Giveaway Free Tickets for Foodies Festival Feast at Battersea Park

Foodies Festival, the UK’s largest celebration of food & drink returns to Battersea Park on the weekend of Fri 15^th, Sat 16^th & Sun 17^th August this year. Each year thousands of visitors come from the surrounding areas to feast on a vast array of culinary activities, making Foodies Festival the social event of the summer.  Visitors will see top chefs cooking in the Chef’s Theatre; sample  wine, beer, and cocktails in the Drink’s Theatre and  join top pastry chefs in the brand new Chocolate, Cake, Bake and Preserves Theatre, and kids can learn to cook too in the Children’s Cookery Theatre.

The festival will have a Feasting Tent where visitors can enjoy eating with chefs, friends and family at long banqueting tables.

This year there is the introduction of the Vintage Tea Tent that will hold daily tea dances, alongside a Vintage Kitchen Market allowing visitors to pick up beautiful pieces to add to their own kitchens at home.

For the people who enjoy a little bit of beer or cider the Real Ale and Cider Farm will be offering visitors a special area to chill out on hay bales and strike up a conversation with our beer and cider expert Melissa Cole and fellow beer lovers.  There’s a guitar behind the bar for those in the mood to get a sing-along started.

A new Chilli Food Market will excite those with a love for spicy foods with a range of chilli growers and artisan producers of sauces, sweets and jams. For those who can handle the heat a Chilli Eating Challenge takes place at 5pm daily.

Foodies Festival tickets are on sale now,  to purchase your tickets  you can Click here to buy tickets

How To Enter:

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc.
• Leaving a blog comment is mandatory and failure to do so will void any other entries.
• Closing date - 31st  July  2014 12.00 am

 *Terms and conditions
1. This competition is open to UK residents only who are over 18 years of age .
2. Complimentary tickets are valid for one day only at the London Show.
3. Tickets are non transferable. One pair of tickets per winner only.
4. Complimentary tickets obtained through this offer may not be duplicated.
5. All tickets will be scanned on entry to the show

How Rafflecopter works:

·        You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box.Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.

·        Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.

·        Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 

·        Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.

·        For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 

·        For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 

·        If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.

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Announcing event~Lets Cook with Strawberries

The Strawberry season has started in the UK and they are now available in abundance, this month I am making the Lets cook event all about Strawberries.

To Participate:

1. Prepare any vegetarian dish sweet or savory with Strawberries (eggs allowed),  please link your dish using the linky below by entering your Dish Name and Post URL
2. Please link this event announcement with your entry, this is mandatory. (Any entries sent with out the mandatory link will be disqualified.)
3.Use of logo is  not mandatory but it helps to spread the word if you can use it.

4. Multiple entries are allowed, archived are only allowed if reposted and updated with this event link.

4. In the event of problem using linky you can email me the entry at simplysensationalfood@gmail.com

Please use this format:

Your Name: Recipe
Name Recipe URL
Image no larger than 300 pixels.
Event Ends 31st July 2014

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Speedy strawberry trifle with Onken yoghurt

June brings Wimbledon, and Wimbledon is not complete without strawberries and cream, cucumber sandwiches and Pimms. In celebration of Wimbledon, I was really pleased when Onken sent me a pre wimbledon gift .My gift was an Onken cool bag, two bright pink tennis balls, a slice of turf, a mini bottle of prosecco, a bar of Greens and Black chocolate, a voucher for #my Onken Strawberry & Chocolate Flakes' yoghurt and my own personalised silver plated spoon so that I could enjoy the Onken yogurt straight out of the pot.

Onken have just launched a new Strawberry & Chocolate Flakes’ yogurt  that was created after it was voted by readers on their facebook page .The #my Onken Strawberry & Chocolate Flakes is the perfect treat for summer, served with strawberries, drizzled over cake, made into smoothies or just eaten straight out of the pot. I am sure there are many more ways to eat Onken yogurt , one easy way is to make a speedy strawberry trifle whilst watching a match or two.

