The South of England Show, Ardingly

I forget just how massive the South of England Show is!  Nik and I went along on the Friday in June to explore the stands, displays and shows and found so much to see, eat and drink, it was epic!  There is so much going on with plenty to entertain little ones and grown ups alike. We happened to be there "on duty" without the kids in order to take photos and make notes but we kept seeing things the twins would love and had we not already had plans to be at Woodlands family festival that weekend, we would have gone back on the Saturday with them.

My personal favourites were the blacksmith competitions, the wine walk, the motocross stunt bikers, the WI displays and of course, the shopping!  I bagged myself a bargain waterproof coat in a gorgeous bright yellow with polka dot lining, it's come in handy already with our somewhat wet June so far.

The Young Artisans tent was so inspiring with some truly gorgeous designs by such talented young people, we spotted a few from Uckfield College!  The three crowned winners ranged in age from 17 to 21.

The blacksmiths made for some awesome photo opportunities with the sparks, fire and steam against the dark backgrounds, it looks like such hard work (and it really is, I tried it once helping make a spike for St. Marks' Church gate back in 2017, see my sparky photo I took back then).

There were some beautiful flowers and brightly coloured WI made crafts in the WI/flower tent, there were lots of categories with some amazing interpretations in each craft competition, of course I was drawn to the rainbow ones ;)

The Wine Walk was informative and fun, we really enjoyed learning more about some of our local vineyards, I never knew there were so many and we've now been inspired to plan a tour of some East Sussex vineyards this summer which will make a great feature so watch this space come Autumn time!  Of course, having a few tasters of the various offerings was fun too, the English sparkling wines we have locally are truly wonderful!

Of course, there's a lot more going on with lots of agricultural areas, various farm animal competitions and displays with sheep-shearing demos and the like.  There are lots of food stands with food to eat as well as plenty to take home such as local cheeses, meats, booze and sweet treats. We bought some Sussex Charmer to take home which is a mix of mature cheddar and Parmesan so has a lovely deep, tangy flavour and is almost gone already!

Despite the rather dingy weather with a few downpours, we had a brilliant day out!

The Big Cheese Festival, Brighton - review

Unfortunately cheese festivals in Brighton have largely been a miss with one thing or another making it a disappointing day out for ticket holders.  We heard bad things about Cheese Fest last year but The Big Cheese Festival had assured everyone their event would be different and we were invited along to review it last month.

Munro's 1st Birthday Bash

by Bex

Nik and I went along to Munro's 1st birthday bash a wee while ago and had a lovely evening out with Roz and a few other blogging pals.  We'd been invited along to celebrate and I jumped at the chance to go as I'd missed their launch party last year due to being in South Korea (a pretty good reason to miss it).

When Nik and I arrived, the others were already tucking in to some seafood delights which they generously shared with us but Nik and I were soon brought our own to sample.  The prawn cocktail was lovely as was the smoked salmon pate served on an oatcake.  Luckily we were very hungry that evening as it wasn't long before we were brought some hot food to sample too and the chicken wings and jalapeno poppers didn't last long!  Neither are things I would normally order but I really enjoyed both.  I also sampled one of the craft beers they feature, Arran Blonde, and really enjoyed it as a change from wine.

The absolute best thing we ate that night were the pizzas!  Again, pepperoni is not something I would usually order or enjoy but these pizzas were so good!

And the cajun fries were to die for!

Stringy cheese & chips, what's not to love?!

Since we received some generous 'Munro's Money' vouchers, we decided to sample some ciders too.

I tried the pear Rekorderlig and Nik tried one we'd never heard of before, Hornsby's.  Both were lovely, the Hornsby's was particularly refreshing.

We soon saw the Munro's keg birthday cake take a trip round the bar with candles and sparklers lit and we managed to get photos before it disappeared to be cut.  Unfortunately we don't know how it tasted as slices never appeared.

As I said, they specialise in craft beers and the bar itself was well stocked with a wide range of different beers and cask ales.  We decided to stick with cider though and enjoyed trying more different flavours/brands.

Before it was time to leave and since it was a Friday night, Nik and I decided to do some shots at the bar!

Sambuca and a French Kiss

And another for the road ;)

We had a brilliant night and really enjoyed the laid back, comfortable surroundings.  The staff were lovely, the food was great and we liked the general feel of the place.  There was a huge range of drinks, particularly if you like beer, and the toilets were clean and roomy.  All in all, definitely a place I would enjoy returning to time and again.

Heart Apple Hand Pies with cheese pastry for Valentine's Day

by Bex

After seeing the apple pie with a cheese crust idea at Grill on the Corner recently, and sampling it, I wanted to try making something similar myself.  I also needed a Valentine's based baking recipe for this month's Glasgow Baking Club meeting so I thought I'd make the idea into little heart shaped hand pies like these nutella ones I spotted on Pinterest.

