Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The one by popular demand!!!!

The luv we have sets my heart on fire, ur love and care i do desire, wen im wit u i feel no pain, u shine wit sun on a day of rain, i hope that we will last 2gether, 4 u my luv have my heart 4ever

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The one with a Valentines Dinner!!!

As per last year, I'll have another go at pointing ya in the direction of some decent home cooking. All for the love of your life! While there are some amazing restaurants in Cork, none of them will sleep with you if you cook the food yourself. Granted, you may not get any action from this either, particuarly if your better half is a veggie!

Pressed Belly of Pork

THIS TAKES 2 DAYS, SO BUY YOUR PORK BELLY SOMEWHERE TODAY OR TOMORROW. BUT TO DO THIS PROPERLY YOU'LL NEED 2 DAYS, OTHERWISE BUY IT AT THE CRACK OF DAWN ON VALENTINES DAY AND SERVE IT UP AROUND 8PM. MAKE SURE YOU BUY IT FLAT, AS YOU DONT WONT IT ROLLED AND MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO RIBS ATTACHED (THERE SHOULDNT BE!!)

Go to a decent butcher, some of the supermarket butchers may have it. Ask for pork belly. Its cheapish and tastes delicious. Make sure you get the fat lair as opposed to the skin lair. Its rare that'd happen anyway! Make sure you get a big square of it, well enough to divide it into four pieces that you can both eat without collapsing! As your out shopping, get some olive oil, salt, pepper, a few cloves of Garlic (if you like the stuff) or an onion. You'll also need a bottle of white wine, tin foil and a roasting tray.

Preperation -
Pre heat your FAN oven to 170, or 185 if your using a non-fan oven.Get a sharp knife and score the white fat of the pork belly up and down, left and right so you have something resembling a grid. Make sure not to cut through to the actual meat, but make a deep enough cut into the fat. Season fat side and meat side well with plenty of salt and pepper and rub all over with the olive oil. Get out your onion or garlic and cut them into sections. Arrange the onion or garlic segments in your roasting tray, so they act as little legs for the piggy belly, keeping it off the actual bottom of the roasting tray. Make sure the fat side is facing up! Trickle with a bit more olive oil and another sprinkle of salt! Horse in a good splash of the white wine, cover the tray with the tinfoil and bake / roast for 1.5 hours. After that time is up, take off the foil and return it to the oven for another 40mins (still on at the same temp) and baste it occasionally with the juices that are in the pan. around 5-7 times.

Using another clean roasting tray, tranfer the pork to that. Leave it cool down for an hour or so.Now get another tray or extremely large plate and place that on top of the pork belly. Weigh this tray down with tins, or what I find great, is an Arogs catalogue! Leave it like that preferably over night in the fridge or a good couple of hours. The pork compresses and takes shape! Now when it comes to serving it....

Heat your oven to the highest setting (230/200 for most ovens). While your oven is preheating its arse off, cut your now pressed pork belly into 4 even squares. 2 each!!!! Place the pork, fat side up in a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil and a little bit of salt. Roast for around 15-20 mins until the skin is nice and crisp. You may need 25 mins, depending on the oven, but keep an eye on it!. If you want to be really fancy, trim the edges off the pork to neaten it a bit, if needs be. Sorted!!!!!!!!!

All you need is a little bit of gravy and some mash! For the perfect mash, for christs sake use a potato ricer. 20 mins of boiling a few spuds, push them through the potato ricer, warm milk and a few knobs (!) of butter. Mix well and season with salt and pepper. I normally do a basic stuffing to rest the pork on. Blitz up some bread or buy some breadcrumbs. Get a decent size lump of butter and melt it down in a frying pan. Dice some onions, mix with the breadcrumbs and get it into the pan with the melted butter. Keep tossing (I know, I know) until golden, add a little bit of time and you have a pretty tasty stuffing!

For dessert if you fancy some, or maybe dessert is made in the bedroom a creme brulee (burnt feckin cream) is pretty nice and light to boot, so if there's any shenanigans later, you wont be struggling getting your moves on! Creme Brulee is fairly simple to make. You make a custard, let it set for a few hours (after baking it in little ramakins) try some sugar on top and using a blow torch or a hot grill, caramelize the sugar. Heres what you need!