Speedy strawberry and chocolate flakes trifle with fresh strawberries.

Ingredients:

4 mini cake bites
1 tablespoon strawberry jam
1 tablespoon milk chocolate grated
4 strawberries sliced thinly
100 ml Strawberry & Chocolate Flakes’ yogurt

Method:

1. Take two champagne flutes and add one mini cake bite in each one.
2. Place the strawberry jam in a bowl and warm it up in the microwave for 30 seconds.
3.Spoon a little melted strawberry jam over the cake bite and add a couple of slices of strawberries on top.
4. Spoon a tablespoon of Strawberry & Chocolate Flakes’ yogurt  on top of the strawberries and sprinkle some grated chocolate on top.
5. Repeat the procedure again by adding the second cake bite, followed by the jam, more strawberries, another tablespoon or two  of yogurt and finally a good sprinkle of chocolate flakes.
Finally garnish with a slice of strawberry .
Place in the fridge for 10 minutes and serve chilled.

I would like to thank Onken for sending me the goody bag, all views and opinions expressed in this post are my own and unbiased.

Submitting to:

Lets cook with Strawberries event by simplyfood

Market Deli Range from Walkers.

On Tuesday I was invited to a launch event for the Market Deli range by Walkers. The Market Deli range is an exciting range of premium snacks featuring potato, tortilla and also pita chips. The flavours of the snacks are inspired by delicatessens both from the UK and Europe.

The evening started with some mingling with fellow foodies as we enjoyed drinks and canapés all inspired by the Market Deli range.We sampled lovely chilled gazpacho, cheddar cheese on sticks, bruschetta with Mediterranean toppings of chilli, tomato and basil, chorizo medallions on spoons, pita bread sticks with dips. All these lovely canapés were served with different spirits that complimented the different flavours of the Market Deli range.  Once fuelled with our taste buds tingling for more, we were led in small groups to sample the new Market Deli range.

We tasted potato chips in four flavours:
Cornish mature cheddar
Wiltshire cured ham, mature cheddar and farmhouse chutney
Balsamic vinegar of Modena (Aceto Balsamico di  Modena PGI)
Flame grilled Spanish chorizo and roasted Onion

Next we tried the tortilla chips:
Anglesey sea salt with cracked black pepper
Roasted red chilli with Mediterranean sundried tomato

And finally we tried the pita chips:
Roasted garlic with Mediterranean herbs
Roasted red pepper with English tomato

Each of the flavour combinations has been well thought out and created using the finest ingredients such as cheddar cheese from Cornwall, aceto balsamico from Modena  and sundried tomatoes from the Manisa region in Turkey. My Favorite was the pita chips, they were crunchy yet soft with a lovely texture.

The range is perfect as an indulgent snack to be served with drinks or just enjoyed on its own or with dips. All the Market Deli range are available in sharing size bags of 165g and retail at £2.39, the potato chips are available in smaller single bags retailing at £0.83.

Once we had sampled all the amazing Market Deli range, the evening was further inspired by watching a cookery demonstration by the Michelin star chef Tom Aiken. The cookery demonstration carried forward the theme from the  flavours of the Market Deli range. The first dish Tom cooked was macaroni cheese, this was no ordinary macaroni cheese, it was luxurious. The white sauce was enhanced using Cornish mature cheddar with mustard, marjoram, sundried tomatoes from Turkey and Wiltshire cured ham and baked in the oven. Although I did not sample this as I am a vegetarian, my food blogger friend Heidi Roberts from Kitchen Talks gave it the thumbs up.

The second dish that Tom cooked was also inspired by the Marker Deli Range, this time it was a delicious cold soup Gazpacho. Flavoured with roasted garlic, herbs, tomato juice, sundried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes and seasoned with lashings of salt and pepper, it was packed with Mediterranean  flavours and tasted delicious.

I had a wonderful experience attending the event, and would like to thank Walkers for inviting me. and sending me home with a lovely goody bag of the Market Deli Range to enjoy at home. This post is a pr collaboration and all views and opinions expressed are my own and unbiased.

