Glorious Cheese

Photo courtesey of orders.booths.co.uk

We're very excited to be introducing a couple of new cheeses to the stall at Whiteladies Road Market on Saturday.  The first is this wonderful Kit Calvert Wensleydale, a young cheese which is matured for only 13/14 weeks, but fresh and full of flavour.  You can read all about it in this wonderful article written by Victoria Moore here.  

Photo courtesy of cotswoldcheese.com

This is a Caerphilly like you've never tasted before!  Earthy and buttery and with three layers of deliciousness.  The grey rind is leafy, the middle part is fresh with citrus undertones and the layer next to the rind is yellow and creamy.  Another article written by Bee Wilson explains perfectly why we have chosen this cheese for our stall.  She happened upon it at Abergavenny Food Festival where our pies and pastries will be yet again this year.

We'd love to see you on Saturday, come and try our cheese and tell us what you think!

Treefest!

A very big thank you to the lovely people at Westonbirt and all those that attended Treefest  last weekend, we had a lovely time and the weather for once stayed warm and dry. We ended the weekend on a high when Leo was presented with this award on Monday for 'Best promotion of sustainable food source'.  We try our upmost to source good quality local ingredients which support the local economy and cut down on food miles thus helping to maintain a greener environment.

We've a busy weekend coming up (click here) so do come and say hello, we'll even have our new award on display!

The joy of garden fencing and other ponderings

So often gardens are boxed in with high fencing whilst people scurry in, heads down, out their front doors pausing only for a quick glance behind to see who may be around.  It's different at Snowdrop Cottage - the fences are low, wine is passed across whilst we enjoy a catch up with neighbours and the sun shines on our backs.  Very recently even 'Crumble' the cat enjoyed a film night snuggled in between our neighbours having snuck in and made himself at home!  Yesterday Dave our neighbour called over 'would you like some veggies?' - our veggie garden had suffered slightly whilst we were away so the offer was very welcome.  Anne from two doors away also left with arms full of courgettes and cucumbers.

So, tomorrow I'll be cooking for Whiteladies Road Market in Clifton and our vegetarian pie will include the beautiful Squash grown by Dave and our 'Beetroot Bombs' will have home grown rainbow beetroot from our vegetable garden and some of Dave's courgettes.  It's simple food, zero air miles and absolutely seasonal.

It's a little cooler here today so this afternoon will be spent clearing up the vegetable garden, and ripping up the sweet peas which are unfortunately looking very sorry for themselves.  We've some new lettuces to plant and a tray of wall flowers to plant too!  There may even be some wine passed over the fence whilst we chat about our successes and failures in the gardena and look forward to the next part of the growing season.  

Workshops at Snowdrop Cottage - Christmas Gifts

We're so excited!  Our kitchen is finally ready to introduce our first workshops at Snowdrop Cottage!  There is still quite a lot to be done until we're completely finished (so please bear with us) and with Christmas here all too soon we simply couldn't wait any longer!

Our friends and family love to receive our edible gifts at any time of the year and with a little know how and help they are both fun and easy to make.  Our first set of workshop dates enable you plenty of time to plan your Christmas menu and gifts which you'll learn to make and take home with you:

Cranberry and Gingerbread Christmas Pudding
Our award winning Honeyed Fig chutney

Cranberry Curd or Zingy Lemon Curd
Homemade Orange and Walnut Mincemeat

The day will start at 10am and run through until 3pm with welcome coffee & biscuits and home made lunch provided.  Please when booking your place on our Christmas Gifts day  inform us of any special dietary needs.  You'll leave with everything you have made that day, recipes to make more at home and most importantly plenty of confidence to have a go yourself!

The following dates are currently available to book:

Wednesday 12th October

Wednesday 9th November

Wednesday 16th November
Wednesday 23rd November
**** SORRY FULLY BOOKED - MORE DATES TO BE RELEASED SOON ****

These workshops make excellent birthday gifts and are suitable for the most novice cooks amongst us.  To book a place please email:  snowdropcottagefinefoods@gmail.com stating the date required, number of places and a phone number and we'll be in contact.  The day will cost £85 with a maximum of 4 people on each course date.

The holidays begin.....

We love holidays, the chance to take a break and kick back with a glass of wine in the sun whilst the children play happily (mostly!).  However, when we happened upon this little market in Rochefort our eyes lit up.  The French are experts when it comes to their produce markets with row upon row of jewelled fruits and vegetables, melons stacked high and crepes sizzling away.  My husband spent quite some time at the sausage stall before picking out the ones that tempted him the most, which was all of them, but the line had to be drawn at four!

The next week or so was spent dreaming of how we could introduce Snowdrop Cottage to the streets of Southern France whilst living in an idyllic bleached blue shuttered country farmhouse conversing with the locals and swimming in the rivers.  Who knows, maybe one day!  However, it was soon time to load the car up and head back to reality, hopefully it won't be long until we return again and start a new French adventure.

 












Safely back home Mr Snowdrop surprised me with this gorgeous bouquet of flowers from our lovely friend Jac  for my birthday.  Jac grows her flowers just a couple of miles from Snowdrop Cottage and sells them at Whiteladies Road and The Shambles Market, Stroud, we think they're rather special.

We're turning our attention to the next few months ahead and will be shortly posting details and dates for our workshops which we're very excited about so keep your eye out for our updates!