Divine white chocolate with strawberries

July 31, 2008 By Leave a Comment

DivineWCS_04 Two of my favourite things in this world are chocolate and strawberries; on their own and together, I find them impossible to resist. At a friend’s wedding not so long ago, I got so excited about the chocolate fountain (with strawberries for dipping), that I nearly fell in!

This love of mine is no secret and recently I was given a truly divine gift… white chocolate with strawberries. This was no ordinary bar of chocolate, it was a Divine bar of chocolate and I held it like it was something form Willy Wonker’s chocolate factory! The wrapper is so beautiful, I very carefully removed it and I’ve kept it, for what, I don’t really know but I couldn’t bare to throw it away!

I have to admit white chocolate is not my first preference, sometimes it can be a little too sickly but combined with the strawberries, it wasn’t too sweet at all. This chocolate is so creamy it reminded me of a strawberry and vanilla milkshake or icecream. The strawberry bits are crispy and they add a great contrast to the creaminess of the chocolate. I was in chocolate heaven with every mouthful!

I can’t fault Divine, they may not be at the very pinnacle of the chocolate kingdom but their heart is 100% in the right place. Their chocolate is fairtrade, which means a fair deal for the cocoa farmers in Ghana and I get to feel a little less guilty!

Usually, chocolate lasts very little time in this house but this chocolate bar is now living in the fridge and I’m rationing, it is sooo good! If you haven’t tried it yet, go get some, treat yourself! It’s divine!

DivineWCS_01

Filed Under: Sweets & Desserts

The 2008 Great Taste Award Gold winners are announced

July 30, 2008 By 1 Comment

GreatTaste2008 This morning, the much anticipated Gold winners of the Great Taste Awards were announced. The awards, which are organised by the Guild of Fine Food and often referred to as the Oscars of the food industry are celebrating their 15th anniversary this year. From 4753 products entered into the scheme this year, the vast majority of gold award winners were from smaller producers who source local ingredients and manufacture in small batches, generally by hand. A total of 1124 products were awarded gold this year, most receiving a one-star grading for their general excellence in taste, texture and flavour. 220 were given two stars and just 72 out of the 4753 entries were awarded the coveted three gold stars – a mark that the expert judges considered them faultless.

A Great Taste Award is the authoritative, independent standard for Britain’s fine food sector: more and more consumers recognise the gold & black logo as the benchmark for independently proven fine food. However, winning a coveted Great Taste Award is much more than recognition for excellence; it is one of the most powerful tools to help grow business in the speciality food sector.

Bob Farrand of the Guild of Fine Food, said: “These awards have been running for 15 years now and are a recognised mark of excellence that consumers can trust and rely on. The winning products have been through a thorough judging process and we are able to assure consumers that the Great Taste Award logo, which all award winners can use, signifies genuine, proven fine food. This is not some supermarket premium marketing slogan that bears almost no relation to the quality of the food in the packet. Every food awarded a gold has been through three layers of judging and to achieve three stars, the foods have been tasted on at least six occasions by a total of 22 experts. The Great Taste Awards is the most accurate reflection of what is really happening with the finest food and drink available in fine food halls, delicatessens and farm shops throughout the UK.’

The awards generate huge business for those who achieve gold standard. In just three weeks last September, the excitement created by the 2007 results increased sales to the tune of £640,000 in 524 Guild members’ stores. Over the past five years, they have generated over £2.6 million additional sales and 19,900 new listings. Last year’s Supreme Champion winner was a free-range pork pie from Walter Smith’s butchers in Birmingham. Before Walter Smith’s won the Supreme Champion award, pork pies made up less than 1% of their sales. They now represent over 10% and their pies are sold through Selfridges.

The Great Taste Awards judging standards, devised and monitored by the Guild of Fine Food, are the most rigorous in the UK. Everything is blind tasted by at least three teams of experts and all the judges’ comments are made available to producers. If no gold is awarded, they need to know how their foods could be improved.

The three-star Gold award winning foods were judged again last week for a fourth time by a Supreme Panel of 12 illustrious foodies, including Mark Hix, the chefs chef, Alex James, farmer, journalist, author and bass player with Blur, food critic Charles Campion, BBC Radio 2’s Nigel Barden, Tom Parker Bowles and national journalist Fiona Sims. The panel selected this year’s major award winners, including the Supreme Champion 2008, which will be announced at Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, London, on Monday 8th September.

The list of winners is enormous, so if you would like a copy, please let me know and I can send it to you directly.

Filed Under: Events

Big Barn the local food website

July 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment

BigBarn The Big Barn website is an essential tool if you want to find local producers. Not only do they have a fantastic search resource, they also have a wealth of information regarding what’s in season and gorgeous recipes to match.

Big Barn’s mission is to help rebuild local food supply chains across the UK and reduce our reliance on the all powerful supermarkets. Our country produces some of the best food in the world, from Cornish Yarg to Arbroath Smokies; the scene is as rich as it is diverse. Buying local shouldn’t be a once-in-a-while thing, it should be for every day, it should be part of the fabric of life again.

To help achieve this mission, the Big Barn map shows you where your alternatives are. Just enter your postcode in the ‘Find Your Local Producers’ box and you’ll see a map of your area with all your producers listed on it as icons. With that information, you’re the one with the power!

BigBarnMap

Of course eating local food, in season, is not just about an ethical crusade. It’s about enjoying a far superior quality of food. Making buying, preparing and eating food an important and enjoyable part of every day life. Big Barn wants to help, even in a small way, to bring about the changes they so passionately believe in.