This final picture is of Heidi and my self posing with the Michelin chef Tom Aiken.

Coriander Lemon Rice~ Secret Recipe club 16th June 2014

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. My assigned blog was The Savvy Kitchen. I really enjoyed looking through Amy's blog and was very tempted to create some of the lovely cookie recipes she has on her blog. But since summer is here and we are all trying to loose weight I am trying to eat healthy so I finally settled for the ( Cilantro) Coriander Lime Rice. It was delicious.The only changes I made were that I used lemon instead of lime in the rice and added a green chilli to spice it up.

Ingredients:

240g  Basmati Rice
400 ml boiling water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon fresh chopped coriander
1 green chilli finely chopped

Method:

1. Wash the rice and soak it for 1/2 hour
2. Drain the rice and keep aside.
3. Heat oil in a pan, when its hot add the rice and stir fry for few minutes. Add the salt and 400 ml boiling water and bring the rice to boil, once the rice is  boiling reduce heat to lowest setting , cover and simmer rice  for 20 minutes.
4. After 20 minutes open the pan and with a fork fluff up the rice , stir in the chopped coriander, green chillies and lemon juice.
5. Transfer to a serving plate.

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Tidbits from my Pantry

Every once in a while, simplyfood is lucky enough to get some lovely and unusual food samples to try.Over the last few weeks I have received some lovely products that are definitely worthy of a mention here.

Bannisters Potatoes- I received a selection of these pre cooked potatoes that you pop in the freezer and they are ready to eat in minutes by warming them in the microwave.

Potato skins baked and filled with cheese and jalapeno 4 in a box microwave or oven cook 207 calories, no salt.

Potato halves baked and filled with mature cheddar cheese 4 in a box 203 calories microwave and oven.

2 ready baked potatoes cross cut with a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil 218 calories no salt.

My daughter took these to university and gave them a big thumbs up. She said they were very versatile as all she had to do was microwave them and add her chosen topping and she had a delicious lunch/dinner in a short space of time.

PROPERCORN - I received some samples of propercorn, the corn is hand-popped  in rapeseed oil  which is low in calories and then delicately tumbled using secret recipes from the most authentic and natural ingredients. It is available in five delicious flavours:
Lightly Sea Salted
Fiery Worcester Sauce & Sun-Dried Tomato
Sour Cream & Chive
Sweet & Salty
Sweet Coconut & Vanilla.

Of all the flavours we particularly liked Fiery Worcester Sauce & Sun-Dried Tomato and the Coconut and vanilla one which was delicious.Single-serve packs are available from Waitrose, Ocado, Harvey Nichols, Benugo, and Whole Foods for RRP £0.90.
Sharing packs are available from Whole Foods, Planet Organic, Waitrose, Boots and Ocado for RRP £1.69. 

"Oloves" -Olives is new alternative range of healthy snacks.They come in three contemporary flavours Chili , Lemon and Garlic and Basil. They have less than 50 calories per 30gm pack. They don't need to be kept in a refrigeration so they are perfect for picnics, lunch boxes and snacks on the go. They also and have an 18 month shelf life. The product is very versatile and is ideal as an accompaniment to a glass of wine or healthy beverage. We particularly favoured the chilli flavour.

I would like to thank all these companies for sending me these samples to try.All views and opinions in his post are my own and unbiased.

Kuhn Rikon Knives Giveway

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen cooking, baking and creating food. Having the right tools in the kitchen is imperative especially when it comes to knives and utensils. Food preparation before cooking is the most important part of any recipe and having the right type of knives makes the preparation smooth and easy. All my kitchen knives over the years have become blunt and failed to perform well so when I was sent a set of kitchen knives from Kuhn Rikon I was over the moon.

