One of the World's most unusual restaurants

When looking at the latest foodie news on the Guardian website I came across this exciting restaurant news.
A British architect has designed a restaurant that's to be built on a frozen lake in Canada. I've heard of Ice Bars but never an Ice restaurant on an actual lake! Can;t wait to hear the reviews!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/best-served-cold-british-architects-create-gourmet-restaurant-on-frozen-lake-9814489.html

Beetroot, Spinach and Gouda Frittata

After a hard days work, sometimes whipping up a fancy meal doesn't seem so appealing. I decided to use up all my left overs and whip up a nice and healthy frittata. I've used beetroot, spinach and gouda in mine but you can substitute these for other things.

Serves 2
Ingredients
1 ball of pickled beetroot
1/2 an onion
4 baby potatoes (peeled)
handful of mushrooms (any kind)
half a bag of fresh spinach
50-100g Gouda
3 eggs
Milk (splash)

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and lightly grease an oven proof dish, 20cm x 10cm.
2. Halve your potatoes and boil them in a pan.
3. Meanwhile, roughly dice your mushrooms, beetroot and onion, saving one mushroom for the topping.
4. Gently fry while your potatoes are boiling.
5. Once boiled, dice your potatoes and chuck them in the pan along with your spinach. Turn the pan to the lowest heat or off as the spinach wont need much heat to cook.

6. Crack your eggs into a bowl, add a splash of milk and whisk until light and frothy

7. Grate the cheese and tip half of it into your egg mixture.
8. Empty your fried veg into the oven proof dish and pour the egg and cheese mix on top. It should come up to the top.
9. For the topping, slice the remaining mushroom and place on top, scatter the remaining cheese over it.

10. Put your dish in the oven to cook for around 20-30 mins. You'll know when it is ready as it will swell up and become firm to the touch.

I served mine with a big dollop of mayonnaise and a much needed cup of tea!

If you're a Scotch whisky fan you may not want to read any further...

The Telegraph has announced that a Japanese whisky, not a Scottish whisky, has been named the best in the world! If you haven't tried Yamazaki yet, then grab yourself a bottle before the 16,000 bottles produced sell out!
Read the article below from The Telegraph - 3rd November

 

Scotland loses out as Japanese whisky named best in the world

For the first time, not a single Scottish whisky has made it into top five of World Whisky Bible

Winning whisky: Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 

By Leah Hyslop

10:37AM GMT 03 Nov 2014

The Scots are famous for their whisky, but will be licking their wounds this week after a Japanese single malt was named the best in the world.

Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 was given the title by the 2015 World Whisky Bible, which is compiled by whisky expert Jim Murray.

He praised the whisky as “near indescribable genius”, with a “nose of exquisite boldness” and a finish of “light, teasing spice”, giving it an impressive 97.5 marks out of 100.

This year marks the first time in the book's 12-year history that a Japanese whisky has landed the title.To add insult to injury, not a single Scotch managed to make the final five shortlist.

The winning whisky comes from Japan’s oldest malt whisky distillery Yamazaki, which was established in 1923.

The drink, of which only 16,00 bottles have been made, is aged in Oloroso sherry butts for around 12 to 15 years, giving it what Murray called a “nutty, thick, dry [taste]… as rounded as a snooker ball”.
It beat two American rivals, the bourbon William Larue Weller and Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old, which took second and third place respectively.
Mr Murray said the high quality of Japanese and other international whiskies should be a “wake up call” for the Scottish industry.
He said that the the Yamazaki tipple was "a single malt which no Scotch can at the moment get anywhere near", and that after tasting over 1000 whiskies for the new edition, he was left wondering: “Where were the complex whiskies in the prime of their lives? Where were the blends which offered bewildering layers of depth?”
Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 201 is available in specialist whisky shops and online for around £100.

Pain au Chocolat

After being faced with a lazy Sunday, I decided to challenge myself and make pain au chocolats from scratch!

Having never made puff-pastry before I wasn't quite prepared for the lengthy 3 hour process of folding...chilling...and rolling the dough to form the many layers. The recipe I used was from 'Baking Mad' (http://www.bakingmad.com/pain-au-chocolat-recipe/), however I found this video very useful when making my pastry...

After a total of 6 hours I finally got to taste one of my delicious pain au chocolats! And here they are...