If you want these changes too, then the best thing you can do, apart from starting to use the information you find on BigBarn, is to register on the website. Simply by giving your email address and your postcode, you’re making a massive difference. With that information, producers in your area can see how many people there are that want to buy their food locally. Big Barn shows them the demand, they show you the supply. It’s that simple.

I can’t recommend BigBarn enough! Take a look at the website and register for the monthly newsletter too, it’s full of great info and features producers in your local area.

Filed Under: Books

Plum baby food

July 30, 2008 By 1 Comment

Plum Plum is one of my food heroes; I love their recipes, everything the company stands for and the founder Susie Willis gave us some wonderful insights when I interviewed her a few months back.

Now, Plum is back on the Eating Britain menu with a great range suitable for seven months plus. The varieties have been created to keep up with the insatiable appetite of the nation’s babies who are asking for more (confirmed by parents at a series of consumer research panels!).

All the recipes have been created by Susie Willis, using carefully selected organic ingredients, celebrated for their nutrient rich content, to create simple, wholesome, delicious recipes. They are perfectly balanced to satisfy a growing baby’s protein and energy requirements and have a unique ‘fork mash’ texture that can encourage babies to chew and make the step towards self-feeding.

There are three varieties which I asked a few of my yummy mummy friends (and their babies!) to review for Eating Britain.

Red Cabbage with Apple and Chicken

Organically reared chicken is combined with juicy apples and red cabbage to deliver a wonderful blend of sweet and savoury flavours. Parents who lacked time or confidence to prepare food using these ingredients requested this recipe.

Spinach with Salmon and Parsnip

Salmon is a firm favourite with parents who view it as a key superfood, rich in essential fatty acids and omega 3. There is currently only a limited choice for mums looking for fish dishes and this innovative recipe combines fish with a wonderful root vegetable and nutrient dense green leaf for a taste and texture sensation that will satisfy growing appetites.

Parsnip, Carrot and Cheddar Mash

Cheddar mash with superfood root vegetables offers an exciting vegetarian meal with a true homemade flavour and texture that appeals to babies and toddlers alike.

Available as convenient, ready-to-eat, re-sealable pots from Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, and Boots. RRP £2.29 / £2.49 in twin packs of 2 x 100g.

PlumBaby

I asked my friends to consider the following when feeding their babies with the Plum Baby foods:

  • Packaging and portability
  • Taste, colour and texture
  • The organic nature of the ingredients
  • Price

One of my friend’s babies refuses to eat anything that isn’t home made, causing a lot of extra pressure on his mum, who understandably was far from enthusiastic about trying these Plum dishes. But she said she’d give it a try, so I gave her some samples and a few days later she asked “Where can I buy more?!”. Her baby absolutely loved them!

The yummy mummies really liked the clear information on the packaging and found the pots very easy to take anywhere. In particular, they felt the lids meant a lot less mess.

All the babies loved the flavours and their mums thought they tasted good too! They were particularly impressed with the ‘adult’ nature of the dishes which contain herbs and spices, and are not bland at all – “very refreshing to see”. The babies and mums really liked the texture as it wasn’t too smooth.

The organic ingredients were extremely important to some mums, as they are trying to feed their babies with only organic foods. But one mum in particular was just happy that her baby ate them, whether they were organic or not was not the most important issue to her.

All the mums said that they applauded the whole ethos behind producing a really fantastic baby food of extremely high quality, but they just wished the price was a little more reasonable. That said, they also said the foods were fairly priced considering the quality of the ingredients and the thought that had gone into producing a completely nutritionally balanced meal.

Overall, these Plum Baby foods were a roaring success with all the little plums that tasted them.

For more information about Plum Baby, take a look at their wonderful website.

Thank you very much to all the yummy mummies and their little plums for taking part in this review.

Filed Under: Featured, Kids, Organic

A healthier Bernard Matthews?

July 29, 2008 By 1 Comment

Turkey When it comes to processed foods, I have to admit, I am a bit of a snob! I grew up almost entirely on a home-cooked diet including very few processed foods. It wasn’t even a choice, that’s just the way things were in my family and that lifestyle continues with me now.

As a result, I have always viewed processed food with suspicion, chemically enhanced, un-natural and un-healthy – a fairly narrow-minded view I know. However, things are changing, food processing companies are now conceding to public opinion and concerns for more healthy foods. After all, it’s simply a question of supply and demand; the public is demanding healthy, un-tainted foods and these companies risk loosing business (and money!) if they don’t supply what their consumers want.

One company that has suffered a lot from consumer disapproval is Bernard Matthews the iconic turkey processors . Following the criticism of Turkey Twizzlers in Jamie Oliver’s campaign for better school dinners and an outbreak of bird flu hit its Norfolk farms in 2007, the company has seen serious drops in sales.

As part of the company’s business recovery plan, Bernard Matthews said that it will relaunch the brand, creating a new healthier image that will be supported by a series of new product launches.

From September, the new products will be made with 100% British turkey and only natural ingredients; there will be no artificial colours and flavours, and the products will contain lower levels of saturated fats and salt.

Bernard Matthews is also extending it’s free range turkey line and introducing a new frozen product range that is billed as healthy and convenient. Called Big Green Tick, it aims to be marked green on the UK’s Guideline Daily Amounts nutritional labelling scheme.

So, it seems we can look forward to a healthier Bernard Matthews range. It is difficult to alter a bad reputation once it has been earned and I honestly don’t think I will be rushing out to buy Bernard Mathews products. But it is satisfying to know that the consumer is being listened to, especially when their concerns are 100% warranted.

Filed Under: Meat
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