The Kuhn Rikon knives are made from Authentic Japanese carbon stainless steel; they all have non-stick coating on them to ensure that food does not stick to the blade.There are different types of knives for using on different types of food:

• Paring Knife-perfect for slicing cheese, peeling an apple or chopping vegetables
• Serrated utility knife- perfect for slicing smooth skinned fruits and vegetables, bread or meat
• Chefs knife-perfect for slicing meat, vegetables, fruit and cheese.
• Bread knife-perfect for slicing bread with its sharp long serrated blade
• Sandwich knife- this knife has two sides the smooth side for spreading and the serrated side for cutting and slicing.

The knives come in 5 vibrant colours; fuchsia, green, red, black and purple together with a matching safety sheath for safe storage and transportation and protecting the blade from getting damaged when the knife is not in use. All the knives are guaranteed for two years and are dishwasher safe.

The knives can be purchased in a set of four or separately. You can buy them on line or from many supermarkets and homeware stores. Prices start from as little as £ 4.50.

I would like to thank Kuhn Rikon for sending me the set of lovely colourful knives. They have become a favourite part of my kitchen ware. I can now glide through my tomatoes and slice them perfectly; my fresh bread is now beautifully sliced and does not end in a crumpled mess on my bread board. I am able to julienne my veg to perfection due to the sharp paring knife and chopping vegetables for stir fries has become a joy with my chefs knife. Of course I can’t forget the sandwich prep, now my sandwich knife spreads and cuts all in one and it’s so useful.

All the views and opinions given in this post are my own and unbiased.

Kuhn Rikon have been very kind, they have offered to send one simplyfood reader a set of knives consisting of a Paring Knife, Serrated utility knife, Chef’s knife and Bread knife.

How To Enter:

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc
• This competition is open to UK residents only over the age of 18 only. Please read the rules below.
• Leaving a blog comment is mandatory and failure to do so will void any other entries.
• Closing date - 5th July  2014 12.00 am

How Rafflecopter works:

·        You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box.Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.

·        Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.

·        Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 

·        Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.

·        For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 

·        For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 

·        If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Strawberry Yogurt Pops.

In the UK the yogurt council  launched for the first time Yogurt week during May. This was to bring awareness to the public about the health benefits of yogurt. I love yogurt and use it a lot in my cooking so when the yogurt council announced a competition to create and style a yogurt recipe I was very excited to enter. This is my entry for #yogurtstylist competition hosted by yogurt council.

Fresh strawberries and strawberry yoghurt frozen to give you a lovely refreshing Strawberry yogurt pop

Ingredients:

450 g Strawberry yogurt
200 g sweetened condensed milk
200 g fresh strawberries
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon strawberry essence

Method:

1. Hull the strawberries and chop them up into cubes.
2. In a saucepan add the strawberries and the sugar and cook the mixture until all the sugar melts and strawberries break down.
3.Remove strawberry coulis from heat and stir in 1/2 teaspoon of strawberry essence and leave aside to cool.
4. In a blender jug add the strawberry yogurt, strawberry essence and the condensed milk and blend together.
5. Pour the strawberry coulis prepared earlier in to the ice pop moulds so that the moulds are about quarter filled. Place the moulds in the freezer for 15 minutes to slightly set the strawberry coulis.
6. After 15 minutes take the ice pop moulds from the freezer and pour the yoghurt mixture on top of the strawberry coulis layer.
7. Slightly tap the moulds to disperse any air bubbles. Push in the pop stick and return the pops back to the freezer to set over night.
8. To serve, remove the pops from the freezer and dip the moulds in a bowl of warm water to release them from the moulds. This will help to de mould the pops easily.

Cupcakes & Bakes Book Giveaway

I love baking and its an activity that is good to do with your children to teach them cooking and baking skills. I came across this really lovely book called Cupcakes & Bakes and it sits in prime location on my kitchen shelf as I use it a lot to create cakes and bakes. It has an amazing selection of cakes and all the recipes are easy to follow and simple.

Since I love the book so much I have a spare copy that I would love to giveaway to one simplyfood reader.

