Wedding catering near Ross on Wye and Great Whitcombe near Gloucester

At the end of May we catered for a wedding near Ross on Wye where the groom ran a farm in his spare time and had kept one of his Highland cows for his own wedding. A few months on it was his son's turn to get married and we used the same beef (some cuts which weren't used last time were frozen) to make matador pie.

Smoked salmon terrine starter - what a classic

Matador pie with grilled butternut squash, rocket, feta and pommegranate salad and new potatoes with chives.

Meanwhile..... over in Great Whitcombe near the Roman villa we were cooking for a wedding of 141 on another farm.

Going for the healthy option. The bride and groom had requested crudites and homemade breadsticks with hoummous and dips.

Grilled mohito prawns with marinated vegetable salad - from our James Bond theme night.

Halloumi wrapped in fresh vine leaves (the came from Dove Cottage in Broadway) - an idea from MsMarmitelover at Camp Bestival.

4 whole roast lambs from Home Farm, Bredons Norton. Started carving in the catering marquee here while the guests were eating the starter and the rest of the team plated up the accompanying salads before wheeling up one of the roasting machines to the marquee to carve in front of the guests. This always adds a bit of theatre, and that way you can see it is whole lamb.

2 lambs on one roasting machine

Some of the wedding guests provided half of the desserts - they brought along their own homemade cakes. A couple of them needed a little finishing off - like this one. We were in charge of the strawberries and cream (such a popular wedding choice) which accompanied it.

SS - Susie and Sam, your bride and groom!

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Hire a barbecue chef for a wedding

Wow 3 weddings in a week? This feels like it was about 2 months ago, but apparently it was just 6 days ago. Everyone loves a Tuesday wedding (good excuse for a day off work) and what can be more relaxed than getting all your friends and family to a holiday cottage and cooking up a barbecue?

The bride for this wedding happened to work at M&S so provided all the food as well as organising the whole event herself - with help on the day before and on the day from an army of friends & family volunteers. So all that was left for us to do was turn up with the barbecue and get cooking!

Bouncy castle in the background for the kids - great idea. For the bigger 'kids' too.

Their own cupcakes being finished while we set up their salad buffet

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Flower power!

So if you saw someone stopped in the middle of the road on a country lane near Bath one night after 11pm in June at full moon picking flowers using his van headlights - it might just probably have been me.

I got a good two bags of elderflowers that night - the bag above was one of them, just saw them shining in the headlights on the side of the road and had to stop. As you do. There's no time to waste in this business.

After soaking in water they lasted (along with another couple of bag's worth picked along the old railway in Tewkesbury) a good two months worth of parties & weddings for elderflower poached salmon / chicken (see more of that here: http://www.thecotswoldfoodyear.com/2007/06/chicken-in-elderflower.html)

Also in June we did a few parties at Upper Court, and it seemed wrong not to use the flowers in their kitchen garden. A month previously it had been the chive flowers that had gone on the dishes we made, now it was the turn of the sage and mint flowers which were abundant at that time - taste amazing too!

Spinach, herby cream cheese and smoked trout roulade canape - with flower.

Sage flowers on strawberry meringue roulade

Sage flowers also on tirimisu

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Grilled scallops with nettle and chorizo risotto and nettle pesto

So in after a couple of days cooking at Camp Bestival with Ms Marmitelover it was back up the M5 from Dorset to cook for this wedding and set up 4 other events, before heading back down to Dorset at 5am on Sunday morning - busy.

The risotto is made with pearl barley rather than rice - adapted a recipe from here.

There's lots more photos from this event on the facebook album here: Wedding 30 July 2011. Forgot to take pics of the canapes though - so much going on.

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