IN OUR NEW series, we’re stepping inside the kitchens of home cooks and bakers around the country, hearing about the dishes they love sharing with family and friends.
This time around, we hear from Evanna Lyons in Cork. You’ll generally find Evanna near a kitchen of some kind: when she’s not at work as in-house baker in Kinsale’s OHK Café, she’s sharing dinner duty at home with her husband Brenton. The pair have two kids, Olan (3) and Éile (1).
Growing up, Evanna was happiest in the kitchen, helping out with cooking, or trying out bakes of her own. “By ten or 11 my brother and I could make a roast dinner by ourselves, so my parents would let us take charge on Sundays. And I was always asking to be in the kitchen baking one thing or another,” she says.
It’s those kinds of memories that Evanna wants to pass onto her own children. And while baking with two toddlers usually involves “flour being thrown all over the place,” it’s something she tries to make time for as often as she can.
“The kids adore being in the kitchen with us. Sometimes the last thing I want to do after a day of baking is to bake more with them, but it’s really important to me that we can have that time together. We stick to easy things like muffins, scones and waffles or pancakes at weekends.”
Evanna describes her and Brenton’s standard lunch and dinner menus at home as a mix of “adventurousness and convenience.”
The pair love trying out new flavours and ingredients – “we’re a big fan of noodles, curries and chillies” – but with two toddlers in the mix, their biggest priority is finding dishes that will keep both adults and kids happy. “There are no separate meals in our house. We’re not short-order cooks!”
Read on for three dishes that Evanna loves to share with family and friends…
Classic Sunday Roast
“This is our Sunday evening routine and it has been since I was a kid,” says Evanna. “Making a roast dinner tends to stress people out because there are so many different elements, but once your prep is done there’s not a lot more to it.”
Alongside the roast chicken or beef, there are a few non-negotiable elements to Evanna’s Sunday dinner: homemade bread stuffing, crispy roast potatoes and gravy. There’ll usually be a couple of vegetable sides too: “I’m a carrot fiend, and I love them glazed in sugar and butter.”
Evanna and Brenton tackle the dinner as a “team effort” across the day. “One of us will start chopping carrots and peeling potatoes in the morning, and we’ll do the other parts whenever we get ten minutes across the day. Once it’s all in the oven we know we can relax for an hour.”
Rather than make plates for everyone, the food goes in the middle of the table, meaning both adults and kids can choose what they want – and there’s always a high demand for roasties: “The kids aren’t huge meat eaters, but they love a roast potato with gravy.”
Check out these tasty recipes for smashed roast potatoes and garlicky roast chicken on the Kerrygold website.
Back Garden Pizza
An outdoor pizza oven was a lockdown purchase that has paid big dividends for Evanna and Brenton. “It meant that we could still have friends around for dinner even when we could only socialise outside, but it’s also something we use a lot as a family. There are very few people who don’t love pizza.”
Evanna makes balls of dough in batches and freezes them, meaning all that’s left to do on the day is thaw them out, get the oven going and prepare some toppings: cheese, sliced red onion, salami, shredded ham and whatever else is in the kitchen.
“We’ll do a whole range of toppings for ourselves and the kids and lay them out in the kitchen,” says Evanna. “Then we all put together our own pizzas and generally make an unholy mess.”
Kid-Friendly Waffles
Inspired by Evanna and Brenton’s time living in Boston, waffles have a regular place on the household’s weekend breakfast rotation. “Almost everyone in the States has a waffle iron in their house. Ours isn’t fancy, I picked it up in our local supermarket here.”
Waffles tick many boxes in Evanna’s house: they’re a handy ‘serve yourself’ breakfast, they’re a good way to sneak protein-packed eggs into the kids’ diets, and they’re a Saturday morning activity that keeps two enthusiastic young bakers occupied.
The batter is a simple mix of flour, baking powder, milk and eggs, which is cooked on a waffle iron “Olan and Éile can pretty much make the batter by themselves at this stage, and then I make the waffles. The kids’ toppings generally involve lots of chocolate spread but I try to get a few berries in there too.”
Check out this easy and quick recipe for waffles from Kerrygold.
Meet the Kerrygold Insiders: a secret ingredient for every kitchen moment. Whether you’re baking up a storm, cooking a dinner for friends and family or prepping a quick and tasty lunch, there’s a Kerrygold butter for you. See the full Kerrygold range here.
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