Ahoy Me 'Arty! Pirate Themed Children's Party Near Cheltenham

You can have your Michelin starred foods an' all, but you can't beat a good kids party, right?

This one was right at the end of last September, and the good old English weather as it is, plans had to be changed in the few days before this 7th birthday party, going from an outdoor bouncy castle party, to an indoor one in the village hall next door to the birthday girl's house - convenient, That's where we came in, 2 days before the event. Always here to help!

Shiver me timbers! It's a pirate galleon watermelon with fruit skewers for a starter. Those Japanese skewers work great as oars  

Pirate watermelon in panorama shot

Pirate watermelon with fruit skewers

Jolly Roger pirate plates with cucumber pirate faces, carrot swords and cherry tomato boats waiting for the main addition - chicken goujons and chips in newspaper cones.

 

Was sculpting these cucumber faces with Red Leicester cheese bandanas from 4am.... as you do.

Carrot swords - a bit of early morning work with the craft knife

Pieces of Eight! Pirate party table - minimalism is so over!

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Canapés, roast loin of pork and trio of desserts for a wedding in Tewkesbury

The nearest wedding venue to Tewkesbury Abbey? Quite possibly. Certainly the closest we have catered at.   Another couple we are catering for in September are getting married at Tewkesbury Abbey too - can there be a better venue around the Cotswolds?

Hardwick House

When we commit to an event we go into it wholeheartedly - we get there whether through floods, digging ourselves out of snow drifts, or days when the road melts and the kitchen is 35 degrees and you get sunburnt cooking  serving a barbecue wedding (we've done all 3 and so much more!). Sadly the same can't be said for the original caterer for this wedding - we had been called in when the chef they had originally booked had decided to go away on holiday for his 30th birthday - how could anyone do that? I remember cooking for a dinner party on mine. You have to have 1001% commitment in this business - we play a big part in our clients' celebrations - never more so than their wedding day! And with that comes great responsibility to getting it right.

Smoked salmon blinis, air dried ham with Tewkesbury mustard,  croustade of Oxford blue and pear, croustade of brie and caramelised red onion

As we were coming in to this event at a late stage all the menus had been set up already so we took them on and prepared them in our own way - which had gone down well at the pre-wedding tasting with the bride and groom.

Picked up this pear shaped board a few days before - went with the  country  feel of the wedding

Scotch quail eggs

Quail eggs for the scotch quail eggs the night before - I've started so I'll finish!

Choral group performing on the lawn - real music! Amazingly  large & varied repertoire. Made the afternoon so much better!

Roast loin of Old Spot pork with apricot stuffing, crispy crackling  with Tewkesbury mustard mash, baby vegetables and Herefordshire cider jus

Summer vegetable risotto with poached Burford Brown egg and Double Gloucester cheese crisp - we were going to add marrow to the risotto until I saw it just about to be cut - then thought the marrow could make a great bowl for the risotto instead. So we hollowed out the middle and roasted them and the risotto could go in the middle. The poached egg swung quite a few meat eaters too - so we ended up with 12% risotto vs 88% pork.

Then for dessert........

Trio of desserts - Black Forest of Dean cheesecake, hedgrow pavlova  and pink champagne jelly

Originally the idea had been to serve these just on platters at the table for guests to help themselves. At the tasting I had suggested serving all on one plate like this. It does look rather impressive when it goes out!

Black Forest of Dean cheesecake using this recipe  - the griottine cherries might be terribly expensive, but they're so worth it - this was a revelation!  

Hedgerow pavlova

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Afternoon tea and hog roast wedding catering, Fladbury near Evesham and Pershore, Worcestershire

Springhill Barn in Fladbury may look unassuming from the outside
But inside it is transformed into a beautiful wedding venue:
The good thing about church weddings are you know when the wedding is starting and finishing due to the bell ringing, and when you hear them the second time you know it is time to get a shift on.

