Christmas Feast at River Cottage Axminster

My  first experience of River cottage was when I attended a bloggers cookery day there last year. It was an amazing experience so I was well and truly excited when I was invited again to visit River Cottage for a special Bloggers Christmas Feast. 

As  soon as we had confirmation my two food blogger buddies Heidi Roberts and Manjiri Chitnis and I known to our friends as "The Three Musketeers" excitedly booked trains, accommodation and started to plan our two night stay. 
We like booking an extra night to make the most of the trip as the nearby Lyme Regis is so lovely as is all the Jurassic Coast.

Our accommodation for the two nights was Millwater House B&B, the owners Tim and Ruth are really lovely. Millwater House is set is set in a beautiful location with great views very close by to Axminster town . The bedrooms are  comfy and the cooked breakfast is absolutely delicious. On both our trips we have stayed at the same B&B and we love it. Tim is a gem and he even picked us up from the station and ferried us to and from River Cottage as there was a shortage of taxis.

There were approx 50 bloggers who attended the Christmas feast at River Cottage. Upon arrival we had welcome drinks and then we were free to wonder around the farm to check it out. 

Next we had a session in Brining by Andy one of the River Cottage Chefs. He showed us various techniques on the subject. Although mostly it was about brining meat he did say that you can also brine vegetables and gave me some great ides on how to brine cucumbers, courgettes and root vegetables that can served as condiments or in salads.

The evening carried on where the bloggers split into two groups and did some networking. This was the perfect opportunity to meat new and old faces and share ideas.

With the networking over it was time for the feasting. River cottage chefs had been busy all day so that we were served a magnificent Christmas feast. They had catered for all types of diets, vegetarians, non vegetarians, dairy and gluten free too.

We were served Kingston Black Apple brandy aperitif served with Canapés of Carrot hummus on rye bread, whipped goat’s cheese and beetroot marinated in cider vinegar, leek, mushroom and blue cheese croquettes with green tomato chutney and finally roasted Romanesco with Romanesco puree.

For the vegetarian starter we were served Ravioli with celeriac puree cooked with wild mushrooms, sage and served with salad leaves.

The main course followed which was parsnip and potato rosti with shavings of goats cheese, carrot puree and cabbage fried in butter and garlic.  It was served with haricot beans cooked with tomatoes, fennel and onions

The feasting continued with a wonderful dessert of Apple tart served with apple purée, apple crisps and apple rye & treacle crumble. There was also the option of honeycomb crème brûlée.

Finally when we thought we could eat no more we were enticed with coffee and chocolate orange truffles and spelt biscuits .The entire experience was a culinary delight and a very pleasurable one.

I was a guest at River Cottage, all opinions expressed in this post are my own as are all the photographs shown.
 To read Heidi's account of her experience do read her post here.

Jollof Rice with Plantain Chips~ A vegetarian rice dish of Ghana

Ghana is a West African Country, it is thought to be the closest country to the centre of the Earth. It is located North of the Equator which means that it has a warm tropical climate. Until a few months ago I did not know much about Ghana, but my interest grew when my daughter decided to go on a trip to Ghana with Vision Aid oversees to do voluntary work to provide free eye care for the less privileged.

As a parent to alleviate any worries, I started to research about the safety, climate, food etc in Ghana. To my surprise I really started to enjoy learning about the culture and food, especially as many of the ingredients such as plantain, cassava, chillies, yam were foods I am familiar with since I have lived in East Africa in my childhood.The typical Ghanaian staple foods in Ghana include cassava and plantain, millet and sorghum. Vegetables such as Yam, maize and beans, Sweet potatoes and coco yam are regularly used in Ghanaian  cuisine.

Since we follow a vegetarian diet, we researched what vegetarian dishes would be available in Ghana, we were pleasantly surprised to read that there were a fairly good selection such as Jollof Rice (spicy vegetable rice), Kelewele ( a fried spicy savoury dish made from plantain), Gari Foto (A grain made from fermented cassava flour cooked with tomatoes and vegetable and Watchi (blackeyed peas with rice. )I have been recreating some of these recipes in my kitchen and I must say we are really enjoying the Ghanaian flavours.

One of our family favourites  is the Jollof Rice, in Ghana you an get both a non vegetarian version and also vegetarian version. Below you can check out my vegetarian version.

I made my Jollof rice in my Redmond Multi Cooker, which is my new kitchen friend. Simple and easy to use with many pre programmes it makes cooking quick and easy. If you don't have a multi cooker you can make the rice on the stove top too.

