Knorr Goes All Gourmet

 

Knorr has introduced a new range of restaurant style recipe mixes.  In true Knorr style they are simple to prepare and usually use everyday ingredients to make sure you have a really delicious dinner.

The new ranges comprises Baking Bags, Foil Steam Pouches, Gourmet Sauces and recipe mixes and all designed to make a quick and easy but equally delicious meal.

We had the foil steam pouch 'Mediterranean Salmon, with Extra Virgin Oiliv Oil and a pinch of Oregano.  It was really simple to prepare and quick to cook.  In a large bowl I put some tomatoes quartered, peppers sliced, a couple tablespoons of oil and the dry mix of spices.  Mixed them all up and then placed them in the foil pouch. 

I placed the salmon filets on top of the vegetables and then just folded the open end of the pouch over a couple of times.

Put the foil pouch on a baking tray in the middle of the oven and cook at 200o for 25-30 minutes.  At the end of the cooking time we had a really delicious meal to which I added some risotto and a simple green salad and there was dinner!

Quick and easy and brightened up a dreary Monday!

Next week I will be making the Creamy Wild Mushroom Chicken and serving with tagliatelli noodles. Umm - can't wait.

For Christmas Day I will be making their Luxury Bread Sauce mix to go with the turkey and trimmings.

Knorr makes every day gourmet day.

I was sent a selection of the new mixes but received no payment for trying them and reporting back.

Stir Up Sunday - A Family Affair!

My daughter's step-mother invited me to join her and my daughter to make our Christmas pudding together this year.  In an attempt to create harmony and a good feeling at Christmas I accepted the offer.  The plan was to meet at Caroline (the step-mother)'s house mid morning along with our ingredients and make our puddings together. 

Now just to confuse things my daughter is also called Caroline so I will refer to her as Mummy C and her step-mother as Mrs C (Mrs Caroline).

Meanwhile I saw a mention in the December issue of Delicious Magazine for a Stir-up-Sunday Christmas pudding kit available from Fortnum & Mason.  The kit looked really good, contained everything to make a pudding (even the silver sixpence and a silver charm) except a lemon, 50ml of brandy and

2 eggs (which were supplied by the local feathered ladies!)  . 

The kit looked so enticing and interesting and knowing the Fortnum & Mason brand I knew it would be good quality so I contacted their Marketing Dept and asked for one to make at our family session.  They were kind enough to send me two kits, one for myself and one for Mummy C (she has now started blogging in her own right).

The kit contained all the dry ingredients needed, an F&M ceramic bowl, a sixpence and a unique silver charm to hide in the pudding and even the greaseproof paper and string to finish off the pudding before boiling.  The boiling time was 4.5 hours

All set up and ready to go

The instruction card was clear and easy to follow and it really didn't take long to mix up the pudding and in true tradition everyone in the house took time to have a stir and a wish.

Getting ready with the lemons and eggs

Whilst we waited for the puddings to cook Big C helped Boy G (my 3 year old grandson - see Mummy C's blog) to bake a chocolate cake and mince pies.  Boy G enjoyed rolling out the pastry and cutting out the little shapes for the mince pies.

Making chocolate cake with Grandma (Mrs C)

"Can I roll them out?"

 

Really serious Boy G with his pie making

Baby G (13 week old grandson) slept quietly in the other room (a feed now and then) but basically just being a perfect little baby! Boy G mixed his time with baking and playing on the stairs in his imaginary bakery and giving us lots of pretend food to eat.

"Who wants a pretend egg lunch?"

The future chef making lunch for his guests!!

At the end of the day, pudding ready to take home and a lovely lunch inside us, we left promising to get together again and bake something else!

 

I will think about using these kits next year if they have them. I am really looking forward to pudding time on Christmas day!

Thanks to Fortnum & Mason for sending me their Stir Up Sunday kits.

Book Review: Salt Sugar Smoke - Diana Henry

 

My earliest memory of home made jam making is from when we used to spend our annual family vacation at a cottage by the seaside in Maine, USA.  My mother, sister and I would go to this wild raspberry site and pick all morning then we would go back to the cottage and with all the jam making equipment we had brought from home we would turn the raspberries into jars of sparkling ruby spread.  Nothing tasted like that jam and nothing has since! 

I was sent Diana Henry's book Salt Sugar Smoke and as soon as I started reading the chapter on preserves my mind was immediately transported back all those years ago (and we are talking quite a few!) to the little holiday cottage in Maine.

There is nothing quite like making your own preserves, allowing you to travel back in time when you open a jar in the winter of a jam or preserve you made in the late spring and summer.  It is a way of trapping all that sunshine in your homemade tomato sauces, fruit syrups, pickled onions, beetroot and vegetables too.

