29 October 2009

Recipe For Homemade mincemeat - Countdown To Christmas

Mincemeat is delicious and really easy to make.  The aroma and flavour of homemade mincemeat is fantastic, making the shop-bought commercial stuff pale into insignificance – a travesty of taste, lacking in depth, rich or any booziness.

27 October 2009

New Fairtrade Organic Mulling Wine Sachets from Steenbergs

It might have caused me sleepless nights and given me an undue amount of heartache and stress, but Steenbergs new range of Mulling Wine Spices in sachets has finally arrived.  It's about 1½ months behind schedule and we have been having to disappoint...

25 October 2009

Stir It Up - Recipe For Christmas cake

It’s time for the Christmas countdown and preparations have now begun in earnest – it’s getting darker and the kids are now on half term. 

24 October 2009

Exotic Pepper From Around The World

I’ve been hunting for some specialist peppers in recent months.  That’s what some of the thrill of being a spice merchant is all about – hunting for the exotic, tracking it down and then getting it in.

23 October 2009

River Cottage everyday - a recommendation

Whilst shopping at Booths in Ripon today, I was waiting in the "10 items and under queue" and found this recommendation, and I was so pleased that I bought the book (£8 off cover price to boot):

22 October 2009

Recipe For Kulfi - The Perfect Indian Pudding

Of course, you need a pudding/sweet to round off the indulgence of a delicious, groaning table of delicately spiced Indian food.  Kulfi (Indian ice cream) has been made for ages and was served to the Moghul Emperors at their hedonistic courts in Delh...

20 October 2009

Easy Tasty Magic - cooking alchemy from Laura Santtini

A couple of months ago, a bubbly, cosmopolitan lady, called Laura Santtini, came out of London to visit Steenbergs of Ripon.

18 October 2009

Recipe for Lamb Curry for a Diwali Feast

We are in the middle of the diwali festival, the Festival of Lights.  This is a 5 day festival with the main celebration being on the 17 October this year.  I love diwaali, even though we are not Hindus here.

11 October 2009

Recipe for Roast Pork With Apple Sauce

It's that harvesting time of the year, with the trees turning a golden brown and the fruit fulsome on the trees.  I picked an armful of windfalls from our garden and took them inside to make apple sauce to have a with a delicious joint of pork that w...

23 September 2009

Recipe For Real Custard With Real Bourbon Vanilla Pod

As I said in my last blog, it's just got to be custard.  None of this cream or ice cream with real puddings, please.

21 September 2009

Recipe for Autumnal Apple Crumble

I love the melancholic atmosphere of this late summer time.  The leaves are beginning to turn a beautiful orangey-red and the air is turning cooler, yet it has a warm, damp smell to it. 

15 September 2009

Recipe for Saturday Was Shepherd's Pie

Back closer to the brief, I made shepherd’s pie on Saturday morning.  Typically, Saturday turned out to be the last blast of the summer with one of the best day’s of the whole year – no wind, unbroken sunshine and a really relaxed day with friends an...

05 September 2009

STEENBERGS SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER

Beat the autumn blues with Steenbergs

19 August 2009

Steenbergs is product of the day at Woman & Home

Steenbergs Home Baking range of organic extracts, including organic Fairtrade vanilla extract and our natural almond extract, is featured as the product of the day at Woman & Home today.

16 August 2009

Ignore the FSA and continue to believe in the best of organic foods

I have reflected further on the Food Standards Agency ("FSA") report on the nutritional and health effects of organic.  And I have 2 further thoughts, being, firstly, that the concept of the report is irrelevant, and, secondly, there is probably no p...

15 August 2009

Photo ops at Steenbergs

I am slightly apprehensive about having had my photo taken this week.  We have been suppliers of spices and sea salt to Tanfield Food Company since they were established a few years back.  They make ambient convenience meals in a pouch under the bran...

12 August 2009

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits - my personal response to the Review Authors and the FSA

A couple of weeks back now in July 2009, the Food Standards Agency ("FSA") issued a press release together with the publication of a scientific review of the published science on investigations into the comparison of the nutritional composition and h...

10 August 2009

Recipes for Peppermint Creams and Chocolate Strawberries

It’s been a weekend of baking and cooking for Jay’s birthday.  He had some specific requests for things plus we needed to get the sausages and baps for the proper “hot dogs”, ie not with boil in the bag frankfurters but real sausages and decent bread...