28 January 2010

Vanilla, Gorgeous Heady Vanilla

I love vanilla.  I really do.  I blogged about it as a spice back in May 2009 under Vanilla - the temperamental diva.

26 January 2010

Recipe - How To Make New Mexico Red Chile Sauce

Here is a way to use some of the new chillis that I introduced in a blog last week.  It is a traditional recipe for a New Mexican Red Chile Sauce (Chilli Sauce) that is preferred by northern New Mexicans and New Mexican old-timers, especially those w...

22 January 2010

Hot Chili From Steenbergs

The snow may have gone but it's cold, dreich and miserable.  But after a manic Christmas, it's given me time to do some of the boring, but necessary, things of business life - stocktake inputting, stock valuation and pricing review, plus I've just do...

25 November 2009

We're In The Telegraph Christmas Guide

Steenbergs was featured in The Daily Telegraph's Christmas Gift Guide last Saturday (21 November 2009).  Our Fairtrade Sugar & Spice Gift Box of 9 products was featured alongside some very illustrious others, including a Fortnum & Mason Hampe...

03 November 2009

Recipe For Sweet Chestnuts Foraged At Fountains Abbey

We (that's me and my 2 kids) have been enjoying a few walks this half term break - in the deer park at Studley Royal which is at the lower end of Fountains Abbey and at Brimham Rocks. 

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...

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.

02 September 2009

New Spice Standards for Fairtrade

Fairtrade has issued new standards for Fairtrade spices which seem to be a recipe for chaos.  They basically say that you can trade any spice or herb as Fairtrade and that the Fairtrade price is the price agreed between the buyer and the seller.  A p...

26 August 2009

Back on the shop floor at Steenbergs

I am currently working back on the Steenbergs shop floor as our chief blender, Alan, is on his annual holiday somewhere in Greece.  It is great fun to be back where it all began, blending the blends that I’ve created over the years and grinding organ...

05 August 2009

Eat More Greens

In recipes that people talk about and write about, there always seems a big focus on the extravagant meat dishes, a bit about fish and almost never that much about vegetables.  We certainly eat far too much meat for the balanced human diet and should...

30 July 2009

Herbs and Spices for Your Health

Herbal medicine has historically been the primary approach to acute and chronic health problems - this remains the case still in many countries.  We often forget that herbal medicine is the most enduring form of treatment and is still used by 80% of...

20 July 2009

Recipe for Fennel Salad

I love fennel.  It’s one of those underused but truly delicious vegetables.  I love its aniseed-like flavour and its texture.  It tastes delicious cold in a salad or warm cooked as a vegetable.  The Italians love it, so I love it.

17 July 2009

Chinese Tea Ceremony

TEA CEREMONIES IN A MING DYNASTY STYLE

15 July 2009

How to Make a Good Cup of Tea

There is nothing worse than a dishwater-tasting cup of tea.

09 July 2009

A bit more on Aspartame

I read this article in The Ecologist ages ago.  It’s a bit one-sided and perhaps a little over-excited, but it does give cause to concern.  Here’s the link to the article:  http://www.wnho.net/the_ecologist_aspartame_report.htm. And here for some bal...

08 July 2009

Recipe - Wild Harvested Samphire

For many, the sign of summer is the first swallow or the sound of a cuckoo or the sound of cricket being played or perhaps Glastonbury of the Summer solstice.  For me, it is samphire.  Samphire is one of those truly old foods from the wild that peopl...

25 June 2009

Recipe - Rediscovering Ratatouille