2012 Bucket List Blog Hop - Review

Back at the start of this year, I started a 2012 Bucket List Blog Hop, with things I would like to achieve during 2012. Personally, I am very pleased with all of my blogging achievements, and personal achievements in 2012. So here they are!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2013!

My Blog Bucket List

Attend a Vegetarian Cookery Course & Utensil Skills Course                                              I was fortunate to attend quite a few cookery events this year, including events with Pizza Express and Total Yoghurt with chef Paul Merrett. Review the Vegetarian menu in Restaurants.                                                         Over the last year I have also reviewed various vegetarian menu's for brands such as Frankie and Benny's, La Tasca and Brasserie Blanc. Go on a blogging travel trip related to Vegetarian food. Interview a Vegetarian Chef/Celebrity. Challenge myself to cook a new dish I have never cooked before every week & cook from my new recipe books. (See below)                                                           Although I didn't manage this every week, I did discover lots of new wonderful vegetarian dishes this year. Attend blogging conventions and meet more lovely bloggers. Check!. Make it into the Tots or Foodies 100 just once. (more wishful thinking!!)                          Well, changing my URL didn't help this one, but perhaps next year! Improve my food photography skills (or buy a better camera) Hopefully my photography skills have improved this year, and I also did some fab food styling sessions too. Learn more HTML. Over the last year I have learnt to speak even more geek!. Perhaps through my blog earn an income, or get more copywriting/freelance writing/Fundraising or PR work so that I can feel less guilty about not having a full time high flying Career. Over the last year I have been developing these skills and have done some small scale work, and I will be furthering this in 2013.

Vegetarian Christmas Dinner 2012 - The Main Event!

This year Hubby and I hosted Christmas Dinner at our house for six adults and two kids. This was a great chance for me to use the linen tableware which so rarely gets an airing in a house where plastic tablecloths are the norm. Although reds, golds and greens are traditionally what bedeck the table at Christmas time, I am quite a fan of white, silver and red, and so I chose this as the 'theme' for my Christmas dinner table.

I think my family may not have forgiven me for not having Turkey on Christmas day, so my Mother-In-Law kindly cooked the turkey and the sausages, leaving me to focus on the veg, potatoes, stuffing, trimmings and of course, my Vegetarian main course.  It took me a while to decide what to cook as a vegetarian main course, but in the end I decided on a Cranberry, Chestnut and Mushroom Pie.

Here's what I cooked for the main event:

Christmas Dinner
Starter
Butternut Squash Soup with Bread Rolls

Main Course
Cranberry, Chestnut and Mushroom Pie  - See Recipe Below
Gingerbread Stuffing (Nigella Lawson's Recipe)
Sage and Onion Stuffing
Roast Potatoes (cooked in vegetable oil and coated in semolina)
Parsnips roasted in Maple Syrup (Nigella Lawson's Recipe)
Carrots
Sprouts
Red Cabbage
Cauliflower Cheese
Vegetarian Gravy
Cranberry Sauce - Nigella Lawson Recipe

I enjoyed cooking the Gingerbread Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce. The Gingerbread Stuffing was really delicious and very easy to make. It contained apple, onion, and orange rind, along with two ginger cakes and egg and milk.

The Parsnips roasted in Maple Syrup made a great change to traditional roasted parsnips which can be quite dry. 

For the Cranberry Sauce I used fresh cranberries, sugar and orange juice, along with a little water. 

Dessert
Christmas Pudding from a local Supplier - Nanna's Christmas Pudding, served with Brandy Sauce.
This Christmas Pudding which I bought at a local food fayre tasted absolutely delicious and was so moist and full of flavour. I would recommend ordering from Nanna's Christmas Pudding's next Christmas!

Cranberry, Chestnut and Mushroom Pie

Here is the recipe for the Cranberry, Chestnut and Mushroom Pie. The mushrooms and chestnuts were mixed together, and the cranberries were cooked in port and sandwiched between the mushroom and chestnut filling, which gave a much richer flavour.

