Archives for September 2012
How to make homemade nutella
Had to share this with you after the thumbs up from Kerry. It looks tremendous.
Eating well on a budget- simple suppers
The nights are getting colder and I want to create more warm, inviting dinners but without spending a fortune. I will try to post recipes as and when I use them to give you some tips for cheap and cheerful meals that all the family can enjoy.
Tomato and bacon gnocchi bake
500g Gnocchi – I use Il Pastaio Gnocchi which is a bargain 78p in Asda
400ml Passata – I typically use the value range from Sainsburys or Asda which is around 30p.
4 or 5 rashers of smoked bacon diced- roughly £1.50
75g of cheddar grated – approx £1
2 garlic cloves diced finely -approx 20p
1 glug of Olive oil -from cupboard
Any fresh herbs you have (dried at a push)
Sea salt
Black pepper
Cook gnocchi to packet instructions and set aside.
Heat olive oil in a small cazuela or ovenproof pan and sauté garlic and bacon until bacon is golden, add your gnocchi and passata. Stir well adding your herbs and season. Sprinkle over grated cheese and place in your oven for 15 minutes until golden on top and bubbling.
Serve with a large leafy salad.
Serves 2 hungry adults with a little leftover.
A beautiful tasty meal for around £4.
Simple basil dressing
We bought 10 potted herbs over the weekend to add to our increasing herb garden.. Theses included chocolate mint ( smells good) and an African Blue variety of Basil which looks like this:
The basil has been taunting me since yesterday just begging me to start using it and so I succumbed and tonight I made a beautiful basil oil dressing to drizzle over a huge salad to accompany our meal of jerk chicken and rice. Its probably the nicest dressing I’ve ever made and I will definitely be doing it again.
If you want to try it yourself it’s very simple, you just need a pestle and mortar, a bunch of basil ( whatever variety you have in your garden or can buy in supermarket) a good glug or two of extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of seasalt ( I used Maldons smoked) and some peppercorns ( I used Sichuan). Place everything in your mortar and use your pestle to give it a good bash until all the ingredients combine. Use immediately to drizzle over anything, would also be a lovely dip with some homemade bread.
I can’t say enough just how good this tasted. Try it.
Foodies heaven at The Big Feastival
Do you know when have such a good (and tasty) time that you don’t really know where to start explaining it? This is what The Big Feastival was for me …ok so you all know I’m a food nerd but wowzer this food/music festival has just fuelled my foodie passion and I really really hope at some point I will be able to do food related work full time – eating, writing, cooking what could be better?
I was Very Very lucky to receive an invite to the perfect festival combo .. Gastronomical delights and top tunes organised by the legendary Jamie Oliver and cool cat Alex James. The invite came just the day before the festival kicked off so an incredibly busy day of packing and hotel hunting and we were off to beautiful Oxfordshire and Alex’s farm where he makes his wonderful cheese.
On arrival at the festival site we were greeted at the gates with free biscuits from Fudges bakery..what better welcome hey? I’ll explain more about Fudges later as there products are so darn good. The first few hours were spent exploring the site, trying samples of the best food in Oxfordshire as well as treating ourselves to Barbacoas Pulled pork (for Andrew) and The cinnamon clubs Tandoori spiced black leg chicken kathi roll with green coriander chutney for me ..bit of a mouthful but extremely tasty.
Dishes on offer from The Cinnamon Club:
We then went on to watch our first chefs demonstration of the day at The Big Kitchen sponsored by Electrolux which was none other than Jamie Oliver and the marvellous, flirtatious Gennaro Contaldo. It was incredible to watch some talented chefs up close and to see their obvious passion for what they do. The demonstration was hilarious as the duo have such a cheeky bantering friendship and we were even lucky enough to get a pic with Gennaro:
The rest of the day was spent eating more samples of delicious cheeses and mouthwatering truffle oils and going to more demos including Mark Sargeant who is a really fun chef to watch as well as another by Gennaro Contaldo and Jamie Oliver.
Although there was music on the main stage all day long including The Noisettes and Paloma Faith it was pretty much just background noise for us as our real focus was on the food but it did create a great atmosphere and there was a large crowd at the main stage all day long. We finished off the evening with some more food sharing Porchetta and polenta chips from Jamie’s Italian and Rajasthani style Herdwick lamb and corn curry with pilau rice from The Cinnamon Club..both were incredibly good.
We also met Valentine Warner but unfortunately arrived just a little too late for his demo 🙁
We decided to call it a night then as Izzy was getting tired and trundled on back to our b&b in Bampton.. Now don’t go thinking we are too posh to camp! We would have loved to but it was full so a b&b it was!
