MONDAY MUNCHIES WEEK 16: GOURMET GRAZING SALTED CARAMEL SAUCE

We had to skip last week’s Monday Munchies because we literally couldn’t find the time to do it! So we’re back again this week with a great and simple recipe from Gourmet Grazing food blog.

“This is an amazingly luscious caramel sauce recipe that works great with pretty much everything. Stored in a bottle it will keep for two weeks, and can be reheated in the microwave before use. It’s easy to make with only 4 ingredients, and there’s no thermometers needed like in a lot of caramel recipes. Swirl it into ice cream, add a spoonful to your hot chocolate, use it as a dip for cookies or fruit, drizzle it on some cupcakes, or whatever takes your fancy. There are endless possibilities with what you can do with this sauce!”

Gourmet Grazing is a great Irish food blog offering recipes, reviews and gossip from Dublin’s food scene! Make sure to head over to their site by clicking here and keep up to date with all the latest food news.

Like Gourmet Grazing on Facebook here

Follow Gourmet Grazing on Twitter here

 

RYDER CUP: TEAM EUROPE

So in the aftermath of this years Ryder Cup, the main headlines are still dominated by the controversy surrounding ‘that press conference’, which we illustrated in our last post. But we must not forget, that no matter how badly you feel your captain has performed, you, as players still have to go out & do it on the course. So I wanted to pay tribute to the guys who actually rose above al the pressures of being considered ‘favourites’ & got the job done.

This illustration started as a doodle I did of Jamie Donaldson while on the phone. I thought having the 13 mugshots would make a cool wall print, so if anyone has any interest in having it as a print we might make it so 🙂

Team Europe we salute you!!

G’WAN THERE TOM, UNDER THE BUS YOU GO…

 

Is there anyone else out there recovering from the Ryder Cup weekend? I know we certainly are… We relish the 3 days of nail-biting golf between Team Europe and Team America. Fresh air and social conversation were cast aside for 72 hours while the TV streamed the Ryder Cup and the atmosphere was lapped up with tea and biscuits in hand (for the most part – until the afternoon came around and the tea was replaced with some beer and wine).

There were ups and downs and ins and outs – as well as feckin’ eejits shushing the European Crowd. I’ll not name names but that Patrick Reed fella’s an awful gobsh*** isn’t he? Did anyone else want to punch their tv screens in when his head came into shot?

As for the aftermath on the American side – that press conference between Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson was something else. I don’t know whether there was a bit of a case of being a sore loser for Phil – as the rest of the team sat there awkwardly, looking at each other with a question mark over their heads, while he berated Team America’s humble captain, Tom Watson. In any case, surely that wasn’t the time or the place to lash into Tom – whether Phil was right or not. But each to their own. It made good subject matter for a quick illustration as you can see above… I’ve titled this piece “G’wan There Tom, Under the Bus You Go”.

Any thoughts on the Ryder Cup weekend? Let us know in the comment box below 🙂

 

#IRISHBLOGHOUR WEEK 4: TIPS AND TRICKS FOR BLOGGERS

Another week, another great #irishbloghour. We’re delighted to have chatted to some new bloggers as well as some regulars. We continued on with some blogging questions and topics so we’ve pulled some great tips and advice and shared them below:

Blogging Goals:

• To post more often and consistently. This means that your followers will become familiar when you will post up on your blog, ensuring that they will come back at the expected times of the week.
• Traffic goals. Check out your current daily traffic and try to aim to increase it by 200-500% by a particular time. If you have this goal, it will make you try that extra bit harder to work at driving traffic to your blog.
• Make lists of topics to write about. This will ensure that when that dreaded bloggers blog takes hold, that you can go to your list and work on a topic that you had thought about before.

 Traffic Tips:

• Boosting posts on Facebook and Twitter
• Good quality articles and content
• Consistent posting
• SEO and keywords
• Writing about current events/celebrity/popular topics
• Networking on Twitter
• Honest is the best policy. Be yourself, write about your own opinions and experiences.
• Reading and commenting on other blogs

We asked #irishbloghour bloggers when they post on their blogs: (how many more times can we say blogs in this blogging title about blogs?)

• Evenings
• Weekends

We are looking for bloggers form #irishbloghour to guest post here on this blog. We will be looking for topics centred around blogging and your experience with it. So anything about traffic, blog design, social networking, seo, content, writing etc. With this, we will post your article up on our blog, showcase your site with a blurb and links.

Make sure to join us next Thursday from 8-9pm on @irishbloghour to network and chat other Irish bloggers!

RYDER CUP TUESDAY!

Well to say we’re excited would be understatement of the year!! The Ryder Cup is my single favourite moment of the year (and yes I know it’s only every two years), which makes the anticipation so much greater.

Suffice it to say we will not be moving from this spot from 7am til 8pm Sunday night!!!
Only 3 more sleeps:-)

KILDARE READERS FESTIVAL PROGRAMME 2014

We finished up on one of our favourite yearly projects last week – the Kildare Readers Festival Programme of Events! We were lucky to have designed and illustrated this brochure for the second year in a row – and we really enjoy being part of it.

This year, the cover was to depict the warming atmosphere of the festival – and to highlight the format of the conversational and welcoming nature of the festival. So, in order to illustrate this, we created an evening-time image which allowed us to add in some atmospherical lighting with the illuminated lamps.