Cranberry, Chestnut and Mushroom Pie. Print this Recipe Ingredients 500g Shortcrust Pastry (made fresh, or shop bought) 45ml Olive Oil 2 medium Onions, chopped 2 Cloves Garlic, crushed 150g Chopped Mushrooms 100ml Red Wine 200g Whole Chestnuts - Vacuum packed, cooked and peeled. 75g Breadcrumbs 100g Fresh Cranberries 50ml Port (optional - you can use water instead) Salt and Pepper Beaten Egg for glazing  Method Make the fresh pastry, refrigerating for 20 minutes before use. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Fry the onion and garlic in some oil for around 5 minutes until the onions start to soften.  Add the mushrooms and fry for a further 3 minutes.  Add the wine to the pan, stir well, and simmer until the wine has evaporated.  Once cooked, remove the mixture from the heat, and add the chestnuts and breadcrumbs to the pan. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. In a separate pan, add the cranberries and simmer in a little port until the cranberries begin to pop. Drain and leave to cool. Brush a pastry dish with oil. On a lightly floured surface, roll out two thirds of the pastry and then line the base and the sides of the tin with pastry.  Place half of the chestnut and mushroom mixture into the dish and smooth over the surface.  Add a layer of cranberries over the top, and then add the rest of the mushroom and chestnut mixture over the top of the cranberries.  Roll out the remaining third of the flour, until there is enough to create a lid for the pie. Place the lid over the top of the pie, remove any excess pastry, and press the sides of the pastry together to seal the lid to the base.  If you like, you can create pastry shapes to top of the pie also. Brush the pie with beaten egg, and cook in the oven  for around thirty minutes. Serve immediately.

Christmas 2012 - Vegetarian Christmas Buffet Food

Over Christmas we enjoyed having friends and family to visit and I enjoyed cooking and preparing lots of delicious vegetarian treats to serve when they arrived. Aside from cooking the main Christmas meal, spending lots of time in the kitchen, Christmas carols on the radio, and cooking up a storm, was a welcome break from pounding the shops and rushing around doing last minute preparations.

Over Christmas we enjoyed various buffets with lots of Vegetarian food. We had a buffet with the parents-in-law on the 23rd of December, after attending a wonderful Carol Service and enjoying some mulled wine. This was followed by another buffet - our traditional candle-lit family buffet on Christmas Eve, with hubby, the kids and I. We light the candle just before 'Carols from Kings' starts. Listening to 'Once In Royal David's City' officially signifies the start of the festivities for me and signifies the start of the buffet for all of us. Christmas day featured the main meal as everyone came to us this year, and this was followed by more buffet food on Boxing Day.

As well as the food I had prepared for our veggie buffets, we also enjoyed lots of different cheeses, some freshly baked bread, cold mini quorn sausages, crisps, cooked onion rings, breaded mushrooms, breaded cheese bites, tex mex bean bites, vegetable spring rolls and scooped out potato skins with various veggie fillings.

Below, are three savoury and three sweet dishes which I cooked and prepared over the Christmas period. All of the pictures were taken mid-preparation or serving, so please excuse the haste. We will be cooking more of these delicious treats for our New Year celebrations too!

Cream Cheese and Cucumber Blinis

Shop Bought (or cut circles out of toasted whole pitta bread with a cutter). You can add Cream Cheese and Cucumber, Hummus and Red Peppers, Goats Cheese and Sun-dried Tomatoes, or any vegetarian filling you fancy!

Delia Smith's Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

After a friend made Delia Smith's Vegetarian Sausage Rolls at our local Vegetarian parents group Christmas Party, I just had to make them for our guests over Christmas as they were absolutely delicious. This recipe, which features cheese, onion, cream and herbs makes a great substitute for sausage  rolls and these Vegetarian Sausage Rolls were loved by vegetarian and carnivores alike!

Nigel Slater's Stilton Puffs

When I saw these Stilton Puffs featured on Nigel Slater's twelve tastes of Christmas, I couldn't resist making them, as they are so simple to make but taste as though a lot of time and effort has gone into them. I was not left disappointed as they were well loved by family and friends. I left out the Parmesan topping.

