First Ever Scottish Food Bloggers Conference.

A cheeseboard we used for our food photography workshop.

The first ever Scottish Food Bloggers' Conference was held in Ayr this Saturday.

I had a very pleasant day learning loads and getting to meet a few of my favourite bloggers.

Jacqueline, myself and Janice - photo credit to Kellie.

The day was organised by Lisa Tennant of Taste Ayrshire and I just hope it becomes an annual event.

I stayed at the same B&B as Janice from Farmer's Girl Kitchen so we had breakfast and then walked down to Ayr Race Course where the conference was taking place and met up with Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes, Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kellie from Food To Glow. What a lovely bunch food bloggers are!

Our first talk was from Justin Galea, executive chef at Turnberry. What an enthusiastic chef.  He chatted to us about foraging, sustainability, sourcing local food, what questions to ask of your waiter when dining out and some of his own personal influences and favourite foodblogs.

We then got loads of useful tips on the scary world of social media from Colin Kelly. This was excellent and fascinating.  I'm still a bit backward and old-fashioned but I will certainly try to use some of this info to bring myself a little bit more up-to-date.  Eeek.

Our chef for the day Donald McInnes told us a bit about catering for 1200 people per day and we then got to enjoy the lunch he had prepared for us.

Waiting patiently for lunch.

We started with a warm butternut squash and beetroot tart with ricotta cheese with a piccalilli and beetroot dressing.

Our main course was duo of roast sirloin of Cairnhill Farms beef - medallion of scotch sirloin with braised beef tian served with peppercorn sauce.

And we finished with chocolate and toasted almond mousse.

The highlight of the day for me was after lunch with a food writing workshop with John Cooke, editor and food writer from The List. A good few tips to get us thinking more about our writing including, of course, "avoid cliches like the plague"!

John Cooke - food writing.

He gave us a bit of work to do too - we had 10 minutes to write about a memorable eating experience then the pieces got read out.  After a warning about how difficult it is to be funny in your writing, one brave participant managed to do a successfully humorous piece about dining in the presence of David Beckham. There were lots of other good pieces too.

I was a bit embarrassed with my writing but here it is - bear in mind it was the work of 10 minutes.

I felt so special and grown-up and loved. I must have been about 8.  I came home from school for lunch as usual.  My Mum would generally serve me tinned soup, spaghetti hoops on toast or that awful canned ravioli in tomato sauce.  Today, though, to celebrate my birthday, she gave me my favourite food - lamb chops.  I do love lamb chops but, I guess on this particular day, it wasn't about the taste of the food but the fact that Mum knew what my favourite food was, had made a special effort to get it and had paid for something more expensive than her usual budget would allow - just for me.

Janice showing how it is done.

We then had the photography part of the day with Darren McKean. Darren was very generous with his knowledge and also very patient.  We have been trying to persuade him to run a food photography course in the future.

Weary travellers - Jacqueline and Stuart.

We then all headed home with our brains crammed with new information and loads to think about.

Thanks to all for a really great day!

2 Years Of Blogging.

2 years of blogging? Wow. Happy Birthday Little Blog.

Seems fitting then on a blog to celebrate my children's journeys into food that I will celebrate by posting some pics of their harvests from the garden this year.

Rufus wanted to grow tomatoes so we have three huge cherry tomato plants in the house and we have had a constant supply of wee tomatoes for the last month and it looks set to keep going going for a good while longer.  How lovely that the boys are almost constantly stealing a wee tomato on their way past.  What could be better for them?

Adam wanted to plant carrots.  We have been harvesting baby carrots as we thin them out for the last month or so too and as the summer goes on, the carrots we harvest are getting bigger and bigger.

A couple of big pots of salad leaves have also kept us going in salad for the past several months.

Our strawberries were very poor this year - we only got three or four.  Our peas and beans also got attacked by the birds so we only got a handful of pods.

We haven't harvested any courgettes yet but they are ready now and looks like we have a fair crop of those.

Nice haul this year for just a few pots.

One of the forests near us has had a plentiful supply of wild raspberries so we have been absolutely stuffing our faces when out walking. We also decided to collect some blaeberries while out one morning to take home to make blaeberry pancakes.  They were delicious.  Blaeberries are smaller and sharper than blueberries and are perfect in pancakes with a little drizzle of honey over the top.

And to add to our bounty, Little Macaroon brought us a huge bag full of foraged chanterelles.  They were beautiful.  We sauteed them lightly in garlic butter and had them with pasta.  Amazing.

Time to plan what we're going to do with the courgettes. And start wondering what we'll grow next year?  Love it.


