FLOWER POT KITCHEN: BEST EVER HALLOWEEN PARTY

31 Oct 2011

BEST EVER HALLOWEEN PARTY

MOST EXCELLENT HALLOWEEN PARTY

HAD SUCH GREAT FUN MAKING MUMMY'S TOES AND GRUESOME FOOD FOR ALL THE KIDS AND DECORATING THE HOUSE ALL SPOOKY

Made fabulous triple chocolate cupcakes and decorated with chocolate and vanilla butter icing, then the fun decorations moulded with sugar paste and icing pens, finished off the presentation with a spiders web cupcake casing. Pirate cup cake stand just magic...

CHEESEY HORROR FINGERS

Dairy lea slice cheese, rolled up and then with a skewer imprint the characteristics of a real finger and then a thin square of green bell pepper as a horror finger nail...

MUMMY'S WRAPPED TOES

Cocktail sausage wrapped in a thin sliver of flour tortilla, I painted jam on the tortilla to encourage the wrap to stick and a thin square slice of red bell pepper for the toe nail...

HALLOWEEN PIZZA'S

Standard pizza dough with flour, salt, yeast and water, not left to prove at all to keep the dough as a thin crust, pasted with a tom puree, herbs and mozzarella, used black icing pen for the eyes, as guessed olives would give such a better effect but not really child friendly lol...

MUMMY WRAPPED SAUSAGES

Sausage mummies, lol half cooked some local pork chipolatas then let them cool and wrapped a strip of puff pastry painted with egg wash around the sausage, leaving room for the face, another egg wash and into the oven to finish off, a real smash hit with the kids.

WITCHES BREW RECIPE STATION

This was such fun, just lemon squash and natural red food dye in the fountain, plus lots of worms, cockroaches, fly's and bugs lol, then on the side some eyeballs, dead mans toes, teeth, jelly worms, bats poo and bugs, recipe cards on the wall for everyone to make their own witches or wizards brew, ice bucket full of skull and bones ice cubes and some sawn off fingers, pirate glasses to finish off.

Kids buffet station no adult supervision required lol let them loose...Standard and the best ever egg mayo sandwiches, ham sandwiches, pizza spooks, mummy's toes and fingers and mummy wrapped sausages, cherry toms spiked with witches hats, cheesey strings and carrot sticks...

PUMPKINS CARVED

COMFORT FOOD FOR US GUYS

Very easy hot buffet, hardly any effort so I can enjoy the party too...My biggest passion is bringing people together with food...Fantastic quality hot dogs and hand made buns, tommy k, mayo, mustard (know in my family as stripes) fried onions, chilli con carne and cheese (optional) but makes a fab chilli dog, (funny that is the name of our cocker spaniel...). Then twice ground chuck steak chilli con carne, with mexine chilli spice from mexico, big batch of rice. Made a roux nachos cheese sauce never ever done that before, I always believe in real cheese and the grill but for the buffet I have experimented for the nachos in the American style then realised done such a perfect job and it tasted just like American nachos cheese sauce that I had to up grade it, so Parmesan and mature local cheddar did the upgrade, thank you Mum, Dad and Clive, corn chips, home made guacamole, sour cream, red and green jalapenos, and personally a ton of fresh chopped garlic and chillies plus for me chilli con carne. Dad made his famous chick pea and chorizo soup stew, as usual none left so I didn't get any!!! and butternut squash and sweet potato soup. in all we did not get any left overs !!!

NOT TOO MUCH TO CLEAR UP

OH FEET UP!!!

No comments:

LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.