Nigella Lawson's Christmas Rocky Road

This Christmas Rocky Road  recipe by Nigella Lawson is a firm favourite in our house and is cooked at Christmas time and throughout the year. I just love the ingredients - the ameretti biscuits, the cherries and the marshmallows. I cooked this with youngest and we had a great time melting the chocolate and mixing everything together!

Nigella's Sticky Gingerbread 

This Sticky Gingerbread recipe which features in Nigella's Christmas book is another favourite in our house - especially with Hubby who loves it with a hot drink. Featuring lots of black treacle and golden syrup, this recipe looks like molten lava when it goes into the oven, but forms a sticky gingerbread sponge as it cooks. Cooking the gingerbread also leaves the whole house smelling absolutely amazing!

Mince Pies

Inspired by Paul Hollywood in the Great British Bake Off Christmas Special, This is how I made my mincemeat: Mix a jar of mincemeat together with 100g cranberries, two satsuma's - segments cut in half, and one apple, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces. Mix all together and add a little brandy (or orange juice) to the mix. For the pastry, instead of adding salt, add a 1/2 tsp sugar to the mix to make the pastry a little sweeter, and make shortcrust pastry as usual with flour, butter and water. I cut stars out of the pastry to top the Mince Pies and brushed them with beaten egg before they went into the oven. I much prefer these to topping the whole of the pie with pastry as I love being able to see the filling.

So there you are, that's what I cooked over Christmas. How about you? What are your favourite Vegetarian Christmas recipes?

Hotel Chocolat "Rather Large Cracker" - Review

In the run up to Christmas, it's always lovely to receive Christmas-related products to review. Hotel Chocolat kindly sent us their "Extra Large Cracker"  to review recently. When this product was delivered, I felt a small skip of joy at receiving something so exciting.

Upon opening up the packaging, I was greeted with what has to be the largest cracker I have ever seen! The Hotel Chocolat Extra Large Cracker is beautifully presented, with silver gilded decorations on a white background, and ribbons wrapped around each end - it looks really inviting and really decadent.

The Hotel Chocolat Rather Large Cracker would make a great centre piece on the Christmas dinner table, and it is a brilliant alternative to traditional crackers as it contains 12 party hats and jokes, and 40 Chocolates - so as well as working your way through some delicious well-crafted chocolates, you are also saving on extra Christmas Rubbish by only having one cracker made of card which is recyclable - so the environment wins too with this product!

All of the 40 chocolates contained within the cracker are Vegetarian. The chocolates include Champagne Truffles, pralines, and caramels, Christmas Mess, Mulled Wine, and alcoholic and non alcoholic chocolates. My personal favourite was the champagne truffle - absolutely delicious, but I also loved all of the other chocolates as they were so well made and the quality of the chocolate was outstanding.

This Cracker is a fantastic product that I would thoroughly recommend for Christmas, especially if you are entertaining over the Christmas period. The Hotel Chocolat Extra Large Cracker retails at £38 and is available in-store and online.

Disclosure: Product offered in consideration for review.

Brasserie Blanc St Albans - Review

Recently, the St Albans based bloggers were kindly invited to visit Brasserie Blanc, which opened recently in St Albans. Best known for his restaurant The Manoir, Raymond Blanc has created Brasserie Blanc - an eatery which offers relaxed, informal, local dining, and which features delicious, reasonably priced seasonal high quality food.

Apart from their brand suppliers, Brasserie Blanc use locally sourced food, from local producers - which is great for local business, and as a consumer, it is great to know that your custom is supporting businesses locally.

We were kindly welcomed by the manager and introduced to the set menu - which changes each month and features seasonal food. The set menu runs until 7pm and in St Albans, features two courses for £11.50 and three courses for £13.95 (prices vary between venues).

The Vegetarian's had a choice of two starters - Beetroot and Watercress Salad, and Gnocchi with Jervaux Blue Cheese and Celery. Vegetarian main course was Shirred Eggs with sauteed Muscat Pumpkin and Gruyere Cheese, served with a Green Salad. For dessert, I chose Weiss Chocolate Mousse served with Coarse Chocolate Crumble.