Now they have layers even Mary Berry would be proud of! I have to say my only criticism would be that they were too chocolatey...but there are worse things!

You should definitely try this recipe, it was easy to follow and produced a delicious pain au chocolat! Just be wary of the prep time as there is 4 hours of proving and chilling involved also.

Dinner pics

Seared tuna steak, stif-fried veg and udon noodles.
The perfect mix of healthy and tasty!

Raspberry and Lemon Cake

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, what better than to make this very easy but very tasty Raspberry & Lemon cake. Lemon desserts are my favourite so this recipe from Womans Own looked great, but I had some left over raspberries in the fridge so I decided to throw them into the mix too!

You an view the Womens Own Lemon Cake recipe here (http://www.womansown.co.uk/food/low-calorie-recipes-food/low-calorie-recipes-lemon-drizzle-cake/)
My adapted recipe to make the Raspberry and Lemon cake is below.

For the cake:
100g softened butter
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
175g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
6 tbsp milk
finely grated rind of 1 large lemon and juice of half
1 punnet of raspberries
For the icing
juice of 1 large lemon (you need 3 tablespoons)
100g golden caster sugar


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C. Butter and line the base of a shallow oblong tin (about 18x28cm/7x11in) with baking parchment.
2. Blend the butter, eggs and milk together.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder, caster sugar and lemon rind in a separate bowl.
4. Fold the wet mixture into the dry mix until it's well mixed.
5. Stir half of the raspberries in breaking them down so the mixture should turn pink.
6. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.
7. Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon.
8. Place the remaining raspberries on the top (they will sink whilst cooking but don't worry)
9. Bake for about 40 minutes, until golden and firm to the touch.
10. Meanwhile, make the icing: beat together the lemon juice and sugar, pour the mixture evenly over the cake while it is still hot, then leave to cool.

Let me know how your Rasberry & Lemon cake is, post some pics too!

Halloween's just around the corner

Check out my Halloween video  for The Recipe Pantry's pumpkin ideas...

Yeni Mezze Bar Review

I visited a lovely little restaurant the other day...Yeni Mezze Bar.

Discreetly placed halfway down Hanover Street in Edinburgh, I became aware of this restaurant through the site 5pm.co.uk.

The restaurant offers tapas style dishes with a middle eastern theme such as falafel, arancini balls, houmous, and stuffed filo pastry rolls. Kebabs, salads and meat dishes were also on the menu if you fancied something bigger. We ordered 4 tapas between us with a side of Arabic flat bread, and were surprisingly full! The food was very reasonably priced, each tapas costing between £3.75-£5.95, and we had a lovely bottle of Spanish wine to accompany our meal.
Considering it was a Wednesday evening, the restaurant was almost full which gave it a great atmosphere, helped also by the welcoming and efficient staff.

I have to go back to Yeni Mezze as all their dishes sounded amazing and I only got to try 4! You can check out their menu http://www.5pm.co.uk/restaurant/edinburgh/new-town/yeni-meze-bar/.

The Role of Digital Media and Social Networking in Marketing Communications

The 21^st century has seen the creation of a digitalised generation. When in the past print and broadcast medias’ were used to reach out to consumers that has now become the role of digital media. So much so that some print publications are converting to having a purely online presence.

So how does this digital generation use technology to reach consumers and sell products?

Well, Digital Marketing can be defined as all forms of marketing material that is delivered through electronic devices. To expand on this you can look at the Digital Marketing Mix:

• Email Marketing – Delivers personalised and targeted messages to a specific audience using data gathered from online purchases. 

•  Search Engine Optimisation – Figuring out what people type into a search engine when searching for your website, and adapting the site’s name/description so that it flags up when searched. 

•  Pay Per Click – Paid adverts on search results, usually placed above or to the sides and are highlighted. Can cost anything from £1-£50 per click. 

•  Online advertising – Buying banner space or advertising on a specific website. 

•  Affiliate Marketing – Similar to online advertising; however the site that’s hosting the advert will get commission based on how many sales are made through the ad. 

•  Text messaging – Promotional messages, targeted to a specific group gathered from past purchases on data given online. For example, Dominoes Pizza text-discount. 

• Blogging – Making a blog attractive, current and searchable through good use of search engine optimisation and design techniques. 

•  Viral marketing – Creating material that naturally spreads throughout your target market. Think of Social Media campaigns, videos, or blogs.  

