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