What a fabulous space.....

Swancar Farm Country House belongs to a very good friend of mine. I've known her for longer than I will care to admit, for then I would have to admit to my true age and I am never honest about that!!!

I am honest about this though.... absolutely fantastic place! I so want to use this space, but with no impending wedding plans, my business meetings all being held in the South West and the next family party having to be set in Gloucestershire it doesn't really look like I'm going to get to use it in the near future.  You could though... 

The elegant 16th century renovated country house which is set within 250 acres of beautiful countryside has got everything that I want. The barn, the private dining room & lounge, the catering kitchen. The Swancar Farm Country House would be the perfect place to celebrate Paul's 50th birthday in September. It would be ideal... do you think I could get all his family and friends to travel the 2+ hours? 

Not sure he'd be happy going all the way to Nottingham for his birthday though, he's already played Robinhood to my Maid Marion once and saved me from the fat fryer... not sure he'd do it again... he's hung up his tights, his outlaw days are over! 

If anyone can recommend somewhere as beautiful as this but closer to home I'd appreciate it.  Anyone close to this amazing place and with an event coming up, I'd go take a look, Tracy & Steve will make you very welcome!

Cooking for Our Parish Paella Party

Look at the size of that pan!!!!

Do you remember me telling you about the paella practice we had for this church event?  Well it happened, the pan was delivered... it was huge. The recipe was doubled, doubled and then double some more until we have enough for everyone! We had a team of helpers to set up, prep, serve etc and the boys set up the gas!!!



Blurred due to a drunken photographer NOT that Paul was moving too fast...
that would never happen lol



The recipe came together just as well as it did when we practiced for 4 people, OK it took a little longer and it needed four of us to stir it but I was pleased with the outcome.  The recipe was great, very meaty and while it took a lot more stock than I had first anticipated, I quickly got over my nerves about cooking such a huge pot of paella. I spent the previous night dreaming about cooking it and couldn't stir it enough to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan.... not a good dream I can tell you, I woke up feeling like I'd spent the night cooking paella and didn't fancy doing it all over again in just a few hours time.

 In the end I shouldn't have worried, we all had a great time, the paella was easy to cook and while sometimes I felt like we didn't have enough hands to stir it all, it turned out great!
It didn't stick and was cooked to perfection, even if I do say so myself!




A very relieved cook serving up the Meat Paella

The recipe for a regular 4 serving size can be found here

Paella de Carne Recipe

Pampered Chef Conference 2009

Team Heaphy

Now I could tell you how inspiring this conference was or how much it motivated me or indeed how the networking and workshops will help my business in the coming months! If I really wanted to go into detail I could tell you how I earned half price conference then used my pampered chef pounds I received as an incentive payment to pay off the rest of my conference fees, but I won't bore you with all that, this after all is a food blog so I'll tell you about the FOOD!!!

OH WOW it was pretty good!

First exposure to edibles was at coffee time. The speaker on Friday afternoon was Sahar Hashemi. Sahar together with her brother Bobby founded Coffee Republic, and built it into one of the UK’s most recognised high street brands. What can I say, she is such an inspirational speaker, I just wished my girls were there to hear her speak of her 'anyone can do it' philosophy! So at coffee time we were served these amazingly cute cupcake, decorated like they do in a New york coffee house. Well, when I say 'we' I didn't actually have any due to my wheat intolerance but everyone raved about them and they looked much better than a packet of rich tea!
The Gala dinner menu

• Warm forest mushroom tartlet with lemon and chive sauce
• Rump of lamb with minted red wine sauce potato and parsnip rosti with seasonal veg
• Lemon bavarois with meringue topping
• Coffee and mints and a selection of fudge

For a meal which was served to over 700 delegates this was pretty good! It seemed that out of the two pieces of lamb that were on our plate, one was cooked rare the other well done. Had we all known in advance we would have swap until we were all happy as the conversation around the table was oooh the first piece was nice but the second piece was too rare / too well done [delete where appropriate!] The rosti had a great flavour but could have done with being cooked a little more, I like my rosti's brown and crispy. Unfortunately the dessert was a let down, if I had to describe it I'd say shaving foam with lemon bits on top! I didn't eat it but there was plenty round the table who had two so maybe it was just my taste buds. Coffee mints [dark chocolate -yum] and fudge all went down very well!

Lunch on Saturday

This year was organised a little better than last year, no running buffets for us, it was table service and oh so better than the free for all of 2008.

• Sliced melon with seasonal fruits and mango coulis
• Plated poached salmon, vegetarian quiche and mixed leaves, new potatoes, Italian bean salad, cherry tomatoes, cucumber salad & coleslaw
• Cinnamon and spiced apple cheesecake

This was a great lunch, right up my street, the dressings were a french mustard dressing or thick creamy mayonnaise. I loved it all, even the cheesecake which on paper sounded like it would be better served at Christmas time, but it was light, creamy with great mild flavours. Again this lunch was served to over 600 people and it went like a dream. Boy do the Hilton staff work hard! Thank you!

