinner, a warming winter treat, or St Patrick’s Day main. Irish stew is a warming and filling dish made with lamb and vegetables. As the name suggests, this dish as stew, so you make it the hob (as opposed to a casserole, which would be in the oven), by slowly boiling all the ingredients to make a rich and flavorsome one pot meal. Irish stew comes from poor cooking and is made with whatever vegetables would have been available at any given time. Most typically, these were carrots, onions and while you can let your creativity take over using…

A super easy, delicious and warming leek and potato soup recipe perfect for a satisfying midweek dinner for the whole family – Ireland inspired! Leak and potato soup is a great Irish classic and a staple in our household too. It’s a soup I make regularly becasue it has all I love in a dish: I make it in no time at all; it is warming, filling, soothing, and it’s a dish that everyone in the family loves. My ‘discerning’ eater has it plain, but with a dash of nutmeg it is easy to make it into a dish we adults also properly enjoy and one you can even very…

7 recipes for warming soups for winter that area easy to make and are perfect to keep you cozy and well fed this in the cold season. In the last few days Ireland is going through an exceptionally cold spell (it’s January), a weather event that is making us all long for cozy days in front of the fire, warming bowl of soup, earthy casseroles and copious amounts of tea! In our house, we are reacting to it with soups of all types. They are easy to make, satisfying, they are excellent to use up ingredients you already have and they are truly wonderful to come home to. When you…

How to make a fabulous Irish Cheese board for St Patrick’s Day or a house party with friends Ireland produces amazing dairy. Irish milk, yogurt and cheeses are among the best local foods you can find here and there is no better way to enjoy them than creating a tasting platter to showcase their variety. You don’t need a special occasion to offer a cheese platter; however, if you want to dress up your cheese offering with seasonal and occasion touches, there are easy way to do so! Here’s how to make a beautiful Irish cheese board and decoration ideas to special occasions. 1. Pick a Base Start with a large…

Easy to make St Patrick’s Day Appetizer ideas perfect for a Paddy’s Day-themed party. Nothing beats a table of cute appetizers to make even a small gathering feel like a party and what better way to celebrate Ireland than by using Irish ingredients and foods you actually have on the Emerald Isle? On this page, you find several yummy Irish inspired appetizers ideas that use both traditional and more modern flavors. Smoked salmon, soda bread, cream cheese, cabbage and potatoes feature heavily but Irish cuisine is so varied now and has embraced so many new flavors, we can get creative without straying from the theme. Plus, the color green gives…

Easy to make, delicious, naturally green dip sauces you’ll love for a party or dinner with friends or family. Green dips are a quick and easy way to add a special touch to your St Patrick’s Day table. They are easy to make, you can make several in very little time, so you have variety, and if you serve them in cute little bowls, they are a non-stress way to ‘theme’ your Paddy’s Day table. On this page, I share some delicious ideas for naturally green dips you can make without food coloring. Here are some easy and delicious recipes for naturally green dips. Avocado Yogurt Green Dip Spinach and…

Goat cheese salad ideas: Easy to make salads with goat cheese perfect for a light meal or to serve as an appetizer. I love goat cheese and Ireland shops have several good varieties (local and not) that make it easy for me to add it to many dishes, may they be salads or appetizers. These are a few easy-to-make goat cheese salad ideas I love. The exact type of cheese I use in each depends on what I find on the day and is not a dealbreaker for any of these dishes. However, for the oven-roasted ones, opt for the round forms or cheese as the rolls or more spreadable…

Delicious salmon salads and no cook salmon recipe ideas you’ll love. Smoked salmon is an easy to use, delicious ingredient I use regularly in all sorts of dishes. I love it for an easy lunch on the go, as a starter when entertaining friends and I also add it to salads as an easy source of proteins. In a previous post, I shared some smoked salmon recipes I like. Today, I share easy salmon salads and no-cooking required salmon recipe ideas that work great for a light meal and, in some cases, for the kids’ lunchboxes too These are some of my favorite no-cooking required salmon recipes Smoked Salmon And…

How to make meringue with Irish cream and fresh berries: step by step recipe. My mother-in-law is a whizz at making meringue. She makes them the traditional way, with a quick and expert whip of her wrist and serves them with clotted cream and berries at all family celebrations. I may have something to do with it as I adore how she makes them, so I always ask for them! This is her recipe, which I use successfully in my home too (it’s the same source as my banana bread recipe, so you can trust her!). The only difference from her method is in the whipping, as I use the…

Delicious and easy-to-make salads with kale you can make at home for a nutritious, refreshing and satisfying meal Kale is a favorite food in our household. We use it extensively in salads, and since we discovered the ‘trick’ of massaging it, the results have been even better, so our consumption of kale has increased even more! In Ireland, kale used to be a winter vegetable but now it is easy to find in all seasons, so we also use it with more summery flavors such as mango. It is a nice alternative to our cabbage salads, also a common choice in this house. I like to eat many raw vegetables,…