Beech's Fine Chocolates - Giveaway

60g bar selection 

Taste testing chocolate, oh its a tough job but someones got to do it !

Our friends at Beechs' Chocolates in Preston sent us a selection of their delicious chocolates for taste testing recently and what fun we have had.

Beechs' are some what of a Lancashire Legend, formed in 1920 this Lancashire Chocolate company have been supplying the fine people of Lancashire and  the world with delightful chocolate treats for nigh on a hundred years. Their factory is in Preston so pretty local to us and still in its original location.

60g Bar various

So onto our taste testing, we tried the dark chocolate selection first, the Dark Chocolate is 54 - 55% cocoa solids so its not a dark dark chocolate, personally I prefer a higher percentage but that a question of personal taste and we still really enjoyed the selection, the ginger  and mint crisp deserve particular mention , the ginger warming and aromatic and the mint cooling and smooth. The Lime and Chilli starts like a chocolate lime and progresses to a warm heat to finish. All in all a good range of flavours.

Dark chocolate / Dark Chocolate with Ginger / Dark Chocolate Lime and Chilli / Dark Chocolate Mint Crisp.

White Chocolate

Rich smooth and creamy, classic white chocolate with a distinct vanilla hit, melts well.

Selection of 60g bars

Milk Chocolate / Milk Chocolate Anglesey Sea Salt / Milk Chocolate Popping Candy / Milk Chocolate Salted Caramel / Milk Chocolate Crunchy Honeycomb

The milk chocolate is 30% cocoa solids and is noticeably richer in taste than the average high street bar, all the milk bars were creamy and we loved all the flavours, particularly the Anglesey Sea Salt and Salted Caramel as the salting was very well handled and just subtly added to the bars flavours. The popping candy bar is novel and lots of fun and was the favourite of Mr Lancashire Food, plenty of pop !

Gift Boxes

Luxury Chocolate Hearts - Decadent rich chocolate hearts with a thick praline centre in a lovely presentation box

I Love You - fine selection of white, dark and milk chocolate creams, pralines and truffles 

Milk Chocolate Coconut Macaroons - 9 square pieces of rich and very coconutty macaroon in a presentation box

Milk Chocolate Fudge - rich decadent dairy fudge thickly coated in milk chocolate.

We are loving the packaging, its colourful and bright and is traditional showing Beechs' roots yet modern at the same time, inside the 60g bar pack you will find a clear cellophane wrapper containing the chocolate bar, a bit of a surprise if you aren't expecting it, but you can clearly see what you are getting. The boxes are dinky proper little boxes of chocolates with a tray and corrugated topper and of course the lovely contents, the boxes make a great gift and are really pretty too.

Beechs' chocolate are available in many fine retailers including Booths Supermarkets, at various fine food fairs, QVC UK and also on line via their e store 

NOW FOR THE GREAT NEWS ! 

Would you like to win a Beechs Fine Chocolate Tasting Pack, just like ours ?

Well you can, we have one Prize of 10 of the 60g bars of chocolate (various flavours) and also the four gift boxes, just like in our taste test, delivered to UK addresses only.

Entering is easy, just use the rafflecopter widget to enter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions

1. Complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries

2. Entries are by blog comment, Twitter, Facebook etc

3. Closing Date: 14th February 2016

(For more information on how to enter blog giveaways using Rafflecopter please see this short video


You can win more bonus entries by tweeting on a daily basis. Good Luck ! 

Obeo - the fuss free way to deal with food waste

If you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed that we are passionate about supporting the local environment and as such we compost and recycle as much of our household waste as possible.

We have a three bay New Zealand bin system in the garden which produces general compost for use around the garden as a soil improver,we are also provided by our local authority a "brown " wheelie bin for compostable garden waste which is collected fortnightly and taken to a local composting site for bulk recycling.

Obeo is an Irish Company which came up with the idea of marketing a strong durable resealable brown bag which can be used to collect and store kitchen food wastes suitable for inclusion in municipal composting schemes.