300ml double cream
120ml full fat milk
5 larger FREE RANGE egg yolks
60g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod (Tesco have em)
Vanilla EXTRACT (Not Essence) if you want

Slowly heat the cream and milk together in a saucepan. And I mean slowly, a ow-low med heat! Now, beat the shit out of your eggs yolks, vanilla extract (2 little capfuls, what the hell make it 3) and sugar all together in a bowl. Now when thats done, not only will it smell gorgeous, you have a bit of a difficult bit. With the hot creamy milky mixture (heated slowly just before boiling point) mix that into. Do this by trickling it into the bowl with the sugar, vanilla extract and egg yolks (which have now all being combined) and keep beating . I cant stress how important it is to keep beating it, otherwise your eggs will cook and scramble and you dont want this. When all the milk/creme mixture is beaten in, strain through a sieve into a large jug. Skim off any froth from the surface and pour into the ramekins. Well done, you've just made custard! Almost there, get a baking tin, place in your ramekins, and fill the tin with warm water until it reaches around halfway up the ramekins. Bake for 40-45 mins at 140 (make sure oven is preheated) until the custard is lightly set. It should wobble a little in the middle. Remove them and allow to cool and then chill them in the fridge until your ready to serve em up. 1 tsp of sugar over the top of each ramekin, at the table (looks impressive) and whip out your little torch (or place under the grill) and wave it about until the sugar has caramelised. When the sugar has caramelised give it almost a minute until its hard, otherwise you'll get a nasty caramel burn, and trust me you dont want one of them!!!!

So there you go, no starters but a decent main and desert. Inspired from Gordon Ramsay!!! Enjoy. Any questions, post em in the comments section!!!!
Vics valentines vouchers on the way tomorrow!!!

Monday, February 11, 2008

The one with sofa's and dancing!

I cant remember a weekend that has been so busy. After 4 hours sleep, I struggled, and I mean struggled to get out of bed. Look a severley wounded gazelle after being mauled by a pride of lions I hauled myself into the shower. I had to be in Mahon Point for 915am for a photo shoot with Twink regarding the Kleenex Sofa Tour. Twink was running a few mins late and after a shoe purchase we were under way, as Im sure you spotted in a previous post. Twink was an absolute star altogether. I had a good oul laugh with her, let it be said. So around 11 I strolled off home and collapsed on the couch. But I decided to bake a cake (as you do) with an amazing reciepe I found in the BBC's Good food mag. I know, I know, it sounds very rock 'n roll. I fed my parents later on that day and that was more or less Friday done.

Saturday morning was another early one. I got to Mahon Point around 930am and at 10am I took up my post on the Kleenex Sofa. I was originally supposed to be there till 3pm but ended up getting off it around 420pm. I was absolutely amazed at some of the stories people were telling me. I'm not going to reveal any of them here, but there are some incredibly brave people out there. I thought I had problems, now I thank my lucky stars! On a lighter note, the men of Cork are well and truly screwing things up with the ladies! With the majority of the ladies giving out about who crap Cork men are. Biggest problem, personality!!!!!!!! I get home for around 5ish and veg out in front of the TV for 20 minutes and decide it would be best to get to bed for a little shut eye for a while. 8pm I surface and decide before I head off to Club Light that I get fed. Not being in the humor to cook, I order a chinese. I feel like absolute shite, being so tired and all that and the chicken balls dont exactly help the scenario. I get to Light around 11ish and have a rather good night. I get home for just gone 4 and crawl into bed. Being over tired at this stage, I cant get to sleep. She who must be obeyed as at a hen night and is only after getting to bed herself, so I nod off.

Sunday I rise early, suprisingly! I get to Mammy's house for Sunday lunch and get back home for around 3, after a couple of furious rounds of the old classic Top Spin Tennis with my Dad. I pick Ger up after the hen in the city centre, get home change and race out the door for my presenting gig at the Everyman Palace. 2 weeks ago, the Ucc Dance Clubs asked me would I present their Clubs Go Dancing. So a holiday request later for a night off, I said I would. It was an absolute brilliant experience at Clubs Go Dancing. The guys and girls of the various Clubs, danced their hearts out and the audience loved every minute. For me, it was an honor to "perform" at the Everyman. It was pretty bizarre talking into darkness with all the stage lights but there was plenty of compliments on my presenting / hosting skills which meant alot!!!!! One of the other highlights of the night was getting Denis Behan (Cork City FC) and Dave (Tony) Tierney (2 of the celeb judges on the night) up on stage, towards the end of the night. Ever since I was asked to do this gig, I had the idea to get Denis up on stage. So after chancing my arm and with a huge, constant cheering from the audience Denis and Dave blew our minds with a riveting performance. Fair play to the Denis and Dave because I know I was giving them a bit of a hard time (all in jest of course) through the course of the evening! Cheers guys!

