Assiette of cold cuts and cured meats with Double Gloucester cheese

Thursday, May 24, 2012
This has to be my favourite lunch!
Served with homemade breads & salads
Just found this pic - it was part of a lunch buffet we delivered to Pedington Manor near Berkeley a few weeks ago.
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Lamb shank stargazy pie for a wedding of 150 in Stanway, Gloucestershire

Lamb shank stargazy pie - more than your average wedding party food offering!
You can see why not many peopple serve it - took 14 hours just to put them together with the lamb shanks, veg, gravy and pastry - split between Thursday evening and Friday morning. And that's without all the time cooking 140 lamb shanks & perfecting the sauce and making the pastry before - truly a labour of love. We served these on the table for guests to help themselves with dauphinoise potato, chantenay carrots and roast cauliflower & broccoli with cumin seeds.
140 lamb shanks sealed and ready to cook in red wine - an all night job!

We had 2 pies per table and in the end so busy shifting 30 pies and trays of hot canapes around 2 ovens that we never got pics of the final result - standard. Did get a few burns from all that shifting things round the oven though - getting the pastry browned on all sides meant shifting pies up and down the oven and turning back to front at the same time as getting canapes hot - busy!







The key to wedding catering - count those plates, and then re-count. Then count them again. Salt beef starter plating up.


 Arancini - saffron risotto balls with mozzarella in the middle. Half the guests were Italian, half Scottish - so we had haggis filo tarts there too among the canapés.
Palmiers - sun dried tomato, pesto and black olive
Canapé spoons of smoked haddock topped with welsh rarebit were also a hit!
Wedding cake by Contempory Cake designs in Cheltenham which  we served for dessert with berries and coulis  - like this.
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Breakfast catering in Kiddrminster

From a recent all weekend event in Kidderminster - 6 meals over the weekend for 90 people per time.
Joe In mid-flow - what a helpful guy!

Gloucester old spot/ Berkshire breed cross sausages and bacon from Home Farm in Bredons Norton 6 miles away. Tomatoes from Buckland - just outside Broadway. Organic field mushrooms from Oakland Organic Mushrooms just outside Evesham. Homemade loaves of bread for toasting with jam & my dad's homemade marmalade Can't beat what you can buy locally & make yourself!
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Putting the cup into 'cup'cake - buffet lunch delivery

Sunday, May 20, 2012
Coffee is served! Or is it?
"What's this?" asked the sales exec and receptionist as we started laying out the saucers - we like to do something more than the average lunch buffet.
Coffee and banana cake - in a cup. Adapted from this recipe.
Quite fun no?
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Birthday catering in Bourton on the Water

Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Venice of the Cotswolds - fell in love with Bourton on the Water when I was 7. A model railway shop, model village, Birdland - what more does a boy want? A tea shop for cream meringues? Don't worry - plenty of those too.
Assiette of desserts. It's all about the finishing touches. For the birthday girl there was an added extra - a shotglass of gin and tonic sorbet
 We served this at Foxes Manor in Bourton on the Water last night.
Lamb cutlets - half way through plating up.

Only the best will do! Made the bread rolls it went with fresh at the house too - amazing what you can cram into an hour.

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Apricot and almond madeleines

All ready for an assiette of desserts that @manlyartichokes was serving up. Last thing to be made last Saturday before zooming off to Badminton. The village that is, not the sport. Original recipe from here which I changed slightly.
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Blueberry and orange meringue layer cake

Friday, May 11, 2012
As cakes go - this was quite a winner. Just a shame it was for someone else.......
Originally inspired by this lemon meringue layer cake as I was browsing for ideas, I then found Nigella's recipe as I was flicking through books on the shelf and just adapted that with a cream cheese/ marscapone filling.
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