We were sent a sample pack of 5 bags for us to review and trial in our kitchen, we have just recycled the last bag, so that 5 pack lasted a 2 person household just shy of a month, not bad in my humble opinion.

I am pleased to report that the bags delivered as promised and didn't leak, only on one occasion did I have an issue with the base of the bag becoming slightly moist and mouldy and I think that might have been due to the weather conditions at the time, as it was very hot and humid.

As we aren't encouraged locally to include actual cooked food waste in our municipal compost stream, our bags were used for fruit and vegetable peelings, teabags, coffee grounds, etc. Normally these would go directly onto the compost heap so we did try composting the bags also, obviously we are only a month later but the bags on the heap are still intact and look like they will take some time to break down. Ever one to try all avenues I have also placed a couple of bags in our brown waste wheelie bin too.

For everyone who hates trailing out the compost bin / wheelie bin and detests the dreaded bin juice the bags are ideal as they will sit quite neatly on your counter top for a few days whilst you fill them with no noticeably smell or leaky juices. No smell yucky kitchen caddy to handle either, just straight in the brown bin.

I also noticed on facebook that Obeo is being stocked now by Booths, fabulous local supermarket chain in the North West of England, so today whilst in store I actively sort them out and there they were on the shelf for sale, at £2.99 for 5 bags. Not sure whether its all Booths stores or just selected I think the price may put some people off , but if more people buy then I am sure the price will come down further.

                   
Lucky reader if you fancy trying out Obeo for yourself, we have two months supply to give away free, just by entering our rafflecopter widget below.

Normal rules apply, UK and Ireland enterants only please

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Win a fabulous whole fruit juicer from Domu - Start the new year the right way !

Wow ! we have a fabulous giveaway of a Whole fruit Juicer just for you, this great juicer is from people at Domu from their Vonshef range.

This juicer has been Voted and Reviewed by Great British Food Magazine as one of their Top Five Juicers on the market and gives Fast and Easy juicing from a large chute, fitting whole fruits and vegetables with ease.

It also has an Impressive 2-speed rotary dial switch, so you can juice a variety of fruits and vegetables and an Extremely Large 2 Litre detachable pulp container, plus a Sleek and Stylish Stainless Steel Mesh Strainer.

So if one of your New Years resolutions is to start juicing this is the perfect juicer for you, juicing is great for you and a great way to up your fruit and vegetable intake.

The full Vonshef range is avaliable from Domu and also Amazon.

Entry to our fabulous giveaway is by easy reafflecopter entry, just follow the instructions below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rules for giveaway

We have one juicer to giveaway, this can only be posted to UK addresses and will be sent direct from Domu.

• Simply follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget above. 
• To be in with a chance of winning you must complete ALL the required fields. 
• All entries will be checked and verified before a winner is announced. 
• You can increase your chances of winning by Tweeting on a daily basis. 
• Rafflecopter will pick a random winner. 
• The competition runs until the 19th January 2015
• If you win, you MUST send me your delivery details quickly and within 24 hours or the prize will be passed to the next person drawn. 

Please see the Terms and Conditions on the Rafflecopter widget for the rules and more information.

The Prize for this giveaway is provided by Domu (Designer Habitat) who will send the item direct to the winner.

Opportunity to help a new local business and win £25 voucher towards a bespoke cake or cake class.

I was recently approached by one of my fellow clandestine cake clubbers who is also Market researcher as to whether I would assist her in surveying the baking community of Lancashire about what they would like to see in a new cake shop that was opening in Chorley.

          

Given that I am local gal and like to support local businesses I said yes !

Ruth Potts from Cakes by Ruth www.cakesbyruth.co.uk in Chorley.  She is a professional baker of celebration cakes, she teaches amateur bakers how to decorate cakes and icing techniques and is opening a cake shop in Chorley in September this year.  The shop will be where she bakes and decorates her cakes as well as holding decorating classes and hosting children’s parties.  In order to help Ruth know what bakers (amateurs and professionals) want from a high quality local cake shop she has commissioned this survey to ask the bakers themselves.  There is a prize of a £25 voucher to go towards a cake decorating lesson or a cake.

