Janine Kennedy
When you’re making a sauce, flour and cornflour can be great last-minute thickening agents, but the best way to thicken a sauce is to take your time. If you can, let the sauce cook down and intensify in flavour instead of adding a thickener to it (which can make it gloopy).
If you have let your sauce reduce and you still want it to be thicker, make a beurre manier - a combination of flour and butter. Throw some in the sauce and whisk until it dissolves. Then you have the added benefit of the flavour of butter and a thicker sauce.
Remember, don’t add salt to a sauce until it is finished, because it will get saltier as it reduces.
with Dr Catherine Keena, Teagasc countryside management specialist
Look out for later flowering yarrow, sometimes through to new year. It can be identified all year round by its soft feathery leaves with a distinctive smell, which also distinguish it from other small white umbels when flowering.
An umbel is an inflorescence that consists of a number of short flower stalks that spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs.
The flat flower heads are accessible and useful for many invertebrates including bees, butterflies and moths. It is also an indicator species of old grassland part of our native Irish biodiversity.
The Chimney Sweep
Paddy Egan
A man on the roads who earned his keep
Known to his clients as a chimney sweep
He walked the roads with rods and brush
He cleared the chimneys of soot and mush
A member of the travelling folk
His limbs were black from soot and smoke
From house to house, from job to job
He would clean a chimney for a couple of bob
But times have changed for the chimney sweep
Now he drives to work in a van or jeep
The old fashioned sweep we see no more
Now they drive in style from door to door
Today the sweep plys a skilful trade
As tradesmen go, he has made the grade
With electric gadgets and suction hose
All spick and span before he goes
For odd jobs too he will take a call
He’ll clean the gutters or wash down a wall
Clean out the shed and remove the waste
He’ll apply his talents with skill and taste
It was lucky for a sweep to attend a marriage
He would arrive at church in his pony and carriage
He hugged the bride with a sooty kiss
Which assured her of many years of wedded bliss.
Seeing the animals you worked with for many years, maybe three generations, being loaded on to a truck is heart-breaking.
“Women can and will play a leading role in driving change in agriculture”
— Agri Aware (@AgriAware) October 27, 2022
An Taoiseach @MichealMartinTD addressing the #womenandag conference this morning. pic.twitter.com/OdYvEEg0sS
the number of years Damien O’Reilly has been working in radio. As he departs RTÉ for Brussels. We wish him the very best in this next phase of his career.
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