American Independence Day 4th July garden party near Tewkesbury

Your golden wedding? Why not make a weekend of it! Especially when guests fly in from around the world. For this event a lot of their friends came over from the states, and as the Friday night also happened to be the 4th of July they all suggested an Independence day American themed party, and the American contingent came up with the menu choices too.....
This was another event with the Tewkesbury town band playing. Of course we had to start with the USA national anthem!

As always it was busy setting in the marquee and we didn't get quite as many pics as we would have liked - there's always next year.....

Barbecue Style Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese Dip
"I didn't know buffalo had wings - I thought they were like cows...." Yes this did really happen #facepalm.

Zucchini Parmesan Crisps with Guacamole and Salsa - brief glimpse above cut from another pic. Went very fast. Makes a great snack too!

Grilled Shrimp with Cilantro Sauce

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All American Classic Cheese Burgers & Vegetarian Mushroom and Boston Bean Burgers
With a kettle barbecue after you have barbecued the burgers you can put the cheese on, put them on a tray and close the lid. That way the cheese melts on top without dripping and you still have your barbecue flavour.  Burgers and sausages below from Martins Meats.

Sticky Ribs with Sour Cream and Chive Dip

Barbecue Sage Hot Dogs & Vegetarian Sausages with Corn Relish
Great plates, no? We also had stars & stripes napkins and tablecloth from the USA food store in London.

Pulled Pork with Jerk Sauce

This got all the guys going! Slow cooked in our special marinade in the oven for 10 hours, then finished on the barbecue. Then you can literally pull it to pieces. What's not to love?

all served with;

Buns, Ketchup, Mustard, Pickles, Relish and Mayonnaise

and

Sweet Potato Fries

Red, White and Blueberry Coleslaw

Black Bean Salad

Honey Mustard Potato Salad

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Traditional Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream (complete with stars & stripes!)

Key Lime Cheesecake

Blackberry Pie and Vanilla Ice Cream

The lavender was in full flower in the Upper Court garden so it seemed wrong not to use it. Also added these USA flag wafers for that 4th July touch!

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Tea and Coffee with Red, White and Blue Strawberries

(A work in progress these....)

After this it was on to their Saturday lunch buffet and all the other Saturday events - long live summer!

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Dear Anton (and everyone at Benson's!)

Yesterday (Thursday), we eventually said 'goodbye' to the last of our guests - 2 Americans and 3 Barbadians so I can breathe.....which is more than your staff managed to do last week-end!

Everyone was truly wonderful and we want to say a great big 'thank you' to all of you.  Gill, as 'front-of-house' manager on both dates did a wonderful job in organising your staff but also was great with our guests (and the audio-visual equipment!).

Although James obviously does not like the 'limelight' he clearly had everything/everyone under control behind the scenes on 4th and 5th and the events were so enjoyed by everyone.  Universal comments about all the food - how delicious; wonder where that recipe came from?; really wonderful!

A lot of our 'local guests' (about 30% of the total group) asked us for your details so I hope you are not busier than ever.  James and Gill must be totally exhausted if all their summer week-ends are timetabled as this last???!!

Thank you so much again and do hope your move to Gloucester goes well next week.

With all kind regards   Marguerite and Brian Harris

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Wedding catering in Bishops Cleeve Tithe Barn, near Cheltenham

Ten months in the making and today was finally the day!

Trio of desserts: dark chocolate torte topped with raspberries, shotglass of eton mess and raspberry mojito sorbet 

Bishops Cleeve tythe barn. It was renovated and refitted a few years back and now makes a great space for a wedding. The hall looks new, fresh and bright - a lot of other venues could do with the same treatment!

Tewkesbury town band played the wedding couple in to the wedding reception. We saw them at a few events this year - great sound! 

Found these cocktail skewers for the canapé mini burgers in homemade carrot and cumin buns - perfect for a wedding

Also found a couple of perspex stands for the canapé beer battered fish and chip cones - looks much better when you hand them round!

