So I have been ridiculously slack at writing a blog at which i apologise! Life just seems so, well, busy. The outside catering has taken off with lots of weddings booked in for this year. I love the process of meeting people and discussing their event. Understanding what it is that people want and being able to create that for them is such a brilliant way to spend your day. I love seeing their ideas come to life as the big set-up on the day before arrives and the whole venue comes together to look fantastic. One of our favourite venues is www.kirknewtonestate.co.uk and it is an old stable block that has been created to form a stunning but very simple room. Their are big french windows opening out into the most incredibly large walled garden that have fruit trees fanning the walls, rose bushes clambering through the hedges and chickens strutting about. Our first wedding of the season is for one of my favourite people in the world, my lovely friend Davina and of course her fella, Ewan. We had a very good site visit out there looking at all the different things that she could do, how to decorate, where the tables would go, what the flowers would be like. They have some fab ideas and I can't wait to put up the pics of it after the big day!
Last weekend was pretty busy with 4 functions on in total on Saturday. One was for a private hire of the restaurant for a friend's hen do which seemed to work well. If you didn't know you can have the restaurant free of charge on a Friday or Saturday night, BYOB and with a menu to suit yourselves. We also had on a big charity function for a lovely couple who were raising funds for Brain Tumour http://braintumourtrust.co.uk/helping-us/groups/cameron-buchanan-friends-of-sdbtt-group/. They managed to raise a trememdous amount due to lots of hard work and organisation. The supper dance was held at the Walpole Hall in Edinburgh where they had a feast of Moroccan Chicken, Roasted Vegetable Tagine, Cous Cous followed by Ice Cream (which was generously donated by Mackies Ice Cream - YUM!).
I spent today down in the basement tapping away on the computer and have finally managed to cobble together a page for our website - it has only taken 3.5 years!!! There will be a far more professional one on the way but until then you can find us at www.annabellescatering.biz.
Anyway for anyone that read our previous posts you will have seen that we had done some food for the BBC for a series called Pramface. Well it has finally aired! Our chowder was on the TV for the world to see! Admittedly it was only for a few seconds but it was there, as well as my lovely Le Creuset Pot and my ladle from home!!
Anyway I promise to be more techno friendly now that I have a new website and a new computer (arriving shortly!) so I can actually be good at this updating malarky....recipe to follow shortly!
Thursday 15 March 2012
Friday 24 June 2011
This week at the shop....
So we have had another busy week in our little kitchen. Private dinners, cake baking, lunches for the our regular clients every day and some more TV work and of course lots of meetings! Julia created some beautiful cupcakes this week for one of our regulars with lots of lovely butter icing piled up high. So very pretty and of course we had to test them! It is a requirement in our kitchen to taste test everything, it's a hard life sometimes :)
The food styling work this week was making a fish chowder for the same programme that we worked on last week. TV work involves a lot of waiting around as I found out. The team from the BBC work so hard and their eye for detail is incredible. The set guys were all lovely and helpful and made sure that I wasn't in the way in the filming process. They have to make sure that they have enough food for numerous ( and i mean numerous!!) takes and that the background and props all stay in the same location, drinks are at the same levels, bread basket has the same number of slices in it etc. Attention to detail is very high. I really enjoyed watching it all take place and hopefully it is something that we can do again in the future. I bought myself a food styling book this week to have a little look at what all the tricks of the trade are - it is 400 pages long so a fair bit of bedtime reading for me!!
We have a big group in for lunch in the shop today and we have some tasty dishes on. A lovely big fruit tart with local strawberries on it, crisp meringues and chocolate brownies for pudding. Smoked haddock chowder, baked squash with pinenuts, spices and raisins; a roasted leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic and Spanish chicken stew are some of the tasty main courses on. Pop in if you are passing and try some of our tasty delights.
