Christmas Rocks at Rock Farm Slane

Christmas Rocks at Rock Farm Slane

Carina Conyngham of Rock Farm

 

The Christmas farmers markets at Rock Farm Slane are a convenient one-stop-shop for your Christmas dinner essentials this year. Organic turkey, ham and roasts, organic vegetables (including the crucial brussel sprouts) and lots of delicious festive fare from the Slane Food Circle all under one roof. Bring the family along and make a day of it on Wednesday 21^st, Thursday 22^nd or Friday 23^rd December from 11am to 4pm.

 

What could be more festive than Rock Farm Christmas Market in the old Hay Barn, twinkling with lights and bedecked with Christmas trees. Every enticing stall is dressed up for Christmas, featuring special hampers and Christmas gift packs making browsing for last minute presents a pleasure. We’ll have artisan food, arts and crafts stalls competing for your attention with an abundance of yuletide gift ideas and treats. These include Slane Food Circle members Rock Farm Slane, The Cider Mill, Boyne Valley Farmhouse Cheese and Newgrange Gold Rapeseed Oil.

 

Take time out and treat yourself to coffee or lunch with some homemade festive favourites. Time out just for you in our spacious seating area while yuletide music plays in the background. There’s even a nice loop walk through the farm around the glamping area, where children can burn off some energy and work up an appetite

 

Rock Farm Christmas products include organic turkey and ham, pork, beef and the popular Organic Christmas Breakfast Pack, perfect for Christmas morning. The turkeys are Hockenhull bronze turkeys, slower growing than standard white turkeys and carefully chosen for their flavour and taste. Like all the stock on Rock Farm, they are raised organically. Turkeys must be pre ordered.

 

Add a little treat like a wheel of Boyne Valley Blue or a selection of Mark Jenkinson’s delicious ciders to enjoy over the festive period. You won’t be caught out this year when unexpected guests arrive. Rock Farm vouchers are a great gift option, either for Christmas products or a general voucher which can be redeemed against anything from glamping to farm tours.

 

All Rock Farm and Slane Food Circle Christmas products are available to order by email (shop@rockfarmslane.ie) for collection during Christmas week (21^st-23^rd December) from the Christmas Markets. Christmas orders can also be collected by arrangement from Dublin collection points.

Choose Rock Farm this Christmas and taste the difference.

press release

 

Good Food Features at Cork Craft Fair

Good Food Features at Cork Craft Fair

Brett and Pamela of Wicklow Way Wines

Over 100 of “Ireland’s best makers, designers and artisan food producers” were on show at the Cork City Hall Craft Fair over the weekend. I took an opportunity to call in there on Friday and, surprise, surprise, I spent most of my time at the food section where I met some old friends and some new.

The gorgeous packaging of the Lismore Food Company was certainly an eye-catcher but the biscuits inside proved they had substance as well as style. They come in both savoury and sweet, an Irish Digestive with Wild Atlantic Sea Salt and Caraway with Irish Seaweed among the savoury, Hazelnut, Cinnamon and Raisin along with an all Butter Irish Shortbread among the latter.

All in colourful round boxes, ideal as gifts. But do watch out for the larger blue rectangular box. Inside you'll find “divine crisp apple thins wrapped in the finest dark Belgian chocolate...an epicurean delight”. We tasted those Dark Chocolate and Apple Crisp Thins and they became an immediate favourite. You could take these anywhere! Think I’ll keep mine at home though.

They’re widely available and you can purchase at their online shop as well.

There was a warm welcome from Julie of Highbank Orchards at the Kilkenny corner. She had her full range of organic drinks here, both non alcoholic (syrup, treacle) and alcoholic (gins, vodka, cider and a delicious Highbank Organic Sack). 

Our favourite on the day was perhaps the Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother*. Bought a bottle so we’ll be giving that a longer test! Julie suggested serving it with warm water at breakfast or as a wonderful addition to a salad dressing. Meant to get back here to have a chat with Helen of Mooncoin Beetroot but slipped up. Next time!

Preserves by Wild Irish Foragers & Preservers

More drinks then and a very pleasant surprise at the Wicklow Way Wines stand. They produce Móinéir Wines from Irish fruit. Móinéir is the Irish word for meadows. 

Their flagship Strawberry Wine is created from hand-picked Irish strawberries, with around one hundred and fifty small strawberries in each bottle. We had a wee taste of this alluring wine. You expect the slight sweetness of the fruit but not the dry finalé.  The Blackberry wine (some elderberry in there too) had a deeper flavour, another excellent drop from nature’s bounty. Both have an ABV of 11.00%.

Kate and Denis Dempsey are really working hard at getting the mead message across and they too were in the City Hall, showing their Wild Red and Atlantic Dry White meads. Find out more about this ancient drink, now being given a new lease of life in Kinsale, here.  

You may drink it like wine (abv of 12%) or use it in a cocktail. Here is a recipe for their Wild Red Sour from their Facebook page: This tasty tipple consists of our Wild Red Mead, Blacks Brewery Gin, Orange Blossom Honey Syrup, Lemon, Egg White, Cherry Bitters and is garnished with shavings of Skelligs Chocolates Irish Sea Salt Dark Chocolate and an orange twist.

Fran from Newgrange Gold

And next we were on to a product based on an ancient seed called Camelina Sativa, better known in English as Wild Flax. Newgrange Gold from County Meath grow it. When grown it is cold pressed and bottled in the Boyne Valley. We did buy a bottle of this Camelina Oil. It is, we’re told, very high in Omega 3 “and has a much desired 2:1 balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6. Low in saturated fat and high in essential fatty acids, Camelina is a very healthy oil.” Try a teaspoon a day! Can also be used for stir frying, baking, salads. 

At this point, we had gathered a nice selection of food and drink and the bags were getting a little heavy so time to head off and begin to enjoy. The biscuits will probably the first to go!

* Read more about the mother here .