 

 

Salt Sugar Smoke is a great collection of recipes to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, cheese and much more.  How much better can it get than making your own Labneh (strained Greek yoghurt), preserving it in oil and eating it another time with roasted red peppers on homemade sourdough bread slices!

 

The preserve section starts with a page on the Essentials of Jam Making then The Process of Jam Making giving you a sort of confidence to continue reading and the feeling that you could pick a recipe and get preserving yourself. 

By the time you have salted, cured and potted, cured, pickled and made chutneys and all the sorts of jams and preserves in the book you will have a well stocked larder ready for the dark dull days of winter ahead.  I am sure Salt Sugar Smoke by Diana Henry will be a constant reference guide throughout the winter and beyond and I recommend it to any one wanting to keep that summer sunshine in their larder for a rainy winter day!

 

This book is published by Octopus Books under the imprint of Michael Beasley and is priced at £20.00 but is available in some bookshops for less.  Photos were taken from the Octopus Books website.

I was sent a copy of this book to review but was not paid to do so and the options are my own.

Bright Lights & Bright Colours for Kenwood

Kenwood , a household name in kitchen mixers and everyday appliances have introduced a very vividly coloured range of some of their kitchen products like kettle, toaster, hand mixer, kmix food Mixer and more.  This bright range comes in orange, magenta, green, yellow and blue. 

To celebrate this range Kenwood invited a group of food bloggers to an event which they held at the Waitrose Cookery School in North London.  The dress code was 'wear bright colours' and as we arrived it was made clear why.  Even the cocktails were bright colours!

After cocktails we were invited into the lecture theatre for a quick run through how we were going to make macarons!  I had never made these before so I was both excited and a little scared.  We paired up and my friend Ren and I got ready to work together and make our macaron.  All of the ingredients were weighed out and ready for us and each table had a different food colour.  We had pink.

We were going to use the Italian Meringue method which involves heating water and sugar to 114oF then adding it to the egg whites we were simultaineously whipping in our brightly coloured kMix food mixer. This was then mixed into an ground almond mixture and put into a piping bag.  We then pipped onto the sheet baking pans and into the oven.

 



Heating the sugar syrup before adding to the egg whites.

 

Egg whites whipped and ready to be mixed with the almond mixture.

 

Baked and cooling.



When the circles cooled they were sandwiched together with a flavoursome icing and placed on plates to join all the other team's on the counter top.

 

Our baby pink finished macarons.

 

Everyone's finished macarons up for display.

 

 

After all that hard work a drink and quick snack before home time.

We were given a box of everyone's different flavour and colour meringues and a fantastic 'goodie bag' to take home with lots of lovely baking items and the invitation to pick something from the coloured range to have sent to us the following week.  A very generous offer - thanks Kenwood!!

 

Just trying to get a thermometer and I will be using my kMix food mixer to make some at home!

Market Day & Cookbooks

Today a group of St Albans bloggers met for coffee in a local bakery-cafe (Bakehouse St Albans) for the first St Albans Cookbook Club.

Food Blogger and friend Ren Behan had the idea to get together with other local food bloggers and all bring a cookbook to talk about and recommend.

Today's theme was Festive books and there were quite a few on the table.

We talked, drank coffee, ate cake and chilled out for a couple of hours (perfect way to spend time).

Happily and with fond farewells we went our seperate ways and will get together again next month!

On my way back to the car park I walked through the market in the town centre. I just couldn't resist the bowls of chilli peppers and mixed peppers for £1.00 per bowl!

Not sure what I will do with them yet but had to buy some!! Hope Mr R likes it hot!!

 

 

 

 

 

Silent Sunday

Mid-week scallop supper - yummmmm * Fish is The Dish

A quick supper tonight when Mr R got back from the pub.  I put the water on to boil some pasta then started the sauce in my extra large frying pan.

Fish is the Dish sent me some scallops  a couple of months ago which I promptly popped into the freezer. I took them out earlier this afternoon and let them defrost.

Scallops from Cornwall

For dinner I started with finely chopped onions browning in some sunflower oil, then added chopped streaky bacon and fried that until starting to crisp, added 2 garlic cloves crushed and some chilli flakes. At this point I also added one large roasted pepper from a jar which I chopped up.

I cut the scallops into about three pieces because they were quite large and added them to the pan.  they only take a few minutes and tend to toughen up if cooked too long.

Onion, garlic, peppers, bacon and scallops

As soon as the pasta was cooked and drained I added some double cream to the frying pan followed by 2-3 Tbsp of My Secret Kitchen Thai Dressing with Kaffir Lime.  A minute or so to warm through and serve on the pasta.

Ooohhh yummmm this was a quick and easy supper. Thanks Fish is the Dish!!

 

Cream added then Thai Dressing with Kaffir Lime

 

 

The finished dish!