How To Enter:

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc
• This competition is open to UK residents only.Please read the rules below .
• Leaving a blog comment is mandatory and failure to do so will void any other entries.
• Closing date - 29th June 2014 12.00am

How Rafflecopter works:

·        You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box.Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.

·        Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.

·        Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 

·        Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.

·        For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 

·        For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 

·        If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Round up Lets cook with Pulses

Thankyou to all the lovely bloggers who sent in these entries received this month for this lovely event. Here is the round up.

An InLinkz Link-up

Bengal Tiger St Pauls Indian restaurant review

A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I had the opportunity to visit the Indian restaurant in St Pauls called the Bengal Tiger restaurant and bar. Bengal Tiger is situated in the heart of London, a stones throw from the beautiful St Pauls. Its convenient location means that it is perfect for dinner or lunch stop after a busy day at work or for entertaining clients or just enjoying an evening  of delicious freshly cooked food in ambient decor with fully stocked bar.

Bengal Tiger has a wonderfully stock bar, but being tee teetotallers we opted for the fresh juices and nibbled on the crispy pappadoms and the accompanying condiments and chutneys. The green chutney in the picture below was  truely delicious and I even managed to persuade the waiter to share the recipe with me.

Both my daughter and I are vegetarians, this did not pose a problem as there is a large variety of vegetarian dishes on offer on the menu. From recommendation from our waitor we ordered the vegetarian platter which consisted of Vegetable Samosa, Paneer Tikka, Onion Bhajee and Aloo Chat. The samosas were lovely, delicious vegetable filling encased in a  crispy pastry , the paneer tikka was succulent and tasty and marinaded and grilled in just the right amount of spice.The onions bhaji was deep fried and cooked to perfection, however my favourite was the aloo chat. A delicious mixture of spiced potatoes with a delicious smoky flavour  all drenched with a sweet and sour tamirind chutney and a cooling yogurt dip too.

Whilst we sipped on more chilled juices, we ordered our main course. The waiter recommended  the

Brenjal Bhajee a curry made with Aubergines cooked with tomatoes and onions and the Saag Aloo

a delicacy of cumin tempered potatoes cooked with tomato, onion and spinach. 

We also ordered some Pilaou rice, nan bread and the tarka dhal made from split chick pea and red lentil preparation cooked with garlic, cumin seed and whole red chillies and a fresh green salad and raita to cool the food down.

Both the curries were perfectly balanced in spice and each had a wonderful unique flavour that complimented each other well. The nan breads were fluffy and piping hot and the fragrant pilaof rice was perfectly cooked and tasted delicious with the gently spiced tarka dhal. In all the waiters recommendation was perfect and each dish complimented the other really well. The portion sizes were generous  and it was very difficult to finish everything and still  have room for dessert. In view of this we opted for a light dessert of  the mango kulfi and the pistachio kulfi. Both were delicious and perfect finish to a wonderful meal.

The menu option for vegetarians at Bengal Tiger is super and we really enjoyed out meal in the lovely ambience and surrounding of the restaurant which felt very authentic.

We would like to thank Bengal Tiger for inviting us enjoy their hospitality.

Announcing Event ~ Lets Cook for Fathers Day

This month Lets cook series theme is Fathers Day. Lets make the month of June a dedication to all fathers. Please cook any vegetarian recipe that is your fathers favourite , eggs allowed and link it to this event.

To Participate:

1. Prepare any dish sweet or savory that is your fathers favorite (eggs allowed),  please link your dish using the linky below by entering your Dish Name and Post URL
2. Please link this event announcement with your entry, this is mandatory. (Any entries sent with out the mandatory link will be disqualified.)
3.Use of logo is  not mandatory but it helps to spread the word if you can use it.

4. Multiple entries are allowed, archived are only allowed if reposted and updated with this event link.

4. In the event of problem using linky you can email me the entry at simplysensationalfood@gmail.com

Please use this format:

Your Name: Recipe
Name Recipe URL
Image no larger than 300 pixels.
Event Ends 30 th June 2014

An InLinkz Link-up