St Patrick's day with Miele

Yesterday I had a very early start, and when I say early I mean early, 4:45am. Now I'm not accustomed to getting up at that time of day -as far as I'm concerned it's a time no one should have to see- but I had a train to catch, I was going to Didcot to meet up with four other food bloggers for a day of Irish inspired St Patrick's day cooking, courtesy of Miele.

We were going to Miele's experience centre, an amazing place where potential customers can get hands on with Miele appliances to test them for themselves. As we walked in it was clear who the food bloggers were, the first thing we all noticed was the heavenly smell of pastries baking!
After a warm welcome we were served drinks. A perfect double espresso for me - just what I needed to wake me up before we headed upstairs to the kitchen, and into the very capable hands of Elspeth, the Miele home economist.

Picture taken from miele.co.uk

Working in four groups we prepared an Irish feast, and what a feast it was. There was far too much good food to list it all here but some of the highlights were a beef and Guinness casserole, roast gammon, salmon kedgeree and goats' cheese and tomato tarts. I was working with Joanna from Joanna's food, together we prepared,

• Roast chicken with lemon and thyme
• Irish soda bread
• stir fried cabbage
• Quiche with caramelised red onions and Cashel blue cheese

The quiche was a exceptionally good, the onions were sweet, caramelised and perfectly cooked while the Cashel Blue was mild and creamy, surprisingly didn't have that strong overpowering in your face flavour that blue cheese can have. It was delicious!I was really impressed with all the Miele kitchen appliances we tried, but there were two that particularly stood out. The first being the combination microwave/conventional oven which could roast a whole raw chicken in an amazing 35 minutes whilst keeping the skin crisp and golden. The other was an oven that heats from the base and uses a fan, removing the need to blind bake pastry.We ended the day with a tour around the centre where I was thrilled to discover Miele used to make bikes, very appropriate I thought for The Cycling Cook! Unfortunately I couldn't ride it as it was dangling from the ceiling but it was still nice to see it there. We were shown countless kitchen appliances everyone one of them ingenious and innovative. From a dishwasher that automatically opens when it's finished to let the steam out to an oven the plays a welcoming jingle when you turn it on, everything here amazed me.The journey home was a long one, I fell asleep on the train and almost missed my stop, but that's another story...

My thanks go to everyone at Miele and Steph from 1000 Heads for a great day.

The bloggers who were there were:

Joy of Almanzos Belly
Alex of Just cook it
Joanna of Joannas food
Alexandra of The Princess and the Recipe

Cooking in the Miele kitchens

Stir fried cabbage with garlic and pine nutsPreparing onions for the quicheIrish soda breadVegetables waiting to be cooked on the charcoal grillGoats cheese and tomato tartsSalmon kedgereeLunch!

The BloggerAid cookbook

If you've not heard of BloggerAid you should head over to their page and take a look. They are a group of food bloggers who are committed to fighting world famine. How? By raising awareness, holding fund-raisers, drawing media attention and now in their biggest and most ambitious project yet, by writing a cookbook.The project was unveiled by Ivy of Kopiaste.. to Greek Hospitality , Giz of Equal Opportunity Kitchen and Val of More Than Burnt Toast and in their words "We have announced our largest fundraiser to date ever!!!! ..., we will be publishing a cookbook with 100% of the profit from sales being directed to our chosen agency. The funds we raise will be directed to specific programs of The World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations frontline agency. The needs are great and choosing a specific effort is currently being negotiated."

And YOU can contribute! but you'll have to be quick, the deadline is the 12th of February, that's tomorrow!

"The cookbook is targeted for sale on Amazon by November/December 2009. There is a great deal of work involved in delivering this project and we will rely on you to help in any way you can. We will keep you informed every step of the way on Bloggeraid !!!!"

I thought it was a great Idea and definitely want to be a part of it, if you do too click here!
My submission to the cookbook is a pear and ginger upside down cake, it's a twist on one of my favourite childhood cakes, pineapple upside cake. I was inspired to make this as the weather here is very cold at the moment. In fact it's the coldest winter we've had in 20 years so I was aiming for a really warming, spicy cake. I scored a hit with this recipe, sticky, spicy and moist, perfect! I chose to submit this recipe because it's quite simple, the ingredients are widely available and I think everyone will love this cake.

I can't share the recipe here as they are exclusively for the cookbook, so if you want the recipe you'll have to buy the book!

An amazing day at the BBC Good Food Show, part 1

The BBC Good Food Show is nothing short of heaven for a foodie like me. With hundreds of exhibitors, plenty of free samples, cookery demonstrations and more celebrity chefs than you can shake a big pointy stick at, for food lovers The Good Food Show is THE place to be.
When show sponsor Miele (pronounced mealer, I'm told), the people at foreverbetter.co.uk and 1000heads sent me an invitation to the show with a VIP pass I had to think about it for all of a nanosecond before saying yes please! A group of food bloggers from the UK were invited, in no particular order they were:

Becky - Girl Interrupted Eating

Francesca - 101 Things

Nicola - Cherrapeno

Katie - Apple and Spice

Anne - Anne's Kitchen
Joanna - Joanna's Food

Here we all are posing in front of the Meile stand!

