FOOD:A FEW THINGS CHANGED in September with two new arrivals, so to speak. The first was a little baby girl called Maeve, who I deliberately avoided mentioning up until now as I'm always suspicious of getting recipes from pregnant women, lest they start suggesting coal as a seasoning. Also, I'm also not exactly a role-model of good behaviour when it comes to eating for two because I did continue to eat unpasteurised cheese and enjoy the odd small glass of red wine, writes DOMINI KEMP

Personally, I think that eating a piece of Parmesan, (or any unpasteurised cheese for that matter), is a lot less risky than getting into a car and driving along some of our country roads. But I’m not one to preach, so I will park it there.

The other new arrival was a bit of timber, top-soil and tonnes of vegetables from Quickcrop, a company which, along with several other garden companies, supplies ready-to-go allotments, if you will, for urban gardens. In the last days of my pregnancy, when I finally got thrown out of work, I imagined myself floating around in a Laura Ashley dress, picking herbs and vegetables and preparing nutritious delights. Naturally, I aimed to make these delicious dishes in bulk and freeze them for when our bundle of joy arrived and cooking might be a tad arduous. The reality was slightly different: during the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, I abandoned the weeding, wrote lots of my Irish Times columns, didn’t water the plants, went into labour and waited for little Maeve to take charge.

However, Quickcrop offers a winter planting service (for lazy sloths like myself), so they returned to cull and harvest the produce. The garden produced some impressive beetroot and courgettes as well as tonnes of herbs, lettuces and a few spuds. It has been weeded and re-planted for winter and is a good alternative if you have a concrete jungle for a garden and no intention, (only the desire), to grow your own veg from scratch. I am realistic enough to know that I would never visit an allotment (even if I was lucky enough to get one in the first place), so this works out just fine.

With the pile of beetroot presented to me, I decided to try out a recipe for beetroot brownies which comes from a book by Harry Eastwood, Red Velvet, Chocolate Heartache. I bought this in a real hurry, thinking it was full of delicious cakes that I could try out. But much to my horror, I realised it was full of “good for you cakes”, so ingredients for “devilishly” good cakes (yeah, right) can contain vegetables such as potatoes, courgettes, sweet potato, or in this case, beetroot. To be honest, they weren’t all that bad and in comparison to what goes into the other brownies, they win hands down for goodness.

But for pure decadence, I would recommend the peanut butter brownies that Maisha made as a gift to celebrate the new arrival. She’s so smart: Who wants stuff for the baby when you can get peanut butter brownies instead?

Beetroot brownies

Makes 12-16

600g beetroot

100g hazelnuts

3 eggs

220g light muscovado sugar

Pinch salt

150g dark chocolate

2 tbsp white rice flour

70g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat an oven to 160 degrees/gas three. Line a brownie tin or deep baking tray with baking paper and brush with a little olive oil or sunflower oil or butter. Peel and dice the beetroot; you should end up with about 400g of diced beets. Cook this on a gentle heat with a splash of water until soft. You can do this with a lid half on, as you want it to cook and then the water to evaporate a bit. Mush it up with a potato masher.

Grind the hazelnuts into a fine powder. Beat the eggs, sugar and salt with an electric beater for a good five minutes until doubled in volume. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and then beat it into the egg mixture, along with the vanilla extract. Then beat in the beetroot. Mix the hazelnuts, rice flour and cocoa powder together before folding into the egg and sugar mixture. Pour this into the tin and bake for 25 minutes, if your tin is quite shallow, and for longer if it’s deeper. If you can leave them to rest overnight in the fridge, it makes them fudgier and easier to slice.

Peanut butter brownies

From an Ina Garten recipe

450g unsalted butter

450g milk chocolate

Extra 340g of milk chocolate buttons, or finely chopped up bars

170g dark chocolate

6 large eggs, beaten

3 tbsp instant coffee granules

2 tbsp vanilla extract

450g caster sugar

140g flour

1 tbsp baking powder

Pinch salt

225g smooth peanut butter

Preheat an oven to 180 degrees/gas four and grease two brownie tins or deep baking trays. Line them with baking paper and grease again. Melt the butter, the 450g of milk chocolate, and the 170g of dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Allow this to cool slightly. In another large bowl, mix the beaten eggs with the coffee, vanilla extract and the sugar. Don’t beat, just stir. Add the slightly cooled melted chocolate mix and stir well. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Sieve together most of the flour (leave a couple of tablespoons aside), the baking powder and the salt. Take the couple of tablespoons of the flour and mix with the 340g of milk chocolate buttons or pieces, to coat them. Add to the chocolate batter and then pour into the prepared tins. Blob spoonfuls of peanut butter randomly over the top and then, using the tip of a sharp knife, swirl the peanut butter through the mixture (as best you can). Bake for 20 minutes, remove the tins and bang them on a surface to remove any trapped air and then bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. Cool overnight in the fridge and then cut into big squares.

See also www.itsa.ie and www.quickcrop.ie