We sent it to print last week and finally got our hands on the printed version on Friday! We’re delighted with how it turned out, as was the client. We got it printed with our printing partners over in Blessington – Punctual Print. They always manage to create fantastic final products and managed to bring our design to life in excellent quality.

Click the top image to view full brochure!

MONDAY MUNCHIES WEEK 15: CHOCOLATE TART

 

I have to admit, I wasn’t able to illustrate this recipe without drooling a couple of times! As you can see, this week, we have an amazingly scrummy looking chocolate tart from Rosanne at Like Mam Used to Bake.

We had seen Rosannes blog and really enjoyed reading her recipes so we really wanted to have her involved in our Monday Munchies so we could showcase one of her delicious creations! She gave us a pick of any of her recipes, so we just had to have this one. I mean, who can’t pass up chocolate tart eh?

Here’s a little bit about Rosanne and her blog:

I have a love for all things crafty and dip in and out of different things every few months.  I also have a short attention span it would appear, but the one constant that has remained with me for the past few years is baking.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE to bake.  I remember watching my mam bake as a little girl and then tasting her delicious creations afterwards, and so the love affair was born.

I’m not a writer, I’m not a pastry chef and I’m not a photographer, I’m just a girl with some memories that I cherish, who appreciates a nice slice of cake. This blog is my space to share with you those memories, to create some new ones and also to share recipes for some scrummy treats.

Make sure you check out Like Mam Used to Bake by clicking here

Follow Rosanne on Twitter here

Follow Rosanne on Facebook here

If you try out any of these recipes, please do let us know. Maybe you could tweet us a pic of your finished dish @doodlemooseirl for us to see! If you are a foodie or chef yourself and would like one of you recipes showcased on our blog, get in touch with us at doodlemoosedesigns@gmail.com

If you enjoy reading these posts, leave a comment & let us know and share it with your friends! 🙂

#IRISHBLOGHOUR WEEK 3

WOW! Another action packed hour over on Twitter with #irishbloghour.

Once again thank you all for getting involved! If it wasn’t for you guys & your brilliant blogs this wouldn’t be possible & would just be Gill and I tweeting each other on a Thursday evening.

As well as a lot of our ‘regulars’ we also had a great number of new blogs in tonight. Ranging from food, sport, literature, lifestyle, entertainment… the list goes on.

So in order for you all to get the most of the evening here is a list of the new blogs that were in tonight. If you check out our blog entries from the last couple of weeks you will also find our return bloggers links.

http://itsstrawberryblonde.wordpress.com/

http://www.stitchandbear.com/

http://agsmaoineamh.com/

http://life-according-to-lucy.blogspot.ie/2014/09/london-adventure-part-1.html

http://www.fascination-food.blogspot.ie/

http://katerowan.com/

http://josefoshea.blogspot.ie/2014/04/the-redlegs-of-barbados-irish-slaves.html?spref=tw

http://aoifebelle.wordpress.com/

http://michaelwall.ie/

http://aoifeinwonderland.wordpress.com/

https://collumbo.wordpress.com/

http://fourwallsrainydays.com/

http://heyatkins.wordpress.com/

http://greedylittlepiggy.com/

http://liminalentwinings.com/blog/

http://www.thewholeworldisaplayground.com/

http://www.allthingsnice4life.blogspot.ie/

thealternativepikeman.wordpress.com

sharrowshadow.wordpress.com

kateskabin.wordpress.com

therandomlifeofaveen.blogspot.ie/2014/09/suppor…

caitrionatighe.blogspot.ie/2014/09/bootie…

If you were present tonight but don’t see your link please let us know & we’ll stick it up right away.

 

Looking forward to next week already:)

BEER WITH DAVE: SIERRA NEVADA SUMMERFEST

Hello again!

In the last instalment of “Beer with Dave” I sampled one of the greats of Irish Craft Beer, McGargles Red Ale.

Today I have travelled slightly further from home to document another seasonal classic… ‘SIERRA NEVADA SUMMERFEST‘. Like the Anchor Summer Beer I sampled a few weeks ago, todays beer is only available for a few months each year. But it’s worth the wait! It’s a cool crisp lager with the hoppiness you expect from an American style beer.

I will leave it to Sierra Nevada themselves to give the perfect description of it.

“With a nod toward the original Czech tradition, Summerfest is brewed to feature the best of Bohemian nature. Crisp, golden, dry and incredibly drinkable, Summerfest has a delicate and complex malt flavor and spicy and floral hop character—the perfect warm weather beer.”

SOCKS AND SANDALS

Sometimes there’s nothing better than sitting back and watching the world go by. Do you ever find yourself coming out of the supermarket and just taking a minute to do a spot of people watching? Or maybe you’ll sit and have a cup of coffee in a shopping centre and find yourself doing the same thing. People can be very interesting sometimes, and often you come across some great characters!

So, I was doing this over the weekend in a local supermarket carpark. And I decided I would record one of the characters I spotted whilst on “people safari” (that’s the official term now). I would go so far as to say that this illustration genuinely isn’t too far off the real thing – a lovely tall man with a fantastic set of pins, strolling out with his shopping in a khaki get-up. He looked like he should really be getting into a 1980’s Land Rover Defender and setting off to go feed some lions, but alas, he was stuck in the humdrum of urbane life, laden down with his weekly shopping. I didn’t know one could get combat shorts quite so short but this fella rocked them, especially with his socks and sandals combo.