The next day we headed to the site as it opened to make the most of the beautiful day. I think we somehow managed a very impressive amount of freebies and samples without even trying!
We tried so many different pies from The Piglet Pantry (who sell award winning pies don’t ya know..)And they were all so good that trying to decide which ones to buy was very difficult! We somehow managed and Andrew had a chilli n cheese combo whilst I tried the gammon and leek.. Both delicious. We bought seasalt chocolate from Seed and Bean which was delicious and we also tried seasalt fudge – can you see a theme? Ha. We had (well I had) cocktails from Vestal Vodka and Makers whisky which were beautiful and we tried crab from Cafe Mor .. Which is a big thing for non seafood eaters like us but they were from Pembrokeshire and voted best street food of the year so it would have been rude not to try and you know what it was pretty nice!
For all you non foodies out there the second day did include some pretty spectacular music..Texas and Razorlight to name just two and also lots n lots for the kiddies including a dance session with Adam Garcia! I do believe more of the Adam Garcia fans were of the adult female kind than the children but it was a good excuse hey.
Anyway back to the food and possibly the high point of the festival for me as we strolled down the field we saw a bright yellow Robin Reliant and a few photographers clustered around.. Nosy as always we stopped to look and with remarkably good timing as five minutes later around a few hundred other people joined us but you know what I was right at the front ..yay for an impromptu cooking demo by Jamie Oliver. Woop. It was fabulous to be up close and watching the man in action literally within splatter distance of the food. He was a cheeky charmer and had the crowd eating out of his hand especially when he began to give out plates of the food. I was lucky enough to get a falafel wrap passed to me directly and Andrew had a bowl of the veggie curry. Both were obviously amazing.
The last two demos we saw were by Paul Young ( master chocolatier) and The Weber Grill academy. The chocolate ganache created by Paul was delicious and I picked up lots of tips ready for my first attempt at making chocolates. He also had a lovely pic with Izzy:
The Weber demo was also really interesting and wow we really want a Weber now. Beer can chicken and blackened peppers were on the menu and again lots of BBQ tips.
I could probably talk for a few thousand more words about the food we ate and what we saw at this wonderful weekend but I’d probably start to bore you so I’ll leave you with a brief summary of my favourite new food/drink producers:
Drinks from……
Vestal Vodka – beautiful, crisp and pure vodka cocktails. Seriously good.
Samuelsons of Witney – proper strong lemonade. I tried sparkling blackberry and it was tongue tingling.
Scheckters – 100% natural organic energy drinks. Kinda like redbull but without all the rubbish they pump into it. Tasted pretty nice too.
Eager – fruit juices for adults and kids which are healthy and taste good too. I hope these are available to buy readily in a few months for Izzy.
Food from..
Fudges biscuit makers- ahh these were incredible. We have had the crackers with cheese to snack on,the biscuits dipped in tea and the straws well whenever we feel like it 🙂
The English Provender Co – these chutneys/condiments aren’t new to me as they are stocked in all major supermarkets but I did try some new flavours from them which I enjoyed.
Fair&Square chocolate brownies – we had a seasalt brownie which was scrummy.
Isles of Scilly handmade fudge – this fudge was probably the best I’ve tasted. I’ve tried lots.
Karantania Deli – delicious bakery bits.. I tried a butternut squash/feta combo and it was dreamy. Their food is also incredibly pretty.
Seed&Bean – extra dark chocolate. The Cornish seasalt is addictive.
Greedy Goat icecream – guilt free goats milk ice cream.. I tried basil and lemon. Refreshing and different.
The flour bin – now I am yet to try using the flour but I tried the bread made from the flour and it was amazing and I’ve smelt the malty goodness of the flour so I’m excited to try!
There were so many more producers and stalls that we loved but these were our favourites and included food we actually bought rather than samples.
All in all it was an amazing weekend and one I hope to repeat next year 🙂
Early bird tickets are on sale now: The Big Feastival
Silent Sunday
Recipe challenge week 6 – Aussie Olive Damper Bread
I may have been a little quiet on the blog front lately but I assure you I’ve still be keeping up with my recipe challenge! I’m a little behind in posting my weekly updates so bear with me please.
A few weeks ago after watching Lorraine Pascales Fast, Fresh and Easy Food on BBC2 I decided to try out her recipe for Aussie Olive Damper Bread. It was surprisingly easy and we absolutely loved the results.
You can find the recipe on the BBC website here
And here are some pics of my first attempt:
In go the olives:
Just about ready for the oven:
And the end result..YUM!
Definitely one to try if you love bread but don’t fancy hours of kneading and proving.
