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!

An amazing day at the BBC Good Food Show, part 2

Click Here for part 1

After a morning of sampling and shopping we were taken backstage for a fantastic VIP lunch.

A beautifully presented prawn dish for the starter.To follow was a selection of cold meats, poached salmon, salad and bread. Not so photogenic but no less tasty.And finally an elegant chocolate dessert with caramel sauce, yum!

Then came what we'd all been waiting for, a private book signing with the great James Martin himself. Each of us was presented with a signed copy of his book, The Collection, mine now proudly adorns my coffee table! He then rushed off to do yet another cookery demonstration, while we had some more time to look around before taking our place in the supertheatre...

The book signing
(photo courtesy of Forever Better)

My own signed copy!

The supertheatre was huge, over 2000 people packed in to watch James Martin prepare a three course meal. Teryaki mackerel was followed by bread-crumbed veal chops fried in an obscene amout of butter! (health concious he isn't!) and finally a mouth-watering dessert of layered pastry and berries with mascarpone and raspberry sauce. As you would expect it all looked fantastic and was no doubt scoffed backstage as soon as the demonstration was over.

Not only is James Martin a great chef he proved he was a great entertainer too, he had everybody laughing as he picked on an unsuspecting volunteer, using her to demonstrate where the different cuts of meat come from! Later he used an old man's walking stick to make his trademark spun sugar, the audience loved it!A few of us stayed behind afterwards to watch Gordon Ramsay who, working with Mark Sergeant made a great team. As you would expect Gordon made good use of his favourite word, in fact the show came with a warning beforehand! They were both fantastic to watch, even though we had seats way back in row Z!

But onto the food, first up was a hearty minestrone soup served with garlic toasts, it looked very homely and is a recipe I am very keen to try. Interestingly he used parmesan instead of salt which I thought was a brilliant idea. Next up was a tuna steak served with refried beans, I love fresh tuna but am never quite sure what to do with it so this was great for me. To finish he made some simple caramelised plums.

And with that it was all over, the time had come for us to go home, I could quite happily have spent hours longer wondering around! Thanks again to Miele, ForeverBetter and 1000Heads for a fantastic day!

A beautiful tin of chocolates give to us by Miele and my VIP pass