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Vegetarian Jollof Rice with Plantain Chips

by Nayna Kanabar November-15-2016

Spicy vegetarian rice cooked with tomatoes and vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 250 g Basmati Rice
• 1 Medium white Onion peeled and thinly sliced
• 40 g Frozen Peas
• 1 Medium Carrot coarsely grated
• 1/2 of each colour Capsicum red/ yellow cut into strips
• 250 g Passata sieved tomatoes
• 1 Red chilli finely chopped
• 1.5 teaspoons Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• 300 ml Water

Plantain Chips

• 2 Plantain peeled and sliced into 2 mm thickness
• 600 ml Sunflower oil for deep frying
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Red chilli powder

Method:

1.Wash the rice in a few changes of water, drain and keep aside.2. In the Redmond multi cooker add the olive oil and set the multi cooker on Fry option. Add the onions and cook them for 3-4 minutes, once onions are translucent add the grated carrot and capsicums and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Cook with lid open.

3. Cancel the fry option and set the programme on pilaf option. Add the rice, peas, salt, chilli powder, red chilli, turmeric, tomato passata and water. Stir.

4. Close the lid and cook the rice on pilaf option for 25 minutes.5. After 25 minutes open the cooker lid and fluff up the rice with a fork.

6. Heat the oil in a large wok and when its hot fry the sliced plantain in small batches until crisp and golden brown

7. Drain the fried plantain on kitchen paper and fry the remaining.8. Sprinkle salt and chilli powder on the fried plantain.9. Transfer the rice to serving dishes and garnish with fried plantain.

Details

Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 30 mins Yield: Serves 4

The square brown wooden dish that the fried plantain chips are served in the photo above and the carved wooden African dish together with the elephant coasters which the rice is served in in the photo below are my recent purchases from Homesense. Homesense is a haven for beautiful kitchenware. The beauty of the shop is that you can find all sorts of serving dishes and kitchen ware that are regional and also from Europe, Africa, and Asia. These wooden dishes are a wonderful find as were the coasters.

This recipe is in collaboration with Redmond and Homesense.

Kheer Indian rice pudding in Redmond Multi Cooker

The Diwali celebrations span over 4 days and each day we are enjoying delicious Indian desserts and sweets. One of my families favourite dessert is Kheer, this is an Indian rice pudding that is flavoured with cardamom, saffron, almonds and pistachios.  Although the rice pudding ingredients are only a few, to make authentic Kheer is a laborious task where milk and rice are cooked on a low heat and stirred regularly to stop the milk from scorching. Its one of those dishes that to make it creamy it needs to be slow cooked. It can take anything up to 2 hours to get the milk to reduce and the pudding to get rich and creamy. As much as I love rice pudding I found this task of watching over the pan really time consuming that is until my new kitchen friend arrived this Diwali in the form of a Redmond slow cooker.

I love the compact design of my Redmond multi cooker RMC-M451OE and its sleek controls. It has 13 automatic programmes and 27 manual controls making it easy to create a large selection of delicious recipes with minimum effort.

Making rice pudding in the slow cooker was simple and I did not have to watch it like a hawk like I needed to on the stove top. I put all the ingredients into the pot and set the cooker on multi cook for one and half hours. I did give the rice pudding an occasional stir 2-3 times just to make sure all was well.
The result was the creamiest tastiest rice pudding we have ever eaten made with very little effort.

To see how I created my delicious rice pudding you can read the recipe below. The recipe can also be make on the stove top, but care must be taken to stir the milk and rice frequently so that it does not scorch.

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Kheer Indian Rice Pudding

by Nayna Kanabar October-29-2016

Creamy rich Rice pudding with aromatic Indian flavours garnished with saffron, almonds and pistachios.

Ingredients:

• 100 g Short grain rice
• 1150 ml Full cream Milk
• 200 g Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 teaspoon Cardamom powder
• Few strands Saffron
• 10 Almonds cut into slivers
• 10 Pistachios cut into slivers 

Method:

1. Wash the rice and drain it . Next add it to the slow cooker bowl with the milk and condensed and cook the rice pudding on multi setting for 1.5 hours.

2. Stir the rice intermittently 2-3 times.

3. After the cooking time is complete, the milk should thickened and rice should be fully cooked resulting in a rich creamy rice pudding.

4. Stir in the cardamon powder and spoon the rice pudding into serving bowls, garnish with slivers of almonds and pistachio nuts and saffron strands. Kheer -Rice pudding can be served warm or cold.

Details

Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins Total time: 1 hour 35 mins Yield: Serves 8

I was sent the Redmond Multi Cooker to try out , all the views and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

On this second day of Diwali I would like to wish all my simplyfood readers a very Happy Diwali or Happy holidays for those who don't celebrate this festival. Thank you to all your regular visits and comments that truly inspire me to create recipes and share them here.

Halloween Mandarin and Pistachio Cake

Its national baking week so I needed no further encouragement to bake a delicious cake, however my sandwich cake tins were looking a little sad so as a special treat I replaced them with two 20 cm non stick loose bottom tins from Homesense. They are perfect for lifting the cake out and also really good quality as they do not distort or buckle in the oven. There is wonderful range of bake ware available at Homesense and it was really hard not to over indulge and buy the whole shop.