I’m always keen for new recipes for my challenge and would love it if you left a comment with any of your own favourites. I really want to try BBQ pulled pork soon so any recipes/links would be greatly appreciated.
Silent Sunday… Birthday girl
Dear Izzy
Dear Izzy,
On Sunday you will be 1.. 365 days old. Wowzer. You are such a big girl. I wrote this poem just for you and one day we will read it together:
This time last year
This time last year
I hadn’t met you
Hadn’t squeezed your chubby legs
Or smoothed your soft skin
I hadn’t felt your fingers curl around mine
Or heard you say mama
For the very first time
This time last year
You were still in my belly
Kicking and punching
When I relaxed to watch telly
You were almost ready
But just not quite
Waiting for when you felt the time
Was right
Its been a wonderful year
Tiring sure
But amazing and happy
The best one so far
Each day you discover something
Totally new
And I in turn discover
You.
Foodie delights on my doorstep
One of the best parts of being a blogger has to be when you get invited to events that are really relevant to you. I was recently invited to attend The Welsh Menu Live which is a food festival held in S. Wales and it was a really fun weekend.
The event was spread over three days (sat-mon) with a launch dinner held on the Friday evening.
I’ll share the launch dinner menu with you just to make you drool a little:
Tutored taste of Gower menu
Selection of Canapés
Crostini topped with Welsh Goats Cheese & Cherry Tomato
Deep Fried Cockles
Gower New Potato Crisps
** **
Cream of Leek & Potato Soup
** **
Smoked Salmon with a Lemon & Dill Crème Fraiche
Topped with a Micro Herb Salad
** **
Lemon Sorbet
** **
Smooth Chicken Liver Parfait with a Welsh Oatmeal Cracker
** **
Medley of Salt Marsh Lamb with Cherry Tomato & Rosemary Chutney on
a bed of Crushed Gower Potatoes with a Red wine Jus
** **
Welsh Cake flavored Parfait on a Biscuit Base with Merlyn Anglaise
** **
Freshly Brewed Tea & Coffee
I know ..WOW. Each course was delicious and cooked to perfection but my favourite had to be the leek and potato soup which had truffle oil as a special ingredient. It was truly scrumptious.
It was a really enjoyable night with each course being fully explained as to where it came from and how it was cooked BBC newsreader Jamie Owen was the compere and as the night wore on ..and the free wine was consumed his chatter become funnier and funnier.
Anyway on to the actual food festival. I attended on both Saturday and Sunday and saw demonstrations from Jo Wheatley ( winner of GBBO 2011) and Luke Thomas – if you haven’t heard of this guy read about him here and you will be amazed. Both demonstrations were really interesting and the end result delicious .. We tasted chocolate macaroons from Jo and Welsh Lamb with braised lettuce and goats cheese from Luke and it was fabulous.. And free 😉
We attended wine tasting demos, watched live music in castle gardens, ate street food and witnessed a live cook off in the local market and we loved it.. The only slight criticism I had is that there were not enough food stalls.. When I am at a food festival I want to be surrounded by a million flavours and enough samples to keep me going till dinner! Ha maybe I am just greedy. Although there weren’t as many as I’d like the quality of the stalls that were there was just fantastic. The preservation society, Cowpots and Taste of Persia to name just a few of my faves.
I wish there were more events like this in my local area although I don’t know if my bank balance could take it, I managed to squeeze an awful lot of goodies under Izzys pram!
Some pics below of a wonderful weekend:
Lemon sorbet:
Crostini topped with Welsh Goats Cheese & Cherry Tomato
Deep Fried Cockles
Gower New Potato Crisps:
Smoked Salmon with a Lemon & Dill Crème Fraiche
Topped with a Micro Herb Salad
Pulled pork from The Munchbox street food:
Delicious burger with beetroot purée from Got Beef gourmet burgers:
The Got Beef van:
Me munching on said burger:
A cava cocktail using raspberry vinegar from The preservation society:
Blurry pic of Jo Wheatley making macaroons, they tasted so good:
Themarket cook off:
Amongst other things I bought :
Garlic cheese and bubblegum ice cream from Cowpots (www.cowpotsicecream.co.uk)
Raspberry vingegar, sweet chilli jam and garlic&chilli rapeseed oil from The preservation society ( http://the-preservation-society.co.uk/ )
Baklava from A taste of Persia ( twitter: @tasteof_persia ) … so good.
Strawberries from Murton Farm Gower
I was pretty impressed with everything above and will definitely purchase again.
Hopefully the event will be back next year and I really do urge you to visit if it does.
www.thewelshmenu.com