                              

                                                      

So all you have to do to have a chance with winning this voucher is complete a short on line survey. Apologies to readers from outside Lancashire but I don't think survey would be of much interest to you.

http://www.snapsurveys.com/swh/surveylogin.asp?k=137234738720

The survey window is now open  will close on Friday 12th July at 5pm.  The winner of the free prize draw will take place on Monday 15th July.

Clarks Maple syrups and Honeys - taste testing !

I love maple syrup, so was pleased when Clarks Maple syrups and honey's sent me some of their lovely products for taste testing and recipe development and what's more you can win some of their lovely products too in an easy to enter rafflecopter competition (please see below).

Clarks are based in Newport in Wales were they blend the finest quality pure and blended maple syrups, honeys and fruit syrups. Their maple syrup is collected in the beautiful province of Quebec in Canada between February and April. Maple syrup is graded according to its light transmission the more it transmits the lower the number. Maple Syrup is now classed as a superfood being a good source of manganese and also rich in antioxidants.

Clarks Pure Canadian Maple Syrup (Medium no 1) - this is traditional maple syrup, light with a good maple taste , mild and sweet and ideal for using drizzled on pancakes, waffles and in cooking.

Clarks Pure Canadian Maple Syrup (Amber no 2) Darker in colour than the above syrup with a stronger more pronounced maple taste which may be a little strong for drizzling purposes for some. Ideal for using in cooking and baking where the  maple flavour is to be combined with other ingredients.

Clarks Original Maple (blended with pure carob fruit syrup) - with a  great maple taste this is ideal for using as a sweetner for porridge or cereals or drizzled on yoghurt and fruit. Ideal for using in when baking  Parsnip, apple and syrup cake.

Clarks Original Vanilla Maple (blended with pure carob fruit syrup),a great syrup with a good vanilla hit , you could use this drizzled over fruit or in coffee or chai as a sweetner.

Clarks Clear blossom honey - blended from blossom to produce a versatile honey which is great on toast and as a general honey for the kitchen cupboard. Its a handy sugar substitute.

Clarks Orange blossom honey - is blended from honey from orange groves across the world, with a slight citrussy note, this versatile honey is delicious in recipes which are enhanced by the orangey flavour. Golden and bright in colour.

Clarks Acacia honey - a mild and delicate honey with a very slight vanilla note, this honey is a delicious substitute in any recipe which calls for honey.

Clarks Lavender Honey - a gorgeous honey with a lovely lavender note, collected from Spanish lavender groves this is a delicious addition to desserts and cake recipes or drizzled over scones and cream.

Our Clarks prize giveaway consists of 2 prizes, a maple syrup selection pack and a honey selection pack  which will be sent to the lucky prize winners addresses by those nice people at Clarks.(Sorry UK only)

How do I enter the Giveaway?

• Simply follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below. 
• To be in with a chance of winning you must complete ALL the required fields. 
• All entries will be checked and verified before a winner is announced.
• You can increase your chances of winning by Tweeting on a daily basis.
• Rafflecopter will pick a random winner.
• The competition runs from 15/05/13 to 31/5/13 .
• If you win, you MUST send me your delivery details before 12pm on 02/06/13, or the prize will be passed to the next person.
• The first prize drawn will be the maple syrup pack
• The second prize drawn will the honey pack
• Please see the Terms and Conditions on the Rafflecopter widget for the rules and more information.

Maple Syrup Prize Pack

Honey Prize pack

a Rafflecopter giveaway


We have our winners - Jen Price @BlueKitchenbake & Pat O'Brien via Facebook

Season of Soups, Stews and Casseroles Round Up

                                         

Firstly apologies for the delay in the round up for the blog competition, what with Christmas, a short spell in hospital for me and a change of judge things have got a little delayed. Anyway on with the round up, the blog competition saw some great entries from food bloggers across the country who gladly shared treasured recipes for the chance of winning our great prize from Essential Cuisine.

