In the Bag Deadline Extended

What can you come up with using watermelon and mint? You now have until 14th July to show me. Click here for entry details. Happy cooking!

If you Can't Stand the Heat...

...make a jug of Pimm's and a Chorizo and New Potato salad.



Wow, what a scorcher it was last week! Temperatures hit the 30s, official health warnings were issued due to the heatwave and the UK was declared hotter than the Mediterranean. It was fabulous at the weekends and even the brief shower we had on my birthday barbecue didn’t spoil things: we just made a dash for the house carrying plates of food and cutlery while a few of the boys picked up the garden parasol and brought it over the barbecue to shelter under while they finished cooking the sausages. Us Brits have become experts at dealing with rainy barbecues; you have to in this climate.

But despite the shower still the heat didn’t let up. The trains to and from work were roasting and even with the windows open it was hard to sleep at night; my poor dog was panting and drinking lots of water.

So meals were light and drinks were refreshing, with plenty of Pimm's on offer. I made a how-to video for you to take a look at, not that you need it, it's so simple to make:



And I enjoyed this Chorizo and New Potato Salad I cooked up for lunch one day, it was perfect for the Mediterranean heat.

Chorizo and New Potato Salad

Serves 2 as a main meal, 4 as a starter

400g new potatoes
120g uncooked chorizo, diced
1 red pepper, diced
150g cherry tomatoes, halved
A handful of rocket
Sea salt

Cut the potatoes into equal sizes, or keep whole if very small, and boil them until just tender, about 5 minutes.

Fry the chorizo over a medium high heat until it releases its oil then add the peppers and tomatoes and cook for a few minutes, turning so that they cook evenly. Add the potatoes and fry until they turn golden.

Put the new potato and chorizo mixture onto plates then top with the rocket and sprinkle over some salt.


But as the good old British summertime goes, we’re now back to rain. And with the wind blowing up outside today you could be forgiven for thinking it was a sunny Autumn day. Anyone for hot chocolate?

Lazy Days

Join me on You Tube.

The Galvin Cup Cocktail Extravaganza

On Monday 15th June I had the honour of helping to judge The Galvin Cup, the cocktail mixology competition organised by Galvin at Windows and hosted at The Dorchester Hotel. The competition saw competitors in two categories, professional and student, mixing up their own creations in order to win first place and some fantastic prizes, with the top one being £1,000 and the silver Galvin cup.



It was a hard afternoon’s work for me, which started after a rather fabulous lunch with my fellow judges, who included Salvatore Calabrese, Silvano Giraldin, Peter Dorelli and Chris Galvin himself, and then moved onto the taxing task of tasting lots of delicious cocktails. OK, it wasn’t that much like hard work.



It was, however, an extremely difficult task to judge the cocktails. The talent and hard work that had gone into each was clearly evident. Each contestant had to create a vodka martini and then a cocktail of their own choice and I was really blown away by the creativity and excellence on display. I could quite happily have sipped cocktails all afternoon and into the evening but to avoid a messy exit and monster hangovers we used straws to taste the cocktails and had just a few drops of each. We also rotated so that we only tasted 3 cocktails in a row, to avoid killing our taste buds and finding the judging even harder than it already was.

















All of the contenders, both professional and student, were incredible but at the end of the day there could only be two winners and they were:

In the professional category, Riccardo Semeria of The Connaught



In the student category, Jeoffrey Anthony Warmerdam-NHTV



Many congratulations to them both, and thank you again to Chris and Fred for inviting me to help judge the competition.

Morning

In the Bag: Cooking the Month of June

Here we are in the heart of June in what is promising to be a hot summer. To help us all cool down this month's bag contains refreshing watermelon and cooling mint. What exciting recipes can you come up with using them?

In the bag:

Watermelon
Mint

Entry Details
Make a dish using the ingredients and blog about it then send an email with ‘In the Bag in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk by Sunday 5th July with the following information:

• your name
• a link to your post
• a picture of your dish

Rules

Here are the loose rules - but ultimately remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Participants should attempt to use all the ingredients 'in the bag' for that particular month, but may leave one out if they prefer.

2. Participants can include any extra ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged "In the Bag".

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month's host before the closing date.

5. Particpants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

How to make an Omelette