Foodie Penpals - October Reveal Day!

I was so excited for this month after last months went a little askew! I was paired with Tracy from her blog “It’s not easy being Greedy” (brilliant blog – go check it out and see what she thought of what I sent her) this is what I sent her – I think she liked it.

Tracy's Blog

Claire from Claireys Fairy Cooking was given the task of sending to me. I’m sure this isn’t easy as we give them the advice – we are happy with anything! Claire sent the most wonderful Parcel in an autumn theme all wrapped in lovely tissue paper J

 

Inside was a mixture of treats

There was as follows

 

-         Hot Chocolate – 3 Different Types, 2 Special Options and one melty one. I loved the options ones where there were different toppings but Ben’s Favourite was the melty one – I am sure that is because of the Fudge – He loves it!

-         Crasins – Cranberries soaked in Pomegranate juice – so scrummy and lovely on my cereal in the morning

-         Roast Potato seasoning – Claire said she was introduced to this by a Penpal and loved it – I have yet to try it yet but I cant wait looks lovely

-         Raspberry and Rhubarb Jam – going to use this to make some jammy cup cakes and Claire also provided some Halloween themed cup cake cases for me too!

-         Mini Chutney and Jam – really unusual flavours, looking forward to trying these out when I make ham and maybe the Jam with some more Cupcakes

-         Chestnuts – Had to be, she said, in an Autumn parcel, this is great from me as I have a lovely Jamie recipe for pie with chestnuts in the pastry – so going to be having that again soo

-         2 Fruit Shots from Whitworths – I haven’t seen these before and they look lovely – think they may become a regular in my shop!

-         Finally (seriously was a HUGE parcel!) some Chocolate

 

Thank you so much Claire for a lovely lovely Parcel!

P.S. Happy Halloween Everyone!

September Reveal Day :-)

A bit late as the parcel was delayed from Lithania but we received a lovely packet of goodies from Valerija. I was at work so Ben opened it and quickly sent me pics. So this is our haul!

Firstly some scrummy looking chocolates! They are white chocolate with nuts on, Ben somehow managed not to dive straight into these (I have no idea how!) But we did have some when he got in from work last night with a cup of hot chocolate.

Next was some tomato and cheese pasta. I think it’s a bit like a pasta and sauce thing that we have here so looking forward to trying that as a quick supper

Then there was a salad dressing spray – what a brilliant idea! It combines oil and vinegar in a bottled spray – looking forward to trying this out!

The rock salt and sea salt combo in a jar was intriguing and as I was making roasted new potatoes last night I combined some of this with some Rosemary from the garden and made some yummy potatoes! Will definitely get a lot of use out of this.

Finally was (what I think) is dried chillis – I have asked Valerija to confirm – but look really exciting to try. Thank you so much Valerija for a lovely Parcel! 

If you want to try foodie penpals please see link here ----à    Foodie Penpals

Kx

The Shurlock Inn

Shurlock Inn

So as Ben gets evenings off midweek instead of weekends that’s when we tend to venture out, this weeks ‘date night’ was off to The Shurlock Inn on the way to Twyford. I had heard on the website that this was the night of their new menu so was a little dubious of going on the first night. Didn’t matter, in fact we would never have know it was the first night of something new. Lots of lovely options on the menu – too many infact! They all looked so delicious! I opted for the Glazed goats cheese served on a rocket, beetroot and toasted walnut salad. This was AMAZING – unfortunately my phone won’t take pictures at the moment but a picture would not capture the awesomeness to be honest. Ben had homemade duck terrine, with pink peppercorns and bay leaves, served with plum and orange chutney and toast – he said this was lovely but perhaps a little too big.

For main I had good old pie and mash with a cream sauce, again, this was lovely although for my (random) taste the mash was a bit too hard but much better when smooshed up with the gravy. Ben had Rib eye which he said was really good and served with sautéed potatoes which was a nice change from chips.

For dessert (although no room we had to try them) I had about 3 bites of the White chocolate banoffee pie which had the perfect balance between fruit and yummy biscuit with the white chocolate cream – lovely but too big. Ben had Apple and rhubarb crumble served with custard which although came out nuclear hot Ben said the flavours were really good.

So all in all we would definitely recommend the Shurlock inn – really really good but make sure you book because they do get really busy! Oh and at the moment they are on the Tesco Club card boost voucher deal!

Kx

Foodie Penpals

So one of the reasons I have started this blog is because I have joined a scheme called foodie penpals. Every month I get an email with my penpal for that month and I have create a box of goodies (to the value of £10) to send to them. Everyone then reveals their stash on the 30th of every month of their blog. Ben and I loved selecting our goodies to send to our first penpal, sadly she is no longer with the scheme but I am sure thats not because of us (I hope). In turn we were given as a penpal to a lovely lady in Lithunia, but due to postal problems we havent recieved our packet yet - hopefully soon and watch this space for a post.

We have just been given our new penpal so are off shopping for them. I hope they like what we select for them!

If you like the sond of foodie penpals and want to join please see link below :-)

Kx


Fooodie Penpals

All about me...

So this is me – and my first blog! I read a lot of blogs and enjoy them so thought it best to start my own and join the blogging community!

I live in Berkshire and have done all my life. I think it’s a lovely place to live and hopefully in this you will get an idea of the places to go, things to try, restaurants to try etc. etc. I am also lucky enough to go to Spain quite a lot – so there will be some random musings from there too.

Hope you enjoy my blog!

KX