My day started at 5.30 in the morning as I had an early train to catch. Once I arrived I met up with the other bloggers and my hosts for the day, Colin, Kaz, Juliette and Molly then it was into the show!

Before lunch we had some time to explore, we ate and drank our way around the free samples admiring what was on offer and chatting to the producers. The scale of the place was breathtaking, with over 600 stands it was hard to know where to begin!

Doves farm had an interesting selection of bread mixes, flour and cakes. Although I don't often use prepared mixes I couldn't resist the Ezekiel bread mix, apparently it's inspired by the prophet himself!
Munchy seeds were selling a fantastic selection of flavoured roasted seeds, the vanilla pumpkin seeds were especially good.
I'll admit it was the name that attracted me to the Grumpy Mule Coffee stand but their coffee was fantastic, some of the best I've ever had.
It wasn't just food on offer, there was some fantastic cooking equipment too.
Do I make myself clear!? A very coulourful selection of liquorice.

Coming up in part 2, I have a fantastic VIP lunch, meet James Martin and watch Gordon Ramsay do his thing in the supertheatre.

Energy food challenge - Banana chocolate flapjacks

Last May I cycled along the Camino De Santiago route across Spain, 550 miles in all including two mountain ranges. On the very first day we had 14 miles of non-stop uphill.

A long way up!

You're probably thinking, what's this got to do with food? Well Hopie over at hopie's kitchen has laid down an energy food challenge. Her Mum is preparing to cycle 109 miles to raise money for research into blood cancers. Nearly 1 million Americans are suffering from some form of blood cancer and each year 53,000 die, I'm sure you'll agree it is a very worthy cause. Naturally cycling all that way will require a lot of energy. Hopie's chalenge is to create a recipe for energy food, whether it is a main meal, snack or drink. I thought back to my time cycling in spain, the food that powered us up all those hills was flapjacks. They are ideal for cycling with as they easily be stuffed into a bag or pocket without coming to too much harm and are packed with energy, not to mention how delicious they are!

My entry for this challenge is flapjacks, but no ordinary flapjacks. I made Chocolate covered banana, honey and walnut flapjacks! The banana flavour comes through really well, it also helps keep the flapjacks soft and moist. Honey and walnuts just seemed a good idea and what can't be improved by chocolate?I am very pleased with how these turned out, this is exactly the kind of food I like to take with me when I go on long bike rides.

Enter the energy food challenge here. Get your entries in before the 22nd November!

A day at a food festival

Yesterday was the first day of the East Midlands Food And Drink Festival and I was lucky enough to be there. The event marks the culmination of British Food fortnight and is a showcase for local producers to show off there food. Amongst the hundreds of stalls was Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, a company that makes traditional Red Leicester cheese selling it in huge wheels weighing a whopping 20kg, I considered buying a whole wheel but reluctantly had to settle for a small piece instead! Almost every stall had samples to try and there was plenty to tempt me, the apple and blackberry brandy was a particular hit although the chocolate truffles came a close second, they were extremely tasty!

There was so much to see including breads, cakes, jams, fruit, veg and meat. Of the more unusual products on offer were ostrich meat, smoked garlic and purple cauliflowers all of which looked great but I resisted the urge to buy.
I spent the day eating my way around the halls as there were so many samples on offer! All in all it was a brilliant event and I will definitely be going again, it's just a shame I have to wait a whole year!

Enormous wheels of Lincolnshire Poacher cheese
A more sensible sized piece?
Fantastic bread. The breadsticks in the background are flavoured with olives and fennel and were delicious
An impressive display of pastries, these were huge!
A very colourful display!

Sausage and mash for british food fortnight

The 20th September saw the start of British food fortnight, now in it's seventh year British food fortnight is a celebration of great British produce and cooking. There are events taking place across Britain including several food festivals and tastings by local producers. The aim to educate people about British food which has suffered from a bad reputation for far too long.Jacques Chirac the French president famously said, referring to British food "One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad," I'm sure if Mr Chirac had sampled a delicious summer pudding or a freshly baked steak and ale pie he wouldn't have made such rude comments! There are some fantastic foods available to us in Britain, from wild Scottish salmon to Cornish clotted cream.

Clotted cream and scones

To mark British food fortnight Antonia from FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD! has set a challenge to create a dish that is thoroughly British, wherever possible it should use locally sourced British produce. For my entry I have cooked sausage and mash with apple cider gravy, it doesn't get much more British than that!

Sausage and mash with apple cider gravy

Sausage and mash is often referred to in Britain as bangers and mash, I don't know why this is, I can't say I've ever heard a sausage bang which is probably for the best. I would rather eat my sausages than have them explode in my face!
Bangers and mash is typical "pub grub"and can be found on pub menus up and down the country along with other British classics such as steak and kidney pie or the famous fish and chips.
I made mine with apple and cider gravy as apple is such a good partner to pork, other than that I kept to tradition serving it with buttery mash and peas. Comfort food of the highest order!

This is my entry to the British food fortnight blogging event, to enter a dish of your own click here.