We served afternoon tea on the terrace as guests arrived back from the church. Here the Party Angels are just finishing the set up.
Scones were topped with Cotswold clotted cream and hedgerow jelly from Dove Cottage in Broadway. Delia collects all the berries from the fields around Broadway to make the fabled jelly which she uses for her B & B guests.
We also served elderflower cordial too - another Dove Cottage 2010 vintage from the elderflowers in the fields on the Broadway hills. And my legendary chocolate brownie - how can you resist?

Hog roast wedding buffet

I had picked up the pig around 8am from Home Farm. I passed Mickey the farmer on the way up as he was off to the Stroud Farmers market driving the opposite way. Just a tad too late for him to help lift it out of their fridge. But as luck would have it there were a couple of cyclists waiting for breakfast as B & B guests at the farm. One of them and Anne the farmer helped lift it on to the roasting tin. I was halfway through sawing the legs off the pig so it fitted in the tin when Mickey rushed back in "QUICK! Get the dogs and get up to the top field!" he said to Anne hurriedly. "130 sheep have broken out of the field, if we leave them they'll be all over the village!". It all happens on Saturdays. Anne rushed off in the car with the dogs, Mickey showed me how you reduce the height of the pig (that's not for here) so it was the 8in high that they need for the height of the bakery oven, and the cyclists were left to their own devices for breakfast as Mickey rushed back off towards the Stroud farmers market - can't afford to miss the stand. Meanwhile I rushed to pig back to the Tewkesbury bakery, picked up the larger hire van and went back to the kitchen to finish preparations for the other 2 parties we had going on that day - so much happens before 9am.Crispy crackling - along with pig tail (along with the cheeks & ears one of the tastiest parts)

Potato salad

Beetroot, fennel and radish mixed leaf salad

Tomato, basil and olive salad

Cous cous salad with grilled vegetables

Dessert was their wedding cake which we served with berries and raspberry coulis. And Adam used their cheese to make a cheese wedding cake which we served after the dessert and guests ate throughout the night.

XXXXXX

Dear James

Apologies that it is quite belated but David and I just wanted to say a big thank you for all your help in making our wedding day so special and unforgettable.
All the guests loved the food, especially the crackling from the hog roast which was claimed to be 'the best - EVER!' by several people. My fussy Dad even ate cous cous for the first time and went back for seconds! We really appreciated that you were so organised and we could trust to leave you to get on with things and not worry about anything on the day, and also that you were able to help us suceed in our ethos of using local produce where possible.

Best wishes and all our thanks
David and Joanna Kelly

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Wedding catering near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire (ii)

So just 5 days after clearing up after the last wedding at Upper Court near Tewkesbury, I was back setting up the next. This time cooking without an oven. We're flexible - I have done so many events there now I know the cottages better than my own house, so rather than hiring an oven for the marquee we used the oven in the coach house for cooking the chicken the main course and then ran it down the garden to the marquee. Grilled vegetables heated perfectly in the hot cupboard and potatoes re-heated in the chafing dish. Anything to help the wedding couples' budget.

The bride and groom wanted an Italian themed menu for their big day and were very happy with the end result - I caught up with them as they came back to the Coach House much later in the evening to carry on the party.

Salad of parma ham, poached pears and gorgonzola














Pears poached with star anise, cinnamon, cloves, orange zest wrapped in parma ham.












Free range Madgetts Farm chicken filled with roast peppers, caramelised red onion, mozzarella and basil wrapped in pancetta with grilled vegetables, new potatoes and wild nettle pesto

Not these chickens though - these were the resident chickens at Upper Court who seemed very interested in what we were cooking (who can blame them?). If you stay there for B & B you can sample their eggs for breakfast. Never very good at getting pics of the main course - it's always such a rush to get the food out while it is hot - especially when you're running some of it down the garden....

But the chicken looked very like this, and the grilled vegetables like this. The nettles for the pesto I picked shortly after dawn behind Tewkesbury Abbey - good to keep it all local. Nettles give the pesto a great earthy flavour.