                                                          

I am also very grateful to Stosi Madi the talented chef from the multi award winning Parkers Arms in Newton in Bowland who stepped in to judge  the competition. The Parkers Arms is a gorgeously situated country inn  in the stunning Trough of Bowland in Lancashire, Stosi is passionate about the use of local produce in her fine establishment and I can whole heartily recommend a visit, I am not alone in singing her praises either as the establishment features in many of the restaurant guides and many a  food critic have sampled her culinary delights too.

A warm welcome at the Parkers Arms

On with the entries , we had 6 diverse dishes to consider, our first entry was from Karen Booths Burns over at the fantastic food blog  Lavender and Lovage, a comforting chicken and corn chowder, Karen got extra marks for using Essential Cuisine Stock in her chowder too !

                               

Karen's second entry was a delicious sounding Highland stew which despite being rib stickly warming is actually a diet food !

                               

Now we are off over to Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen who's entry was another warming comforting recipe  of Chicken broth featuring that lovely grain barley. 

                               

Our next entry was a German pork, beef and sauerkraut goulash from Claire at Foodie Quine blogging in Aberdeenshire, who came up with this recipe to get her in the mood for her festive trip to the Munich Christmas markets. 

                               

Over to Recipe Junkie now for a man sized chicken pie made with her own stock, just what you need on a cold winters day.

                               

Last but no means least our final entry is from Claire over at  Ooo Bi Doo, who's entry is a sausage and bean casserole, sorry no picture, this is Ooo Bi Doo's first blog post and hopefully not her last.

OUR WINNER IS JANICE AT FARMERSGIRL KITCHEN, CONGRATULATIONS YOU PRIZE IS ON ITS WAY ! Stosi was very impressed by the standard of entries and loved the look of this dish.

Season of Soups and Stews

The Season of Soups, stews and casseroles is well and truly with us, warming delicious recipes which provide comfort against the weather outside. Lancashire Food is proud to be hosting a great blog link up with Essential Cuisine, the fabulous stock company, to share some of the best soup, stews and casseroles recipes in the world, the only rule being they need to include stock of some type, so if you have a favourite recipe why not share. We have a fabulous prize very kindly donated by Essential cuisine of a mixed selection of their lovely stocks so you can go on creating great comfort food long after you have entered the competition.

Essential cuisine have some great recipes on the website and the definition of whats a stew and whats a casserole just in case you want to know, in fact its packed with loads of great tips and suggested uses. All the stocks are gluten free and are free from nasties and the vegetable stock is even suitable for vegans.

Rules

• Your recipe must contain some form of stock to qualify for entry
• Ensure that you include in your blog post the lovely badge
• You must link back to this blog post
• If you are on twitter please tweet about your entry using the #Soups_&_Stews
• Please be respectful of copyright and give credit to the original source if you have been inspired by another recipe, you can link up old posts but you must embed the link and use the badge
• The blog link up will run until the 10th December 2012
• The winner will be chosen by a representative from Essential Cuisine

To get your creative juices flowing why not have a look at  some of my recipes for soups, stews and casseroles.

Fabulicious Ices Blog Competition round up

Well despite really rubbish Summer weather (apparently the wettest summer for 100 years) we have had some fabulous entries for Lancashire Foods first  recipe competition. The brief was to share your favourite summer ice recipe and the winner would be judged by award winning local chef Chris Rawlinson. The prize for the winner was an Emma Bridgewater union jack cooler bag.

Chris Rawlinson is Chef Patron of The Red Cat, Chorley, despite only being in his twenties he has achieved numerous accolades including 

Michelin Guide Entry 2009/10/11/12

Awarded 2 AA Rosettes

Taste Lancashire Highest Quality Assured 2010/2011

Hi Life Best Platinum Restaurant Finalist 2010

North West Young Chef of the Year 2009

Lancashire Life Winners 2007 - 2008

and he also was a participant in this years Roux Scholarship.