Edit - Funnily enough, Little Macaroon just posted the recipe for these wee pancakes if anyone wants it.  You can obviously add any fruit or extras as you see fit.  Bananas are good too. 

Random Recipes 19 - Chicken Satay Skewers and Noodles.

So I have put the above photo up to show you what it is supposed to look like.  This Jamie Oliver book certainly has lots of lovely, stylish photos in it.  I just still can't seem to organise myself to be able to do anything other than take a very rushed photo of a meal in among all the mess of cooking it so that we can dig in while it's still hot and before we get "hangry" (- a friend's description of her husband when he needs to be fed!).

I'm looking for tips people.  All you out there with impossibly stylish food blogs.  Do you cook something to be photographed at a time when noone is hungry, there are no children running about causing mayhem, you have a maid cleaning up after you as you go along? Do you have an area in front of a window all set up ready to accept pretty food for photographing? Do you have endless stores of pretty china for any occasion and beautiful linens? Is it is just that I am the worst housewife going?  

Here are my photos anyway of the meal I made for the 19th Random Recipe Challenge. I randomly selected Jamie's 30 Minute Meals.  I have never cooked anything from this at all.  My Auntie won it in a raffle a few months back and donated it to me.  I have been trying not to acquire any more cookbooks but I have heard good things about this one so I gladly accepted.  

The page I chose randomly was titled Chicken Skewers, Amazing Satay Sauce, Fiery Noodle Salad and Fruit and Mint Sugar.  I omitted the dessert due to a lack of time and the fact we have loads of cakes and chocolate and fruit and yogurts and all sorts of nonsense needing used up already.

I enjoyed making this.  Fairly low faff.  Bung everything in a food processor kind of stuff.  All quick and easy to make.  The end result was yummy. I would certainly make this again but it has also made me feel very positive about using this book again for easy teas for the kids.

Robot Party.

My baby boy had a robot party this year for his 4th birthday.

The boys helped me make the cake-pops for the first time this year.  Rufus made some rather odd monster ones - very cute! The robot pops are copied straight from Bakerella's book. 

I also made a three layer chocolate cake and kept the decoration fairly simple because of a lack of time.

We had a bouncy castle and all our favourite friends round and it was such a lovely day.

The bunting was made especially for Rufus by Especially For.  She made our owl bunting last year so I asked if she would do robots for us this year and she did a lovely job. 

And, of course, we made our own robot - Snappy!

Here are a couple of photos of the birthday boy in his robot T-shirts.  The green one came as a present from Little Macaroon and the other one I had ordered for him to wear at his party but it didn't come in time. 

My Cookbooks and Where They Live.

On the last day of July, Dom is going to do a round up of this month's Random Recipes and it is going to be a nosey-parker's dream!

Randomly enough, he has asked us all to post photographs of our cookbook collections and already I have been able to snoop into lots of lovely houses in the posts already up.  I think there is really something wonderful about seeing how other people arrange their homes, isn't there?

So, here are my photos.

The top photo is in my kitchen.  Those are the books that are out in the kitchen because I have been using them ar plan to in the next week.  My Kenwood Chef used to fill that space under the cupboards but, as you can see, it has now been crowded into a tiny area.

Now actually when I went to take photos of my cookbooks, I found that those from the top photo were actually being used to help with robot manufacture.  Here is the photo with Snappy the robot.

The majority of my cookbooks live in the book shelf in the garage.  Not the most idyllic of places but it is handy for the kitchen.

It is a hugely reduced collection as it was pared down before we moved house just over a year ago. Previously the whole bookshelf would have been filled. I do have loads of food magazines and Guardian Weekend cuttings all over the house and I often get cookbooks from our local library.  I LOVE my library service.  I reserve a book online (and have yet to find a book they don't have), it gets delivered to my local library, they text me when it is ready to collect (usually 2-3 days later) and there is no charge at all for this amazing service.  I am just away to order HFW's Everyday Veg book so I expect I'll get it very soon.  

Thanks Dom for an easy and fun challenge this month. 

The Essence Of Baking

To me, the essence of baking is sharing.  Whether it's a chocolate brownie with Steve once the kids are in bed, fun with sprinkles and garish icing with my boys, a Victoria sponge to share with my girlfriends over a natter (also known as book club), pretty cookies at a babyshower, a fruit cake for Father's Day, a birthday cake for a party, Christmas cake with family, or any of the other endless occasions where some home baking is welcome, the point is the company.  The cake is just an added bonus.

