The Brighton Food Festival.

Horay it's the Brighton Food Festival!! Well actually it started on the 1st of September and runs until the 7th of October but due to no internet I can only blog about it now.
As part of the celebrations today was the fiery food Chilli Festival that I went along to with my lovely friend Becky.
I do love spicy food but I can't handle very hot stuff as I found out today when I accidently ate the hottest chilli jam in the world. I saw a pot with 'Apple and Chili' jam written on it in the tasting tent and thought 'yum' that sounds good and so had a try, within in secomds I though my throat was going to close up and it was on closer inspection that the description next to jam claimed it as the hottest in the world due to the type of chilli they used in it, never again is all I can say on that one.
To cheer myself up I bought the most beautiful chilli plant called 'Numex Twilight' which has little chilli's that start off purple, then yellow, then orange before finally turning red when they are ripe.



All in all it was a lovely day with some great produce and lovely food and I will be going again next year for sure. Sorry about the lck of pictures but I did not have my camera with me, foolish I know.

Camping and cooking in the Kent countryside.

Hello again, it's been far to long and I have really missed my little blog and the few lovely people who read it! I am once again connected to the internet and so can at last update you all on some food realted things starting with a three day, last minute camping trip with my wonderful best friend Gem to the idiylic Kent countryside for a little adventure! Unlike me Gem can drive so we packed up her car, not entirely sure where we were going to camp but full of positive thoughts so off we went and found a few campsites but none of them were really what we looking for and we had been driving around for rather a lot longer than we had wanted to, so we bit the bullet and I rang my Mum, yes I know a fully grown 26 year old woman ringing her Mum for help but it had to be done and I am so glad I did! Her and her lovely husband Dave looked on the internet while me and Gem sat in a pub car park waiting for some good news and of course my Mum came through as she always does and told us of a very delightful campsite called 'Bedgebury Camping' where you could have your own campfires and there was a stream, sounded great and I can happily say it was!
We bought a two burner camping stove with us which also had a little grill and it did us proud! On our first morning I got up very early and started to make a proper fry up in the dewy morning air, and it was totally blissful.
For one of our evening meals I decided to make pork loin, with pan fried apples, cider sauce, sauteed potatoes, spring greens and romanesco caulifower cheese which sounds like a ridiculous thing to cook on a camping stove, but I did it, it worked and I have the pictures to prove it....behold.

Here is a selection of the local, organic produce I used to make the meal, including a free range organic pork loin from a farm shop we visited.







Here is the lovely pork loin that I pan fried in butter before adding apple that I scrumped( is that a real word?)from an orchard (naughty) with onions and cider.
Next to the pork are my florets of Romanesco Cauliflower boiling away, before I covered them in cream and local chedder cheese and put them under the tiny grill.
I just par-boiled the potatos before finishing in the pan I cooked the pork in. It was a ridiculous juggling act but it worked out well in the end!



Here is the finished meal.



Until next time...

I am still here!!!

I am having severe withdrawal symptoms......I really want to post lovely stuff on my blog but I can't because Virgin are the worst Internet provider I have ever come across. I was supposed to be connected a week ago but they keep pushing the date back and now I have to wait until the 17th of September. So I will be back as soon as I can or as soon as Virgin allows me.......

Will be gone for a week or two......sad times

I am moving house this weekend and may have no internet access for up to a week, depending on how quick it gets connnected again, very very annoying as I have a great post to put up about a lovely camping weekend in Kent but I guess it will be something to look forward to! See you lovely people very soon.xx

The Real Patisserie, Brighton.

For those of you unfortunate enough to not reside in Brighton prepared to be jealous and I mean very jealous, I don't want to fall out over this but you have to know of it's existence. I am talking about 'The Real Patisserie' one of the finest Artisan bakeries I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. They are an independent company that uses traditional French methods for making bread, cakes, quiches, patisserie, sandwiches and everything is made on site by there largely French team of fabulous staff.
My lovely Mum would always get a box of cakes and patisserie from them for our Birthdays (as well as making us a cake of course!) and sometimes as a treat we would eat there almond croissants for a weekend breakfast,yummmmm.



They do open sandwiches 'Tartines' which are made using there rather famous chewy brown bread cut into long slices, I had chicken liver pate, cornichons and green peppercorns while Mercer had palma ham, artichokes, rocket and olive oil.
I didn't get a chance to take any photo's so I have used some of the website and other method's so you can see what the fuss is all about!


This is the 'Tartine' that Mercer had.


Here is just a tiny selection of the cakes and patisserie they do.

If you ever come to visit Brighton and fancy a spot of lunch then I highly recommend 'The Real Patisserie' as tasting is believing!

Happy Pride Everyone!!!!!!!

As some of you may or may not know,the fabulous and diverse city 'Brighton' is home to a very large gay community and every year we celebrate that fact by having 'Gay Pride' and the theme this year was 'Pride not Prejudice'. Every year without fail I attend with all my friends whether they be gay, lesbian, strait or otherwise!!! I feel very proud to come from such a vibrant, modern, forward thinking and accepting place where you can be what you want to be and not be judged for it, you can hold hands with your boyfriend or girlfriend as a gay couple and not get stared at, whispered about or worse like you would in many other places in the UK and the world. Brighton I love you and glad your my home, I wouldn't have it any other way!! Here are a few photo's of Pride from over the years and of me trying to hold my friend in her pirate outfit,oh dear!!!











How Stunning does the Brighton Pavilion look all lit up in pink!





Here are the gay and lesbian members of Brighton police force marching for gay pride! We also had gay and lesbian employees of Brighton hospital and the NHS, Paramedics and ambulance drivers. Pride had floats at the parade from American Express, co-operative, amnesty international, Greenpeace with our local Green MP on the float, Gay men's chorus to name just a few.
Sorry this post had nothing to do with food, but hey it's pride!!!

Humming Bird Brownies with hazlenuts and chocolate chunks

This is just a quick little post about the unplanned brownie making at around 11.30pm last night with Mercer. We bought the ingredients a few days ago to make the brownies but never got around to it until last night at a highly unusual hour! You don't tend to bake chocolate loaded treats at this time of night unless you a stoned teenager or pregnant but to hell with it we thought and went ahead and made them.
I used the Humming Bird Bakery recipe for them and just added a few extras.

Humming Bird Brownies

200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
175g unsalted butter
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
Hazelnuts
White chocolate cut into chunks

Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and melt until smooth.
Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and stir until well incorporated. Add the flour and stir until well incorporated. Finally, stir in the eggs, nuts and chocolate chunks and mix until smooth.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until flaky on the top but still soft in the centre.
I did not use a baking tray and just baked mine in an oven dish but it worked well enough and as it was so late we didn't wait for them to cool down or slice them so the picture is a bit messy but hey you get the idea!