Tiramisu
Sponge, espresso, amaretto, marscapone, Cotteswold cream, amaretti biscuits, vanilla - an old classic. I once had one in a restaurant in Stratford on Avon and have been trying to recreate it ever since. This was the best so far. Each glass came back empty - always a good sign.

Related posts:

Salad of parma ham, poached pear and glazed goats cheese
Grilled chicken and grilled vegetables

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Wedding catering in the Lifford Hall, Broadway, Worcestershire

Cooking for 76 is just like for a large dinner party really. Just takes a bit more planning.It's said that everyone who lives in Broadway has worked at The Lygon Arms at some point in their life. Geoff was head gardener there for many years, and I would often meet him as I picked things from the garden for the kitchen when I worked there. Yesterday was their daughter's wedding which I was cooking for with my team (thanks team!), following a great birthday meal a few years before, and where else would you hold an event in Broadway but the Lifford Hall - it's the hub of village events many and varied.

Salad of asparagus with Blacksticks Blue cheese and parma ham crisp
I picked up the asparagus from Teddington, just 4 miles away a few days before. As I arrived the farmer was just bringing it in from the field on the quad bike - couldn't be fresher. I sorted through it all selecting the ones I wanted while he was busy doing other things. Nothing like a bit of quality control.
I found Bangrove by accident really - drove past the sign saying 'asparagus here' years ago, turned around and went back. Now I don't like getting it from anywhere else - there is just no comparison. Also buying it from a vegetable supplier you never quite know what you are going to get. When you can actually select your own like I did the other day it makes the whole cooking proccess much more enjoyable.






Rack of Home Farm lamb with dauphinoise potato, grilled courgette and a tomato and basil jus

"...and I was saying to Geoff last night - you must have had quite a long day" said Val, the bride's mother this morning when I was clearing up "you were there from 3 o'clock and you didn't leave till...."
"Just after 1" I finished. But of course, behind what you see on the day there is a whole 7 day industry. For it to run so smoothly on the day requires preparation - there are no second chances. I had booked the racks of lamb back with Home Farm back in November when we had agreed basic details of the wedding and been checking up every so often how it was going. Because of the price of export lamb now it makes much more sense for them to sell their lambs live at market and the meat ends up being exported. They make exactly the same amount if they send it to slaughter, then butcher it themselves and sell it in the farm shop or farmers market. Add in the transport cost from the farm to salughter and back, and there is no wonder why they are cutting back on the lamb they sell in the shop. But because it was me they were happy to do it - another reason why shopping locally is good.

Because they leave the chine bone on while I was out cooking for the Saturday night party Hannah removed these and roasted them, so I could make stock on Sunday morning which formed the basis of the sauce.

Tomatoes that were blanched, peeled and diced and added the lamb sauce and also used for tomato soup for the children came from wonderful tomato growers in Buckland - the next village to Broadway. They smelled and tasted just how tomatoes should - not what you can say for mass production supermarket tomatoes sadly - it all makes a difference in the end result.

Spinach which went under the lamb was from a local farm too - Zentith Nurseries near Evesham.










Trio of chocolate desserts

Dark chocolate tart
White choclate and blueberry cheesecake
Shotglass of chocolate and espresso tirimisu

It's just amazing how everything comes together so quickly. The hours of 3 - 8 just dissappeared. After weeks of planning in no time at all the main course had been sent and we ploughed straight into finishing this dessert.

I will add the cheesecake recipe at some point - it is one of the most requested. The caramelisation on the top like a creme brulee is the finishing touch.

Link to chocolate tart recipe is here. They just need heating in the oven till soft. And while I was organising other things the @Party-Angels who had been looking after front of house so well put the raspberries on top for me.







Related posts

Trio of raspberry desserts for a wedding between Evesham and Pershore
Other weddings we have cooked for


Other photos

• Their Homemade walnut, raisin and rosemary bread rolls made in the (not so) early hours of Thursday.

• Tart case (for chocolate tart) production line

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