He also has a particular flair for creating amazing desserts in his restaurant, many of which I have enjoyed as part of some great meals with my friends and family. If you are ever in the area make sure you book a table.

Chris thought all of the recipes sounded really good and were diverse and used lots of different ingredients, methods and flavours, so it was a difficult decision to decide a winner, but there is always only ever one winner !

So on to our WINNER -  from Laura at How to cook good food

Tea Ice Cream and Biscuits 

Wow, doesn't that look fab and who doesn't like tea and biscuits, Chris particularly liked  the marriage of the ice cream, tea and biscuits and thinks this works really well as a combination. Ever the chef he even provided a tip that personally he would create a tea infusion overnight and then strain and churn, this would leave a smooth tea flavoured ice cream and the crunch coming from the biscuits.

So the prize of the funky Emma Bridgewater cooler bag is winging its way to Laura , well done and thanks for taking part.

I can quite understand the difficult task Chris had in choosing a winner as the other entries are all equally delicious looking. So here goes with the round up

Raspberry Ripple and White Chocolate Ice cream from the lovely Jacq over at Tinned Tomatoes

What a great looking entry and its no churn too, which is great in a busy household or if like Jacq you have little ones, I am sure this recipe would be popular with all the family and would be a great way to get little ones to eat fruit.

Our next entry was from choclette8 who blogs at Choclogblog who entry was Blackcurrant Rose and white chocolate ripple ice cream.

This is a lovely summery combination of ingredients and features the delicious rose syrup to compliment the blackcurrants and white chocolate, Chocolette8 is an expert in all things chocolate , thanks for the entry.

Now we are popping over to Janine at Cake of the Week blog who entry was a yummy sounding and healthy(ish) Sugar Free Peanut butter and banana ice cream, I love peanut butter  so if I had been judging this would have been made favourite . She also provides a handy tip on an easy conversion on the recipe to a custard. Thanks for the great post .

An even healthier recipe came from my cake club chum Sue who blogs over at A little bit of heaven on a plate ,sent in Dieters' Blackcurrant and mint sorbet.

Sue's entry is a great dessert for anyone watching their waistline and will provide a delicious fruity end to any meal. What an amazing colour too ! Thanks Sue for the post.

Finally we have another entry from our winning blogger Laura at How to Cook Good Food, this time is a very child friendly Banana Shake Pop and an ode to the banana milk shake. This ice looks like fun and is super easy to make too, just buy milkshake and freeze in moulds.Looks like its popular too !

Fabulicious Summer Ices - Competition

FABULICIOUS SUMMER ICES - COMPETITION

Its with great pleasure that Lancashire Food launches it first blog link competition, whoo woop !

As summer is really here ! we are launching a fabulicous summer ices competition, for lovely recipes for ice lolly's and ice creams. We are looking for delicious summer ice recipes, you might want to feature seasonal ingredients or you may want to re-create your favourite retro classic , the choice is yours. 

You luck entrants with have a chance of winning a delicious Emma Bridgewater Union Jack cooler bag, great for picnics and days on the beach.

Its so easy to enter, post your fabulicious recipe on your blog mentioning Lancashire Food Blog, using the blog linky tool below link up your recipe post and grab the the fabulicious summer ices badge and put it on your blog post .

Spread the love by tweeting about it if you are on twitter using the hashtag of #fabuliciousices and any I see I'll re-tweet. 

Please also join Lancashire Food on facebook and post your blog post on there too. 

The competition will be open until Friday 24th August , I am hoping to get a local surprise foodie to judge the best ice and their decision will be final. The winner will be announced soon afterwards. Apologies but due to postage costs, the prize will only be posted to a mainland UK address.

The recipe can be your own or one you have seen somewhere else, please be respectful of copyright and give credit where due , please feel free to publish old recipes or old blog posts, but make sure you add the lovely badge( designed by sixesandseven.wordpress.comhttp://sixesandsevenblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/new-competition-badge-for-lancashire-food/).

STOP PRESS : AWARD WINNING CHEF Chris Rawlinson of the Red Cat restaurant will be the guest judge