Main course was chicken, parma ham, cherry tomato and basil pie - sadly no pics of that. With 2 kitchens (one on bottom floor, other on top floor) there was quite a lot going on as it was going out.....

The brides grandfather had been in the milk trade and had a large collection of vintage milk bottles which they used for flowers on the tables. Always nice to add your own touch!

A classic beauty! VW camper vans are all the rage for weddings - as bridal cars (like they used here), camper vans converted as bars, ice cream vans, a photo booth, a coffee bar

 Oh dear - give a camera to a teen to take some pics for the blog and this is what happens.......

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Country feast barbecue wedding catering with yurts near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

Marquee weddings - all very nice, but if you're after a wow factor is has to be a yurt. This was a wedding we catered for back at the beginning of June - a whole lifetime ago, but only if you measure in terms of food.

Yurts came from Yurts for Life - the one above was a separate children's tent - with a couple of entertainers keeping the children happy while the adults grazed on canapés by the lake. They had their own much larger yurt (in the background below).

To help keep the budget down we brought along our own gazebo to turn into a field kitchen.

Scallops wrapped in pancetta the night before

Thai style fish and fishless cakes (cheese, onion and sage)

Barbecue with a view. Sausages from Home Farm about 2 miles away as the crow flies made from their Gloucester Old Spot/ Berkshire breed pigs. Trying to get everything cooked before the rain set in....... 

Herby Madgetts Farm chicken wrapped asparagus  - see recipe link here

Harissa marinaded Home Farm lamb steaks and burgers too - keeping it local with real food!

Salad of grilled butternut squash, rocket, pommegranate, orange and  toasted almonds

Nicoise salad

There was also cous cous. We served all this on platters/ bowls which the waitresses tiook to the tables for guests to serve themselves family style - a great way to get everyone talking & make a more informal atmosphere.

Tomatoes - local are best - grown about 6 miles away from the wedding

Eton mess served in learge bowls one per table. Strawberries grown in the next door county (Herefordshire)

We made the eton mess a larger version of the shotglass eton mess below served at a dinner party a few months ago - i.e. separate. Halved/ quartered strawberries with strawberry coulis at the bottom, whipped cream with vanilla piped on top and crushed meringue on top. Looks much better I think when you mix it yourself at the table as you eat.

We also made large lemon tarts - again for guests to share at the table. What a feast! 

And after all this? It was time for a late night hog roast with guests - which became quite welcome as guests sheltered from the rain which fell later on in the evening (lovely British summer......)

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Barbecue catering for 65 at Wellacres, Gloucestershire, happy 70th birthday!

Wellacres makes such a great venue for more relaxed functions. Unlike hired halls or venues you have sole use (no other parties coming in behind you), you don't have to finish your party at a certain time, and because it is surrounded by fields you feel just like it is yours (most people want to move in) - no neighbours worry about. And once the celebrations & meal are out of the way guests can relax and enjoy the 5 star features - jacuuzi & swimming pool, cinema style screen for football games etc. This group had even set up a cinema screen in the barn so they could relive their past with their guests with a slide show.

Live music

There's Anna from Party Angels taking care of front of 'house' so well, just last checks before guests sit down.

Blackened cod (on next door BBQ - if you close the lid it cooks the cod like an oven - but you get the smoky flavour in there too), Home Farm pork loin in honey and mustard, plum and brandy wine poached chicken wrapped in parma ham, Home Farm burgers and sausages for children (and some of the adults of course), garlic mushrooms, skewers of halloumi, aubergine, courgette, baby plum tomatoes, corn on the cob

Pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, passionfruit and mango in rosewater syrup in watermelon (less fruit is more). Also grapes, strawberries, pineapple, marshmallows etc to be dipped in chocolate fondue.

Barbecued bananas with sticky toffee sauce - so popular this is the second round.