I am off up to Arrochar at the weekend and looking forward to sampling some of the seafood up there. Apparently there are a couple of really good local restaurants / pubs which do excellent food so I can't wait to tuck in. I thought that I would share with you our Asian Salmon recipe - this is massively popular with my friends and can be done on the bbq or in the oven:
Side of salmon, skin on.
Lime cut into quarters
Lemongrass - 2 stalks
Chilli - 2 depending on how hot you like it
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger - 2 " cube
Soy - 3 Tbsp
Sesame Oil - 1 Tbsp
Thai Fish Sauce - 2 Tsps
Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce - 1 Tbsp (use honey if you don't want too much spice)
Coriander (Fresh)
Orange Juice - 2 Tbsp
Lots of silver foil
Rip off 2 large sheets of foil and place one horizontally and one vertically across each other (to form a cross as it were). Place the salmon in the middle and pull the sides up slightly to form an edge to stop the juices escaping. Roughly chop the garlic, chilli and ginger and throw over the salmon. Squeeze the lime juice over and bash up the lemongrass up and pop it in too. Pour all the juices on too and add a chunk of butter if you would like. Keep the coriander seperate as we will use it after the salmon comes out. Wrap the foil up tightly at the top to allow the salmon to steam in the oven/ on the bbq. Pop it in the over at about 180* / 200* and cook for about 20 mins. You may need to open the foil up to finish off the cooking - make sure it is pale pink ontop and cooked through. To serve, sprinkle over the fresh coriander and serve with the juices in the foil. It is lovely with noodles or rice. Enjoy!
The food styling work this week was making a fish chowder for the same programme that we worked on last week. TV work involves a lot of waiting around as I found out. The team from the BBC work so hard and their eye for detail is incredible. The set guys were all lovely and helpful and made sure that I wasn't in the way in the filming process. They have to make sure that they have enough food for numerous ( and i mean numerous!!) takes and that the background and props all stay in the same location, drinks are at the same levels, bread basket has the same number of slices in it etc. Attention to detail is very high. I really enjoyed watching it all take place and hopefully it is something that we can do again in the future. I bought myself a food styling book this week to have a little look at what all the tricks of the trade are - it is 400 pages long so a fair bit of bedtime reading for me!!
We have a big group in for lunch in the shop today and we have some tasty dishes on. A lovely big fruit tart with local strawberries on it, crisp meringues and chocolate brownies for pudding. Smoked haddock chowder, baked squash with pinenuts, spices and raisins; a roasted leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic and Spanish chicken stew are some of the tasty main courses on. Pop in if you are passing and try some of our tasty delights.
I am off up to Arrochar at the weekend and looking forward to sampling some of the seafood up there. Apparently there are a couple of really good local restaurants / pubs which do excellent food so I can't wait to tuck in. I thought that I would share with you our Asian Salmon recipe - this is massively popular with my friends and can be done on the bbq or in the oven:
Side of salmon, skin on.
Lime cut into quarters
Lemongrass - 2 stalks
Chilli - 2 depending on how hot you like it
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger - 2 " cube
Soy - 3 Tbsp
Sesame Oil - 1 Tbsp
Thai Fish Sauce - 2 Tsps
Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce - 1 Tbsp (use honey if you don't want too much spice)
Coriander (Fresh)
Orange Juice - 2 Tbsp
Lots of silver foil
Rip off 2 large sheets of foil and place one horizontally and one vertically across each other (to form a cross as it were). Place the salmon in the middle and pull the sides up slightly to form an edge to stop the juices escaping. Roughly chop the garlic, chilli and ginger and throw over the salmon. Squeeze the lime juice over and bash up the lemongrass up and pop it in too. Pour all the juices on too and add a chunk of butter if you would like. Keep the coriander seperate as we will use it after the salmon comes out. Wrap the foil up tightly at the top to allow the salmon to steam in the oven/ on the bbq. Pop it in the over at about 180* / 200* and cook for about 20 mins. You may need to open the foil up to finish off the cooking - make sure it is pale pink ontop and cooked through. To serve, sprinkle over the fresh coriander and serve with the juices in the foil. It is lovely with noodles or rice. Enjoy!