Mother's Day Treat

The Ultimate chocolate Cake is described as moist and fudgy.. . in fact its so moist and fudgy it's what my kids call it. I make this every Easter, its the best way to end a Lenten promise. In the original recipe (follow link) she puts chocolate curls on top, but we prefer it plain...the curls are just a step too far....a dollop of clotted cream is the preference in this house!!!

I made it in my 23cm pampered chef springform pan

New Years Day Dinner

Last night I served fillet steak with a choice of sauces. There was a peppercorn, garlic mushroom and Marie’s Beef Fillets With Stilton Portobello Sauce . Cooking 7 steaks is no easy task and two ended up ‘medium’ instead of ‘medium rare’…but hey, their plates were empty at the end so it couldn’t have been too much of a hardship! I didn't managed to snap any photos of the main meal which was served with Evelyn's Greek Potatoes (Oven-Roasted and Delicious!) and petit pois but rest assured that they flavours were wonderful and everyone enjoyed everything.

Peppercorn sauce – slightly different from the original recipe I was given, from the exclusively food web site.

1 clove garlic
2 teaspoons of butter
100ml (about 5 tablespoons) white wine (on this occasion used rosé)
150ml vegetable stock
2 teaspoons green peppercorns, drained. The original recipe said I could use dried black peppercorns if green ones were unavailable, which I did!
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons of cream
1 teaspoon of cornflower mixed with 2 tsps of water

Melt butter in pan,
Add garlic, give it a stir,
Add wine and vegetable stock
Bring to the boil,
Simmer for a minute.
Add peppercorns
Stir in mustard
Stir in cream
Add cornflower and stir until thickened.

I made my sauce first then reheated it in steak pan with the remaining meat juices, making sure all the sticky goodness from the steak was incorporated into my sauce.

Garlic Mushroom – Almost identical except I fried the mushrooms in the butter at step 1 and left out the peppercorns and mustard in steps 6 & 7 easy peasy!

For dessert I served Light and Dark Chocolate Mousse

Don't let the pan touch the boiling water - it will take the shine off your chocolate!

I doubled this recipe for 8 large portions (Well it was New Years Day!!!)

200g dark chocolate (I used a mix of milk and dark to appeal to the children)
50ml full cream milk (I used semi skimmed milk)
2 large egg yolks
½ tsp vanilla extract
4 large egg whites
40g caster sugar.
Melt the chocolate and milk in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water.
Stir together and then set aside to cool slightly. Stir the egg yolks into the chocolate until well blended, and then stir in the vanilla extract. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually and continue to whisk until stiff and glossy. Stir a ladle full of egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, and then gently fold in the rest of the egg white. Transfer the mixture into your chosen container and chill for at least an hour.

Whisk the egg whites in a non-greasy bowl otherwise they won't double in size

I decorated them with a squirt of cream before serving

I served them with a light Vanilla Biscuit
These biscuits are very simple to make and unlike other biscuits I have tried, they are VERY easy to roll out.

125g butter
125g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
250g plain flour
Vanilla extract

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until creamy
Beat in the egg
Add two capfuls of vanilla extract
Add flour and mix with a spoon at first then using your hands
wrap dough in cling film and cool in the fridge for 30 minutes
Pre-heat oven to 180c
Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface
Cut out shapes (I used flowers)
Bake for 10 minutes

Dust with icing sugar before serving

Bank Holiday BBQ

I had a wonderful day today. It started at 7:30am when I opened my eyes and jumped straight into my kitchen....I cooked solidly for 5 hours, I was in my element. The food was delicious but my favourite bit was this Italian Peasant Bread for bread machine, the reciepe is one of Jamie Renee's from the recipezaaar site and let me tell you it was so simple to make and tasted wonderful. It had a great little crust on it but the inside was oh so soft, the salt and rosemary topping gave it a lovely finish to it. I will be making this again.

This was the full menu (attached numbers indicate zaars recipes)

~

Turkish Meatballs (Recipe #83793)
Garlic Chicken Kebabs
Ginger & Garlic Steak Kebabs
Pan Seared Moroccan Salmon (Recipe #158351)

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Coconut Rice Erupting With Spices, Nuts & Peas (Recipe #125514)
Watercress & Baby Spinach Salad
Quinoa with roasted vegetables
Italian Tomato Salad

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Italian Peasant Bread for bread machine (Recipe #62058)
Buttery Bread Machine Rolls (Recipe #65340)
~

And to drink we had Summer Sea Breeze, Beer & Lager

Great company, Great food, what more could you ask for?