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Could taking the banks to task bring the Cypriot fiscal crisis under control?

In another throw of the dice before Mondays ECB deadline to withdraw funding, the Parliament in Nicosia will vote again today on a proposal to radically restructure the banking sector and avoid a massive default.

Pat was joined from Nicosia by reporter Maria Kagkelidou and by Marios Mavrides, a Cypriot lawmaker and member of President Nicos Anastasiades' Democratic Rally Party.

Hundreds of thousands of revenue property tax demands have been dropping through mail boxes all over the country – ghost estates too– and almost everyone is liable to pay.

Owners will worry about their property being overvalued or undervalued and the threat from the Revenue Commissioners that they’ll penalise and chase down those property owners who get their sums wrong. There is an appeals mechanism but will it be able to cope with those who dispute their bills?

Joining Pat from Cork was Brian Keegan Director of Taxation, Chartered Accountants, Ireland.

His talents have been described as dizzying, I’ll just name a few and see if you can stand still: satirist, raconteur, director and producer of opera, theatre and TV, author, scriptwriter artist and of course medical doctor. He is Jonathan Miller and he is coming to Ireland for three ‘Audience With’ style shows, and he joined pat from London.

In January we highlighted an attack on two elderly brothers - Jim and Eric Steele who live in Manorcunningham in Co Donegal. They told our reporter Valerie Cox how they fought back when an intruder broke into their home.

While some members of the food industry are suffering in the wake of the recent horse meat scandal, others have noticed an increase in business.

Blazing Salads Deli on Dublin’s Drury Street, run by sisters Lorraine and Pamela Fitzmaurice, has been serving up honest-to-goodness vegetarian wholehood since 2000 and they noticed a significant increase in business the week after the scanadal broke. It ceratinly appears to have made people more conscious of what they’re eating and where it comes from.

Lorraine has just published her second cookbook Blazing Salads 2 and it’s packed with recipes that are appealing to our renewed appetite for unprocessed whole foods. The book distills generations of the Fitzmaurice family food philosophy.

Zingy Red Slaw

Lorraine’s favourite salad at the deli, it’s just as bright and refreshing to eat as it looks.

Serves 4 to 6

175 g red cabbage, shredded

175 g white cabbage, shredded

1 medium carrot, roughly grated

2 tbsp spring onion

20 g toasted seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower)

For the dressing:

3 tbsp sunflower oil

3 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tsp Agave syrup or clear honey

1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped finely

small pinch chilli flakes

pinch sea salt

1 Place all the vegetables and seeds in a large bowl and toss together. In a small bowl whisk all the dressing ingredients together. Pour over the vegetables and toss well.

2 This salad will keep well in the fridge for 4 or 5 days.

3 To toast the seeds, toss together on a dry pan over a medium heat for 3–4 minutes, taking care not to scorch them.

TIP: To enjoy the toasted seeds as a snack, toss them in soy sauce while warm.

Moroccan Minestrone

This soup was adapted from the classic Italian minestrone and is a great soup to take into work to get you through the afternoon hunger-pang free! Most one-pot dishes can be given a makeover by simply changing the herbs and spices – be adventurous!

serves 6

extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 inch piece ginger

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 400 g tin chopped tomatoes

200 g passata (sieved tomatoes)

1 bay leaf

2 sticks celery, sliced

2 medium carrots, diced

1 medium courgette, diced

sea salt

1 handful wholemeal spelt penne or fusilli

2 tbsp chickpeas, cooked

1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped

2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped

1 Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large pot. Sauté the onion for 2 minutes, add the garlic and ginger and sauté for a further 1 minute. Add the cumin and turmeric to the pot and sauté for 1 minute more. Stir in the chopped tomatoes, passata, celery, carrots, courgette and the bay leaf and a good pinch of sea salt. Pour in 1 litre water, cover and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add 1 handful of pasta and cook for a further 10 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas, fresh coriander and fresh parsley. Check the seasoning.

TIP : Use any wholemeal pasta in this recipe, just remember that wholemeal wheat pasta takes longer to cook than wholemeal spelt pasta.