Starter
To me, salad is never an acceptable winter starter and so I chose the Gnocchi with Jervaux Blue Cheese and Celery. When it arrived, I noticed it contained raw apple slices, and as they make up quite a bit of the dish, I would have liked to have known about this as this type of raw apple is really not my thing. That said, I really enjoyed the gnocchi and the jervaux cheese, and I loved the celery - I have only ever had raw celery and the taste really changes when you cook it and makes it much more palatable. I really enjoyed this dish and was impressed with the quality of the ingredients used and the presentation. This dish was also really different to anything I have seen on a menu as a vegetarian starter previously, and so it was great to eat something fresh, different and creative.

Main Course

For main course I ordered the only vegetarian choice available - Shirred Eggs with sauteed Muscat Pumpkin and Gruyere Cheese, served with Green Salad. Now, one of my bug bears when I go out is that the vegetarian choice is always served with salad. My fellow bloggers were tucking into their main courses served with lashings of mash potato or potato salad, and all of their main course portions were considerably larger than the vegetarian choice. The main course itself - the Shirred Eggs were really delicious - although a peculiar choice for a main course after the gnocchi, and had I chosen salad for starters, I would have been presented with another salad for main course - so I would have liked the vegetarian starters and main course to complement each other. I can't fault the Shirred Eggs, and I loved the pumpkin which was really well cooked. However, I ended up asking for some bread as the eggs were just to rich to eat on their own, and the green salad was really bland and tasteless, so I would have liked something with the Shirred Eggs that made them a bit more palatable, and didn't make me feel like I had drawn the short straw for being vegetarian - as my dish looked nowhere near as spectacular or substantial as all of the other main course choices. 

Dessert

My dessert choice was Weiss Chocolate Mousse served with Coarse Chocolate Crumble. As the "Weiss" would suggest - I was expecting a white chocolate mousse, however, what's not to love about chocolate - however it comes! The Chocolate mousse tasted really... well.. chocolatey and was very smooth, rich and full of flavour. This was a great dessert and a great finish to the meal. I would definitely recommend!

I really enjoyed my visit to Brasserie Blanc St Albans. The restaurant is really well fitted out and was extremely clean - something I am a stickler for. I also liked the ambience which felt really relaxed, informal and unpretentious. I loved the open kitchen style where you can see the chef's cooking - this added to the welcoming environment. The staff were all extremely polite and the service was impeccable - something which is hard to come by these days in many restaurants. Our food was served very promptly and came as it should - with the hot dishes being hot out of the kitchen and looking fresh as though they had been served straight away.

However, I really do think that the vegetarian choice needs to be addressed at Brasserie Blanc St Albans. I was not overly impressed with my main course being served with a bland, tasteless green salad and this month's set menu vegetarian choice is also served with green salad.  I also note that the vegetarian main course choice for the Christmas season is Pumpkin Risotto. I would be extremely unhappy if I turned up to eat at the restaurant and paid £26.50 for three courses, only to find that the vegetarian option was Pumpkin Risotto with no other accompaniments..... whilst the meat and fish eaters dined on much more substantial main courses served with an array of accompaniments. To me, risotto is an absolute no no as a vegetarian main course - it's more of an acceptable dish for a pasta/rice course than for a main course. The vegetarians are being severely short changed by being served risotto when the main courses must be costing twice that for the meat and fish eaters but the vegetarians are paying the same price and getting much less of a meal. It's a real shame that the vegetarian main course choices are perhaps overlooked whilst the rest of the menu is so exciting and appetising.

I would choose to eat here again, but only if I had checked the menu online first to see whether the vegetarian choice was something I wanted to eat as so far from what I have seen, the vegetarian menu is more miss than hit - which is a shame as I loved every other aspect of the restaurant and I think that it is a great addition to the St Albans restaurant scene.

Thanks to Heidi for organising our visit, and to Brasserie Blanc for hosting us.

Disclosure: Our meal was offered in consideration of review