On a final note, well done to Jonathan and Niamh who were the 2008 Clubs go Dancing winners!





Friday, February 08, 2008

Thursday, February 07, 2008

The one with a Kleenex

Ya know the cool ad on the telly with the Sofa and the guy listening to people spill their hearts out! Well its in Cork on Friday (tomorrow) and Saturday (7th Feb). Twink is going to be the celebrity listener in Mahon Point on Friday from 10 onwards and then on Saturday, I'll be taking the listening position from 10am!!!! So come down or come over and have a Kleenex and tell me your tale!

The one with the news..Allegedly!!!!

ALLEDGED NEWS 06 02 08

Insiders say Paris Hilton’s recent trip to a local school ended in disaster. Arriving at Westside elementary Paris was swarmed by young students all eager to grab some words of wisdom from the Hollywood socialite. Standing behind a microphone, the floor was opened to queries.“How do you become successful?” “How do you become famous?” “How do you manage your accounts” were all questions asked by the students. But they never got the answers they wanted. As a matter of fact they didn’t get any answers at all. Paris just stood there and smiled giving the occasional giggle. Later Paris questioned her people about why there were so many little people and what a school was. Allegedly!!!


EBay is a website that many people use on a daily basis. Many buy gadgets, clothes, cd’s etc all at bargain prices. EBay is no stranger to celebs purchasing items under the shroud of a user name. One eBay seller got the surprise of his life last Monday when Michael Jackson arrived at his front door. The day previous, Ben Damon’s auction for genuine Ohio air came to an end. The eBay user wackedoutjack54 had spent 50 million dollars on 50 zip locked bags of air. “I was shocked to say the least” Damon said, when he heard the door bell. “I was doing the hovering when I heard the bell and this guy dressed in a cloak and an elephant mask said he was here to pay for his Ohio air” Damon also went on to say that Michael Jackson claimed he’s sick of oxygen and now prefers to buy bags of air off the internet! Allegedly!!!


Oprah helped out in the voting process yesterday as one precint she was in was lacking a witness. The queen of day time television and the owner of the universe, Oprah stepped up and the voting on Super Tuesday continued. All voters received a new car, a new house and 5 million dollars each. Alledgedly!!!

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The one with Matt Damon and Sarah Silverman and A.N.

Song of the year, and its only Feb (barely)!!!!!!



And, finally....

ALLEDGED NEWS 05 02 08

Hundreds of thousands of people made their way into cities in the United States today, as Super Tuesday kicks off. “We really hope Superman turns up before lunchtime” said Joe Montanna, a native of Brooklyn NY. Franklin Peters traveled 4 hours in the hopes of seeing his favorite superhero, The incredible Hulk.Mariah Sweeney of New Jersey said she came into the city today with her 7 kids, Josh, Tobey, Steven, Thomas, Bill, George and Lucas. All her kids have had their hopes high that Batman will turn up in the Batmobile. Speaking to alleged news Mariah said she’s not too bothered if turns up in the Batmobile. “I couldn’t care less if he turned up on a pi-ball pony, as long as my kids get to see their favourite super hero on Super Tuesday.Alledgedly!!!

Insiders say Christina Aguilera is looking forward to bringing up her son in the Osborne’s old house. Since she bought the house it has been completely redecorated and refurbished. She’s even gotten rid of Ozzys trademark gargoyles, But the one thing she can’t get rid of, is the prince of darkness himself. Christina first found Ozzy 4 weeks ago, locked up under the stairs whilst looking for a hoover. Ms Aguleira has tried numerous times to contact members of the Osborne family, but to no avail.
Sources inside the Aguilera mansion say Ozzy still calls the house home, wanders around in his underpants and constantly refers to Christina as Sharon. Alledgedly!!!