I googled looking for various apple pie and cheese pastry recipes and again combined elements from a few to make this one.  

Ingredients: For the pastry (converted from Martha Stewart):
312g flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
113g grated mature cheddar cheese
3 tbsp ice cold water

For the filling (I made too much so would reduce by half):
3 small granny smith apples
3 bramley apples
1 royal gala apple
(all peeled, cored & chopped finely)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
125g golden granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
30g plain flour

1 egg, beaten for the egg wash

Method:
Process flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add butter; pulse until pea-size lumps appear. Pulse in cheese. With the processor running, add ice water; process just until dough comes together.  Cut out heart shapes with a cookie cutter and store in the fridge while preparing the apple filling.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/180°C fan.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  

Mix all of the filling ingredients together in a large bowl.  Brush the edges of the pastry hearts with the egg and place 1 spoonful of the apple filling on each one.  Place another heart on top and seal.  

Using a fork, crimp the edges of the hearts.  (I started off using a small amount of apple as above so they wouldn't burst but after trying the first batch, I decided they needed more filling so just stretched the tops over more.  They did leak a bit but definitely tasted better.)

Brush the tops with an egg wash and bake until golden and crisp, about 20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. 

Let cool and serve.

They worked really well and were a hit at baking club that evening!  Especially as they were still warm :)
I made the pastry the day before so it was easy to make the filling, assemble and bake them after work.

Grill on the Corner with the girls

by Bex

We recently had a bloggers' night out to take advantage of Grill on the Corner's 50% off food deal in January, organised by Michelle.  It was SO much fun and just what I needed to get me out of the house at the moment.  Sarah picked me up and we met up with Briony in the bar and ordered cocktails while waiting for the others to arrive.  Michelle and Lynsay soon turned up and Vonnie wasn't far behind.

I sampled the elderflower gin martini and although strong (as martinis tend to be) it was very drinkable and absolutely delicious!  I will definitely be going back for one of those again soon!  The cocktails are delicious and pretty reasonable for well made cocktails in the city centre.  The ones I sampled were £7 each.

After transferring through to our table we all decided what to have for dinner before getting on with important catching up chat.  The bread and olives we ordered arrived quickly which was fab as we were all starving after anticipating a lovely big meal all day!

The gorgeous ladies!  (Michelle wouldn't co-operate for a picture!)

I went for the seafood mornay to start which was served in the most gorgeous little shell bowl (I seriously want to find me one of them!) and tasted wonderful.

Everyone else's starters looked pretty good too...

And since Sarah was driving, I had another cheeky cocktail - the Mary Pickford (a favourite of mine).

Most of us chose steak for our main course to take advantage of the amazing savings, four of us actually chose the same thing - the special 'Best of British' meat, and we all had the fillet.  Michelle went for the rib eye and Vonnie had tuna.

Various steaks and Lynsay's fab prince themed nails!

I opted for blue cheese sauce and creamy mash to accompany mine (making my own blue cheese mash as a result - sneaky!)

Happy steak face :)

My steak was absolutely divine.  Cooked to perfection and so tasty.  My blue cheese mash worked well too ;)

After a bit of a rest, we all opted for dessert too.  Well, it was 50% off!  I had trouble deciding as I wanted at least three of them but in the end I couldn't resist trying the fantastic sounding combination of apple pie with a cheese crust!  What a brilliant idea!  It worked so well, there was just a hint of cheesiness in the pastry which went really with the tart apple filling.  I don't really like ice-cream so I'd asked for cream instead and received a huge jug full.  :)  Nothing worse than stingy cream.  (Except maybe stingy gravy with a roast dinner!)

Unfortunately I was much less impressed with my latte which had a horrible mouthful of ground coffee at the bottom!  Yeuch.  Luckily we had some water left for me to rinse it down with.  Not ideal but it didn't spoil my evening.

Anyway, we received excellent service, Callum looked after us very well, and we really enjoyed our surroundings with the pretty chandeliers and twinkly lights (you know I can't resist fairy lights).  We left feeling pretty stuffed but very satisfied.

Due to our expensive taste, our food bill came to £35 per person and with my cocktails added on top, I ended up spending almost £50.  Although that seems like a lot since we got 50% off food, it's actually not bad for 3 courses, drinks, coffee and cocktails!  When you consider that the special fillet was supposed to be £35 alone, we did get good value for money.  I do love the food here but it's really only somewhere I go for a treat if there is an offer on as it does add up to be quite pricey if there's no discount.  Don't get me wrong, it's really good quality and very reasonable when there is a discount, it's just not the place to go if you're on a budget.

Group photo!

A lovely random stranger offered to take one with me in too so I squeezed into the spot where the flash reflected ;)