I adore the combination of chocolate and nuts and this delicious mandarin and pistachio cake fits the bill perfectly. It is flavoured with Mr Organic Mandarin Conserve, filled with mandarin butter cream and topped with a chocolate ganache and the sides are coated with flaked pistachios. Is your mouth salivating well there is more to come.....

The cake is finally garnished with chocolate coated peanuts (M&M) and white chocolate shavings, crushed chocolate peanuts and flaked pistachio nuts. It is a cake that is simply delectable and one slice is most certainly not enough!!!!!

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Halloween Mandarin and Pistachio Cake

by Nayna Kanabar October-21-2016

Beautiful citrus flavours combined with chocolate and pistachio nuts makes this cake moist and delicious.

Ingredients:

• 200 g Caster Sugar
• 200 g Butter
• 200 g Self raising Flour
• 4 Eggs (or egg replacer equivalent to 4 eggs)
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 2 tablespoons Mr Organic Sicilian Mandarin Conserve
• 2 tablespoons Warm water

For Chocolate Ganache:

• 100 g Milk Chocolate
• 170 ml Double cream

For Decorating:

• 100 g Flaked Pistachio nuts
• 30 g White chocolate
• 30 Chocolate covered Peanuts (M&M)

For Butter cream:

• 150 g Softened Butter
• 2 tablespoons Sicilian Mandarin Conserve
• 300 g Icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.2. Grease and Line two 20 cm cake loose bottom cake tins.3. Add the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy, 4. Sieve the flour and baking powder in to another bowl.5. Add the water to the Sicilian mandarin conserve and mix it together. Add this to the butter and sugar mixture.6 .Add the eggs to the butter mixture and whisk together.7. Fold in the flour with a metal spoon.Divide the mixture into the two prepared cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Remove cakes from oven and cool them fully. Once cooked remove them from the tins onto a wire rack.8.Make the butter cream by whisking together the remaining butter, icing sugar and the Sicilian mandarin conserve.9. Break the chocolate into small pieces and put it into a large bowl.10. Warm the cream up and pour it over the chocolate, wait for the cream to melt the chocolate and them mix it to make the ganache. 11. To assemble the cake place one of the cakes top side down onto cake board. Spread some butter cream in the centre and place the second cake top side up onto the cream to make a cake sandwich.12.Using a palette knife spread the remaining butter cream onto the sides of the cake and then stick the flaked pistachio nuts onto the sides.13. Spread some chocolate ganache on top of the cake, do not over do the topping as we not want the chocolate to run down the sides. Arrange the chocolate covered peanuts around the cake and grate some white chocolate shaving in the centre. Also sprinkle some crushed chocolate peanuts and a few pistachio flakes on top of the cake.

Details

Prep time: 45 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 1 hour 10 mins Yield: 1 cake

This recipe is in Collaboration with Homesense in celebration of  National Baking Week.

Supper Club hosted by Mr Organic

Supper clubs are quite a trend these days and its a great way to meet up, enjoy good food and make new friends. I recently attended a supper club hosted by Mr Organic at Printworks Kitchens. The supper club was hosted to showcase all the amazing Mr Organic products that are currently available through Ocado.

The story of Mr Organic started in 2009 when three friends Carlo, Kostas and Valerio decided to take  a well established business of growing organic tomatoes a step further and create a whole new brand of organic food for people to enjoy.

There are many products in the range including Olive oil, fruit conserves, pesto, grilled aubergine, dip, mayo, grains, pasta, free from chocolate spread as well as organic rice. All the dishes that were served at the supper club featured a selection of Mr Organics products. The whole meal was vegan and was cooked by Judy of Plant Based Judy.

As we mingled amongst the fellow guests, We enjoyed a wonder cocktail made with
Mr Organic elderflower conserve, cranberry
juice with a dash of lime and gin.

We also enjoyed a starter of tomato and
olive brushetta that was made using
Mr Organics tomato and Olive add on.
The fresh tomatoes an a layer of sauce on a crisp brushetta was flavour packed and delicious.

The main course was delicious as we were served dish after dish of scrumptious food. We had vegan avocado pesto pasta with vegan spicy black rice salad. Both dishes were delightful, the pasta was rich and creamy and the black rice salad was very tasty with the addition of roasted almonds in it.

There were also apetizing sides of mixed salad with mustard vinaigrette and a chilli garlic bean salad.

The food was really tasteful and plentiful, and there was a variety of textures and flavours. It was apparent that using organic ingredients in a dish really does make it taste better.

The meal ended with two delectable desserts, vegan chocolate hazelnut pastries made with flaky puff pastry filled with Mr Organic chocolate and hazelnut spread and rustic vegan pear, mandarin and blackberry crostata. The desserts were the perfect end to a wonderful meal.

I was invited by Mr Organic to attend their supper club and to look at their new range of products. All the views and opinions expressed in this feature are my own as are all the photos.