We celebrated our tenth birthday last Tuesday, but saved something special for this week. Eleanor, one of our recipe inventors, has come up with a celebratory smoothie recipe, and we thought we'd share the recipe, complete with a few pictures of Eleanor at work. Over to you, Eleanor...
"So the idea behind this smoothie is to use lots of the different healthy ingredients that we have included in our smoothies over the past 10 years: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and pomegranate, and of course the trusty banana, some apple juice and some orange juice. We also wanted to add a twist by adding the ice cream float, and making the ice cream out of our yoghurt, vanilla bean and honey thickie.
The following recipe makes 2 good sized glasses of smoothie.
Half a banana (chopped)
150ml apple juice (of if you have a juicer you could juice your own)
50ml orange juice (squeeze your own or use ours (of course))
6 strawberries
6 raspberries
6 blackberries
A small handful of blueberries
The jewels from half a pomegranate (I find the end of a teaspoon works well to get the jewels out)
1 bottle of yoghurt, vanilla bean and honey thickie (or good quality vanilla ice cream/frozen yoghurt if you don't have an ice cream maker)
Pour the bottle of YVH into an ice cream maker and switch on until the thickie has frozen. Stir and place it in a freezable container, then pop in the freezer until set.
Put the banana, apple juice, orange juice and berries into a blender (not the pomegranate) and whizz for 30 seconds until smooth. Pour into 2 glasses.
Put a scoop of ice cream on top of each glass, sprinkle with the pomegranate jewels and serve (the candle is optional).
The development team from The Fat Duck came in the other day to see us. They're the people who invent all of the groundbreaking new dishes that eventually make it onto the menu of what is arguably the world's finest restaurant. Our Lucy (Head of Products/Chief Smoothie Inventor) recently spent 3 months working at The Fat Duck, learning lots of foodie tricks and techniques, so she thought she'd invite her new friends over to ours for a day.
"Mmm, dog food"
The highlight of the day was the sensory challenge. Blindfolds were donned (blue for The Fat Duck, pink for us) and a range of weird smelling things were passed around, with points being scored for guessing what the 'thing' was.
"But is it Pal or Winalot Prime?"
"I'm more of a Whiskas girl myself"
We can confirm that dog food, garden herbs and some other tricky items were on the menu, but modesty forbids us from revealing which team won the challenge. That information will remain strictly between us and losers.
Last Tuesday was apple day 2008 and some of us headed to Borough Market yesterday to investigate the festivities. Unfortunately our camera broke, so you'll have to imagine the peeling contests, hot cider and other apple-based delights.
We did come away with an apple almanac to share with you though.
Apple history appears to end in 1904 however, so if you have any more recent dates tucked away, please do let us know.
You can find out what other people all over the UK have been doing at Common Ground's site. There are still a few events to attend before the year's out so enjoy.
Please say hello to Colin (foreground), his cousin Berti (background) and their fine Scottish oysters*. Colin is our innocent representative up in Scotland. You might have seen him on our blog before presenting a retailer of the month award and riding a space hopper. Along with working for innocent Colin also does a nice little sideline in fresh oysters straight from his farm on Loch Creran, which he will be selling at our fete this weekend in the food market bit.
Colin and Berti call themselves the oyster boys, click back there to find out lots more about their oysters and peruse some photos of these strapping young Scottish chaps doing their stuff.
*Colin's brother 'Tug Boat', who often helps out with the oysters, isn't pictured here. Tug Boat is called Tug Boat "because he is a very powerful man and he builds tug boats and 'extreme support vessels' for a living. He also loves being in the sea. When sailing he gets excited and his voice is fog-horn like. These combined attributes resulted in him being termed the tug boat". So now you know.
Recently I was on a roadtrip in Germany and stayed in the Ghotel in Frankfurt. I faced the challenge of cooking dinner with a hob, kettle and coffee maker at my disposal, but no pans.
I was quite pleased that the pasta worked out so well and that the outcome looked so appetising.
It reminded me of a chat I once had some friends over a pint in the pub. There was a lot of egg talk - frying one with an iron, poaching in the bath or the age-old boiling in a kettle. Simon came up with my favourite “toasties in the trouser press: cheese; cheese and beans; anything goes really”
We like vegetables. So we’re very excited to have the people from Riverford come along to our fete this year. What they don’t know about veg isn’t worth the forking manure, and we consider them to be a key partner in our quest to help people eat slightly fewer sausage rolls and a bit more fruit and veg.
As part of this quest, Riverford would like you to bring your strangely shaped veg to our fete. Wonky carrots, bulbous onions and courgettes that look like the Dalai Lama – all are welcome. The best ones will win a prize and be shown off in the Riverford tent. Or you can just post a photo of your weird veg here.
Also, we have a small competition for you. Just name the vegetables below (proper Latin names please, as well as their everyday names) and you can win one of three fancy boxes of Riverford fruit and veg. Post your answers as a comment, along with a tie-breaker – a maximum of 15 words completing the following phrase - "I love wonky veg because............"
Good luck (deadline is the end of this Friday 25th July).
Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present June's 'Cereal of the Month', nestled snuggly in its grassy topped box and brought to us courtesy of the lovely folks at Sharpham Park.
My 'Top 100 nutritious grains' almanac tells me that spelt is an ancient cousin of wheat, easy to digest and very good for you indeed. In its honey puffed form, it's not that dissimilar to a posh sugar puff and very tasty it is too.
We’ve always thought that fruit is pretty good for you. Some other people think so too (these people and these people), but today's Guardian G2 isn’t so sure.
They’ve written an article challenging whether fruit is really that good for you. One of their experts has been quoted saying "it’s a myth that fruit is packed full of vitamins and minerals", which is quite surprising. It’s not like we’re brilliant at eating fruit in the first place - a recent survey by the Food Standards Agency reported that 83% of us aren't eating the recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day: most adults just about manage two.
Dr Shilpee , our nutritionist, has this to say on the subject: "For the past couple of years, the government has been pulling out all the stops to encourage us to eat our five portions of fruit and veg a day, to make sure that we stay fit and healthy. And to make it even easier, it doesn’t need to be fresh fruit or veg, it can be frozen, crushed, juiced, dried or canned. I hope this article doesn’t mislead people into believing that fruit is bad for you. It’s packed with antioxidants, dietary fibre, phytonutrients and is an integral part of a health diet and lifestyle; not only does fruit taste great, it has a low GI which means that it will keep you feeling fuller for longer and perhaps stop you becoming too friendly with the biscuit tin."
We definitely think that people need to think carefully about what they eat. Everyone’s got to weigh up the pros and cons of all the foods they consume and work out the right balance for them. But we don’t feel that becoming suspicious about fruit is going to help our nation become healthier. And we hope this one article won’t discourage people from doing what the government reckons is the second best thing for your health after giving up smoking: getting your five a day.
kate on the people's label
kate on the people's label
Emily on please say hello to our new british spring greens veg pot
Emily on diabetes and chocolate
Karen on summer reads (makes me feel fine)
Emma on summer reads (makes me feel fine)
Nina Martin on summer reads (makes me feel fine)
Anne Yarr on summer reads (makes me feel fine)
jonathan on you learn something new everyday