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Wedding catering in Gloucester - all canape wedding reception

"Look - he's compsing the blogpost as we speak" said the father of the bride at one point. What me? I had my eyes down at that moment. With 25 different canapes to serve there comes a time where you need to get out the spade and get dug in.

It seemed like they had ordered not just the canapés but the weather too - beautifully warm and sunny which brought out the best of the house. 

Hotels and wedding venues can often seem like conveyor belts where one wedding party is rushed through so the next can come in, but when you have your wedding reception at your own home as this one was (or holiday house) it seems much more relaxed and personal - what can be better than sharing your house with your friends and family?

This was the second all canapé wedding reception we have done this year - is it a new fashion? It seems to work really well - rather than have a few canapés and then a traditional 3 or 4 course wedding breakfast you just have an extended canapé menu. We had had a few meetings in the months prior to this event, and the bride, groom and the bride's parents all had their favourite canapés. I thought 25 varieties might be slightly too many, but deleting any proved to be so difficult for them as they all had their favourites that in the end we did them all - why not: it's your special day after all.

I had been hoping for lots of photos, alas it got so busy we just kept putting canapés out and then remembered photos afterwards. You can click on the underlined items to link to previous photos/ recipes.

Cold Canapés

Sweet potato scones with smoked chicken and sweetcorn chutney (can be without chicken for vegetarians)

I had picked up this loose leaf Lady Grey tea a while back and finally found a use for it. As well as black tea leaves it contains bergamot oil, cornflowers, orange and lemon. Ideal for drinking, or smoking chicken.












The kitchen is a no smoking zone, so if you're going to smoke can you do it outside please =)









I stood this on a stool after everyone else had left Basepoint for the weekend. One of the bakers was just starting at the bakery opposite though and seemed interested in what I was up to. It just smells the kitchen out so it is better outside. For a starter you want a lightly smoked flavour, but for a canape you only have a small bite so it wants to be stronger. So I hot smoked it i.e. kept the heat going under the tea leaves so the chicken cooked as it smoked.
You can see the finished result below.

Rosemary scones with parma ham and St. Eadburgh's cheese

Mini stilton cheesecakes with red onion and port marmalade

Asparagus on baked new potatoes with smoked trout mousse

King prawns with horseradish cocktail sauce

Smoked salmon blinis

Spoons of king prawn and mango

Hot Canapés

Tikka marinaded chicken with lemon yogurt

Harissa marinaded lamb skewers with hommous

Coconut and coriander fishcakes with curry mayonnaise

Mini Yorkshire puddings with grilled fillet steak and horseradish

Homemade mini burgers in carrot and cumin sesame buns

You don't get these in a drive-thru

Beef came from (where else?) Home Farm just a few miles away. Mixed with garlic, coriander (fresh leaf & crushed dried seeds), chilli, mustard, cooked red onion, egg to bind and seasoning. After chilling to set the shape I grilled them before we went, so the smoke from the grill wouldn't waft though their house - not quite what you want as you are entertaining guests. Then I could finish in the oven just before they were served.














Carrot and cumin bun recipe here. I added ras el hanout as well - extra flavour. The photo has the time 04:31 on it. Preparation the day before did go on a while as everything was made from scratch, but as some guests said it showed in the quality of food.

Scallops wrapped in pancetta with pesto mayonniase

King prawns wrapped in filo pastry

Spoons of Oakfield mushroom risotto with parmesan

Fish and chips in paper cones with tartare sauce

Chips that pass in the night It only seemed a while since I had been making the larger size fish and chips. I had picked the cones up for a late night snack of fish goujons and chips we were going to serve at another wedding, but cut in half they served the canape size very well.

Dessert Canapés

Glazed lemon tartlets

Mini dark chocolate tarts

Raspberry shortbread

Mini strawberry meringue roulade

Shotglass of tirimisu

Chocolate dipped strawberries

Shotglass of home made raspberry sorbet
Spoon of sticky toffee pudding with sticky toffee sauce

Mini creme brulée

Related posts

Other wedding events we have done previously
Other canapes

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