This blogging lark is really another way to make baking and cooking into a sociable experience.  Ruth from Makey Cakey has expanded on this by allowing us to share celebrating her 30th birthday and letting us get to know some other bloggers a little better at the same time. 

She decided to set up an ingredient swap to distract herself from her upcoming 30th.  It's really not that bad, Ruth - I'm 33 and probably still about 17 in my mind.  I know exactly what they mean when older relatives tell me that they don't think of themselves as old!

In fact, one of the boys in the street came to my house the other day with something for me and when Steve answered the door, the boy handed him a bag and said, "that's for the Mum."  The Mum????  I'm a completely different generation from the kids in the street.  That is as plain as day to them but it comes as a shock to me!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Ruth!

I was lucky enough to be paired with Baking Addict (yes, I do now know her real name - and her home address - maybe she's a little too trusting ;-) ) from The More Than Occasional Baker. We were then to post a surprise ingredient to our partner.  I chose to send some pooping corn because I LOVE IT and Baking Addict made it into some lovely nutty, popcorn, chocolate clusters.  You can see her post here. My cunning plan worked as I now have a new recipe to make with popcorn - and it's one the boys will love to help me with. 

In return, my VERY generous donor sent me the THREE bottles of essence in the first photo.  I was delighted and very excited!  I think she sent me three in case I didn't particularly like one flavour or another but I love them all.  Obviously the possibilities for making something fantastic were endless.  In the end, I chose a route that some might think a bit boring - cupcakes.  Well, I chose cupcakes as they are quick and easy but my whole family love them and they are something we can bake together.  I usually always do the same straight-forward vanilla cupcake recipe so even though it doesn't seem like it, I have been a little adventurous. 

The rose ones have a teaspoon of rose essence in the batter and one in the icing.  The icing has no other colouring but that from the essence and is actually a beautiful pale pink but you can't see it in the photos.  They are sprinkled with crystallised rose petals.

The pear ones are by far the favourites of Steve and the boys.  They have pear essence in the cake and the icing and they also have chopped pear through the cake.  They work extremely well.

My favourites, though, are the pineapple ones and these have been a revelation.  These are my favourite cupcakes ever!  The pear and the rose are both British flavours and the cakes I made with them are lovely and wouldn't look out of place at a nice quiet, demure afternoon tea.  The pineapple ones, however, are anything but subtle.  In fact, the yellow icing is quite garish but that is quite deliberate to go with the rather exuberant taste!  Pineapple is an exotic and vibrant flavour and I wanted the cakes to join in the fun!  They have essence in both cake and icing and some chopped pinepple from a tin through the cake.  The juicy pineapple in the cake is a juicy, zingy surprise and the coconut sprinkled on top adds a pinacolada party atmosphere. 

So, I started off this post saying that I think the essence of baking is sharing.  Well, no one else in the house will eat my pineapple cupcakes.  I think they are too garish for them.  They look like they have come from the 80s!  Well, I was born in 1979 and developed my sense of self in the following decade so I think the 80s rock! Surely if you look at the plate above and you're the only one to go for the screamingly yellow cakes, it means that you're the exciting, vibrant, hip, young thing?  Yes? 

And if I don't have to share them, all the better!

Thanks to Ruth and Baking Addict. xxx

RR 17 - The Middle One.

So after the last Random Recipes challenge where we made the first or last recipe from a randomly selected book, of course we had to have a challenge from Dom to made the middle recipe from a randomly selected book.  Only I didn't see it coming - I really am quite dense sometimes. 

My randomly chosen book this month was Meat by Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-It-All which has 523 pages up to the directory so the middle page is 261.  This is a page of text about slow-cooking. I chose to move forwards to the first recipe in the slow cooking chapter and it was Aromatic Pork Belly Hot Pot.  Mmmm, perfect, I am a huge pork belly fan.

And, luckily, the recipe is here at the BBC.

Lovely recipe - worked perfectly.  Ideal comfort food.  My only gripe with it is that it doesn't have enough vegetables for me to be using this as a regular family meal so next time I'll simply add some bean sprouts or Pak choi or oyster mushrooms to veg it up a bit.  Lovely cheap meal too with the belly pork.

Along similar lines but with pork fillet instead (although you could do a mix of the two recipes if you wanted to use pork belly) is Nigella's Vietnamese Pork Noodle Soup from Kitchen.  It uses a lot more vegetables and is particularly tasty which is probably why Little Macaroon recommended it to me. If you don't have Kitchen, you can find the recipe by googling.

Away to try and figure out what next month's random recipe challenge is going to be.  I haven't a hope!