It's not every day that you see Robert De Niro on the cover of Vibe magazine with 50 Cent. The pair are promoting their new crime drama “Righteous Kill”. Insiders say De Niro first met fiddy in a New York supermarket 5 years ago. 50 was having trouble getting a box of cereal off the top shelf and Robert was there to lend a helping hand. At the time De Niro thought he was helping out MC Hammer. During the making of Righteous kill, Curtis Jackson, 50’s real name would hang out with Robert De Niro and discuss different coffee flavors, sports and their collections of knitting needles. Allegedly!!!!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

The one with Fiddy!

I've been impressed with his gaff (his house, for those of you reading outside of Cork) and now Im impressed with his on stage antics! Paris "I work very hard now considering Grandpa aint giving me shit" Hilton decided to hop up on stage and get her groove on. Below is the video of what happened, compliments of youtube. As many know, Im not a Paris Hilton fan. I cant stand the fake "socilite" bullshit. And no I wouldnt let her into me bedroom either. Well unless she was going to change the sheets and do a quick hoover under the bed. But knowing Paris, she probably thinks hoover is something she's supposed to do with her mouth. If you ask me, she cant seem to do that right either. Those of you who are wise internet perverts will know what I'm on about.

The one with Alledged News!

A new regular feature to the show....

ALEDGED NEWS 04 02 08


The Britney Spears saga has taken a unique turn according to an insider. The pop diva has, through a family member, purchased 6 highly trained chimpanzees to help with the house work. The 6, 3 year old chimps are have begun work on cleaning up Britney’s palatial home. Ms Spears bedroom has already being redecorated in banana yellow and the chimps have already drawn up plans to add a third story to the large mansion. At a cost of $4999.99 each, these interior design helper monkeys don’t come cheap. Already demands are being handed in to Britney. The chimps are refusing to work after 6pm and will under no circumstances start work before 11am. Allegedly!

Inside sources say Justin Timberlake’s nickname of Justin Trousersnake may not be too far from the truth. On a recent flight, Justin and his entourage were stopped by custom officials. 3 of the entourage, including Justin were taken to a private area and were asked to strip down to their underwear one by one. When Justin stripped down to his boxers, panic ensued as custom officers reached for their weapons as a 4 foot reticulated python fell out off Justin’s jocks. Allegedly!


The monster from Cloverfield, or at least the monster who played the monster in Cloverfield has just received news that it is to get its own talkshow. A cross between the Tyra Banks show and Jerry Springer, the as of yet to named talk show promises to be the most controversial piece of television since Janet Jackson showed off the breasts at the Superbowl. The first episode, entitled “My sister married my midget brother” will air on tv screen’s in May of this year. People can look forward to a fast paced talk show and at the end of each show; the Cloverfield monster is going to eat one of the guests. The guest to be eaten will be voted on by the audience. Allegedly

Monday, February 04, 2008

The Giants one! Previously known as the one with Giants







I've never been a huge sports fan. Back in my Panini sticker days, I was a huge fan of Man United, circa Kevin Moran, Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside, Frank Stapleton, Gordon Strachan, Mark Hughes etc.etc. Then I lost interest. I've never been a huge GAA fan, even though I played hurling and football at club level and school level. But I lost interest in that too. Twas them American sports that caught my eye. The NBA and the NFL have always been religiously watched on the TV. I've always had a soft spot for the NY Giants and before that the 49'ers. Back in the days of Joe Montanna and Jerry Rice.

So close last year, the Giants would go all the way the next time. I said it on air, I said it here (I think) and I never bothered putting a few shillings on it. Go all the way they did. I arrived home last night and flicked on TV3. BBC2 had the same feed from the game and their picture quality was ten times better, plus I didnt have to endure the ad breaks at nearly every play. That play (waiting for it to arrive on youtube) by Eli Manning towards the end of the game was unreal. I woke Ger, the dogs and anybody in a 5 mile radius after the play. Minutes later, with the winning touchdown, people in a 25 mile radius were woken up!

On another note, I got to Cloverfield over the weekend. It looks the business. It feels the business. It IS the business. One of the best "monster" flicks I've seen in years if not one of the best films I've ever had the pleasure to see. The monster is like nothing you've ever seen before. Leaving the cinema, through an empty Mahon Point was very surreal. I was expecting big arse monster to come crashing through the roof! Check it out, but dont sit too near the front!!!!