TIP : Serve with toasted fingers of sourdough bread spread with tapenade – so good.

Spinach and goat’s cheese muffins

A great alternative to the full Irish if you’re having people over for brunch and a good one to put in school lunchboxes instead of processed sweet treats.

makes 12

4 free range eggs

100 g sunflower margarine or softened butter

100 g soft goat’s cheese

55 g vegetarian Parmesan-style cheese

140 g spinach or baby spinach leaves

1/4 tsp paprika

350 g white spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

250 g natural yoghurt

1 Preheat oven to Gas 3/170°C/325°F.

2 Heat the oven. Oil and line a 12-cup muffin tray with paper cases. Lightly oil the paper cases.

3 In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the margarine. Add the yoghurt and stir. Rinse the

spinach well and slice finely. Add to the bowl. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and paprika

together and sift into the egg and spinach mix. Mix well. Finely grate the Parmesan-style

cheese into the mix.

4 Spoon the mix into the muffin cups, half-filling the cups. Divide the goat’s cheese equally

between the muffins, placing a small amount in each cup. Spoon the remainder of the muffin

mix on top of the goat’s cheese. Place tray in the centre of the preheated oven for 30 minutes

until the muffins are baked through.

TIP: If the goat’s cheese you’re using has a rind, use 125 g so that you have 100 g cheese after

Apple cake with cinnamon

Apple and cinnamon is a classic combination, and this light, flavoursome sponge makes for a moreish, warming cake.

Serves 12

4 apples

30 ml lemon juice

4 free range eggs

150 g sunflower margarine

250 g agave syrup (plus extra to brush the cake)

250 g set natural yoghurt

300 g wholemeal spelt flour

21/2 tsp baking powder

11/2 tsp cinnamon (plus extra for dusting the cake)

1 Peel, quarter and remove the core of the apples. Slice the apples thinly and toss in the lemon juice. This will prevent the apples from going brown. Set aside.

2 Preheat oven to Gas 3/170°C/325°F.

3 Oil and line a 30 x 25 cm baking tin with greaseproof paper. Lightly oil the greaseproof paper.

4 In a large bowl whisk the eggs until fluffy. Add the margarine and whisk. Add the agave syrup and yoghurt and whisk.

5 In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together. Sieve the dry ingredients into the egg and yoghurt mixture and mix thoroughly with a metal spoon. (I find that mixing a cake with a metal spoon is more thorough at taking it from the sides of the bowl than a wooden spoon. The bowl of the spoon is also deeper, so there’s less heavy beating.)

6 Pour onto the prepared baking tray. Layer the apple slices down the centre of the cake mixture, in 3 lines. Bake for 50 minutes until brown and risen. Check the centre with a skewer to make sure it is baked thoroughly. Cool on a baking tray. Brush with agave syrup and a sprinkling of cinnamon when cool.

TIP : When blackberry season comes, try replacing 2 of the apples with 200 g of blackberries. Peel and dice the remaining 2 apples and arrange them with the blackberries on top of the cake mixture. Bake as above.

Lorraine Fitzmaurice’s new cookbook Blazing Salads 2: Good Food Every Day is published by Gill & Macmillan. It’s in shops now, priced at €19.99.

The St Patrick’s Day festivities kicked off a seemingly worldwide celebration with parades in what seemed like every major city on earth. In New York, Tanaiste, Eamonn Gilmore decided to boycott an all-male Hibernian Society of Savannah dinner, which may have put a dampener on things. Nothing compared to the dampener foisted on Cyprus as they announced their plan to pay back a multi billion euro bailout. The banks have still to reopen. Sticking with debt, this time at home, it appears that those having difficulty paying their mortgages will have to forego luxuries like satellite TV packages and private schools before they can consider themselves eligible for any sort of debt forgiveness.

Joining Pat to discuss these and other topics were businessman Declan Ganley: Prof Brigid Laffan of the College of Human Sciences un UCD; economist Jim Power and Sarah McInerney of the Sunday Times.