Good Food Live

A couple of Sunday's ago, Jaimie and I went to the Good Food Live show. I had been at Olympia the day before at the Mind, Body & Soul fair in Olympia 2. I had my aura photographed, which I am exceedingly proud of.



After the excitment of the Saturday, Sunday was actually a bit of a let down. Where we expected a room full of loads of people 'celebrating' food, what we found instead was a pretty cynical collection of stalls from more well known food retailers who were incredibly stingy with the tastings. Toffee vodka was being handed out two-a-penny; it was pretty rank though. We were basically in a giant shop that we had paid the bargain price of £14.50 to get into. It seemed that if we weren't prepared to go and spend a tonne of money, there was not much point you being there. There were hardly any cooking demonstrations to speak of, and where there were they were advertising a product. When we fancied a frozen Jose Cuervo margarita (granted it was only 12pm so it was probably for the best) we were told unless we had perchased the special 'Good Food Live' glass and handy holder (ergh!) then we weren't allowed. Bit of a shame really.

Having said that, the best buy of the day came from the Co-Op who had reduced a load of their stuff to a pound. We got a tarte aux citron, some ravioli with gorgonzola and fig and a four seasons pizza all for a pound each. Well happy.

I did by some lovely granola and christmas porridge from the Muddy Cook (http://www.muddycookgourmet.co.uk) which was really nice, though arguably a bit overpriced.

Seeing as the following weekend we were at Broadway Market for nowt and ate much better, I'm not sure I'd go again.

The days have been decided!

My lovely assistant Donna has pulled the fate of 'Come Dine with Me' particpants out of the teapot. Watch, and all will be revealed.

Come Dine With Me - Peckham Edition

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, and it's time for a feed. Three intrepid teams from Peckham are about to embark on a culinary adventure. At this special time of year these faithful Peckham residents will reach to the Heavens, and wail "COME DINE WITH ME!"

And for those competing, here are the rules:



See you on after the 12th for a special video edition of Meat & Cheese.

Muffin Pride

Last Sunday Jaimie and I were incredibly bored so decided to make muffins. (this was after we'd made dinner, brocalli & stilton soup for the week, and greek salad for the fridge - the joy of no telly!) We'd been at Asda in the day and had picked up a small packet of raspberries for a knock-down 40 pence. The raspberries meant that we had nearly all the ingredients to make Nigella's Lemon-Raspberry muffins. (without the lemon though)

This is Nigella's recipe:

60g butter
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
juice & finely chopped zest of 1 lemon
approx 120ml milk
1 large egg
150g raspberries
12 bun muffin tray lined with paper cases

Preheat oven to 200c. Melt the butter & set aside to cool. Stir together in a large bowl, the flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, salt & zest. In a measuring jug, pour in the lemon juice, then enough milk to come up to the 200ml mark, then beat in the egg & butter. Pour into the dry ingredients & stir briefly, the batter should scarcely be combined. Fold in the raspberries, spoon the mixture into the muffin cases & bake for about 25 minutes. When cooked, the tops should spring back to your touch. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then sit them on a rack to cool for a further 10-15 minutes. Makes 12.

We didn't have any bicarbonate of soda, so we subsituted this for more baking powder. Or lemons, so we just went without.

Nigella claims this recipe makes 12, but I think that's a bit ambitious. We managed 8 out of this quantity of batter.

Here they are:



Lovely as these were, we thought that they need that little bit extra, a little lift. So we made Rosewater Butter Icing to crown them. This was really simple - just butter and icing sugar whisked together with 2tbsp of rosewater and 2tbsp of double cream. These were finally adorned with a little raspberry peak.





These little beauties filled me with such pride, I was literally nearly overwhelmed. Jaimie suggested we make some more, I didn't hesitate. Not one bit.

We'd used up all the raspberries, but had some 70% cocao chocolate in the fridge. Jaimie smashed this to pieces and we folded it into the same batter mix.



They came out like this:



I think they may have been a little overdone, but they were still lovely. My pride had been stoked no end.

See:



Happy as larry. I thought I'd treat Noe as I had (kind of) stood her up at the weekend. I think she was pleased, I gave her one of the extra special rosewater iced raspberry muffins.



We're off to the Good Food Live show at Earls Court on Sunday, so I presume there will be much to report on the subject.

Until then.