Monday 20 June 2011
Annabelle's
Well we have had a busy few weeks at the restaurant. Everyone in the kitchen has been working their socks off!! Last week we had a wedding, a funeral, 90th birthday party, 60th birthday party, 5 different dinner parties oh and catering for the BBC!
The work for the BBC was something new that I had never done before. Apparently it is called Food Styling and it opened my eyes to a whole new area within the food industry. It was such fun to create these beautiful canapes with twists and curls, making the colours really stand out and then photographing it to appear on our blog and our up and coming website. They were obviously happy with our work as they called back and asked us to set up for another scene, which is very exciting indeed!! 7am tomorrow, bright and breezy on set. It has got my brain ticking over though. I love working with food, I love meeting the people that I work with and I love creating new recipes. I also love my new camera which takes some pretty amazing photos. Combining the two elements together is something that i had never really thought of before and something that definitely requires a little more investigation!
More importantly though I have 3 different quotes to do for weddings, 2 meetings this afternoon to prepare for and orders for the work that we have on this week. I am going to try to pop down a few recipes here and there for folk to try and I thought that I would start with our lovely Cheese Scones:
12oz Self Raising Flour
5 oz Grated Cheese
1 tsp of Chilli Powder
2 tsp of Mustard Powder
A pinch of Salt
1 tbsp of sunflower oil
1 egg1/4 pint of milk (roughly to add)
If you are using a food processor the pop all the dry ingredients in and then add the egg and oil whilst the machine is on a low speed. Pop it up a notch and then slowly add the milk. You may need all of it or just some but you want the mix to come together to form a ball. If you are doing this by hand rub the cheese and flour in together. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and then, using a wooden spoon, add in the egg, oil and milk to form a dough. Pat the mix out onto a floured surface to about 1 - 1.5" thick. This mix should cut out about 5 or 6 scones. Pop onto a baking tray and glaze with milk. Into the oven for 15 - 20 mins at 190*c. They should come out lightly golden browned - enjoy with a cuppa and the morning papers!
The work for the BBC was something new that I had never done before. Apparently it is called Food Styling and it opened my eyes to a whole new area within the food industry. It was such fun to create these beautiful canapes with twists and curls, making the colours really stand out and then photographing it to appear on our blog and our up and coming website. They were obviously happy with our work as they called back and asked us to set up for another scene, which is very exciting indeed!! 7am tomorrow, bright and breezy on set. It has got my brain ticking over though. I love working with food, I love meeting the people that I work with and I love creating new recipes. I also love my new camera which takes some pretty amazing photos. Combining the two elements together is something that i had never really thought of before and something that definitely requires a little more investigation!
More importantly though I have 3 different quotes to do for weddings, 2 meetings this afternoon to prepare for and orders for the work that we have on this week. I am going to try to pop down a few recipes here and there for folk to try and I thought that I would start with our lovely Cheese Scones:
12oz Self Raising Flour
5 oz Grated Cheese
1 tsp of Chilli Powder
2 tsp of Mustard Powder
A pinch of Salt
1 tbsp of sunflower oil
1 egg1/4 pint of milk (roughly to add)
If you are using a food processor the pop all the dry ingredients in and then add the egg and oil whilst the machine is on a low speed. Pop it up a notch and then slowly add the milk. You may need all of it or just some but you want the mix to come together to form a ball. If you are doing this by hand rub the cheese and flour in together. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and then, using a wooden spoon, add in the egg, oil and milk to form a dough. Pat the mix out onto a floured surface to about 1 - 1.5" thick. This mix should cut out about 5 or 6 scones. Pop onto a baking tray and glaze with milk. Into the oven for 15 - 20 mins at 190*c. They should come out lightly golden browned - enjoy with a cuppa and the morning papers!
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