Social Media is one of the main forms of digital marketing. According to eMarketer, 1.97billion people will be frequently using social media by the end of 2014, which is 27.6% of the global population.

S   Social media can help a brand to: 

•  Increase brand recognition – Twitter you can use hashtags and people can see a brands personality through their tweets. Brands can create Facebook pages. 

•  Improve brand loyalty 

•  Have a constant presence – the more a consumer sees of a brand the more likely they are to convert. 

•  Increase traffic – the more social media sites you have you are increasing your chances of a new customer seeing you. 

•  Analyse customers – Tools are available now where you can analyse the traffic to your site, finding out where your viewers are located, what route they took to your site, and at what point they left.

When looking at the Digital Marketing Mix and the benefits of Social Media, we can see that a lot of the benefits come from being able to target specific groups instantly and directly.
Brands can now speak with their consumers’ one on one via social media, which raises their online activity, allows them to find out what the consumer wants, and comforts and attracts the consumer as they receive instant feedback from what feels like an actual person as opposed to a voice on the phone or a letter. 

So what audience does digital media have?

According to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, 39.3% of the global population use the internet; this shows a growth of 676.3% over the past 4 years. And according to Business Insider, by the end of 2013 there were 2 smartphones for every 9 people in the world, showing an increase of 17% since 2009.
We can see from these figures that technology is rapidly becoming a permanent part of people’s lives. As a constantly changing and updating platform it’s essential for brands to keep up-to-date and to make the most of this invaluable marketing tool.

Scotland's Food & Drink Industry

Whether you’re vegetarian or carnivore, enjoy fast food or healthy food, everyone deserves to know what’s in their food and where it comes from. The food and drink industry holds a responsibility to consumers to make them aware of this and also to highlight the effects of over and under eating. So I’ve decided to explore the Corporate Social Responsibility of Scotland’s food industry.

Corporate Social Responsibility of the Food Industry

Scotland’s food and drink industry plays a vital role in Scotland’s economy. Currently with an annual turnover of £14 billion, the goal is to grow the industry to a value of £16.5 billion by 2017 through exploiting the quality, provenance and sustainability of Scottish produce.

The food and drink industry has a responsibility to consumers to provide ethical and sustainable products. A survey by DEFRA in 2010 showed that it’s important to 65% of people that a product has been ethically produced, 70% said it’s important to them that their fish comes from a sustainable source, 68% believed it important for a product to be produced with respect to the environment, and 76% said it was important that their meat and eggs have been produced to high animal welfare standards.

As you can see, the majority of the population deem ethically sourced and sustainable food of great importance to them, so now I’m going to look at the buying choices consumers have in order to honour this preference.

Ethical
The motivation behind buying ethical products is down to people not agreeing with the abuse of animals, how the workers are exploited, or the damage that’s being done to the environment.

Free range is a term that can be applied to meat, eggs, and dairy farming, and is applicable when the animals are allowed to roam freely outdoors for a portion of the day. Contrast to free range farming you have the horrendous battery cages, this is where animals are kept in cages 24hrs a day while they provide whatever product they’re there for. Charities such as RSPCA and Animal Aid have been campaigning against this animal abuse for years, but it’s only been in the past 2 years that sales of free range eggs have outsold caged eggs.

As fast food choices such as sandwiches, coffees and yoghurts etc are an extremely popular way of eating these days, using eco-friendly packaging is vital. An example of a brand that is aware of this and markets themselves as an environmentally friendly brand is ‘Pret A Manger’.
Commenting on its packaging, Pret says: ‘…in 2012 we finally got rid of the plastic bag altogether, replacing them with paper bags from sustainably managed sources... We’re committed to using packaging that is as sustainable as possible. All our packaging must be made from accredited sustainable sources or recycled material, and must also be fully recyclable.’

The Fairtrade organisation supports small farms and plantations in countries where standard working conditions aren’t always present. When buying a product with the Fairtrade mark on it – bananas, chocolate, tea etc – you are guaranteed that the work and ingredients gone into making it meets agreed Fairtrade social, economic and environmental standards.

Sustainability
Organisations such as The Soil Association and Marine Stewardship Council campaign for sustainable farming and fishing throughout the UK. They want to set standards and provide solutions so that people can eat, farm and fish with the resources that are available.

The Soil Association is responsible for certifying over 70% of all organic produce sold in the UK, so when you see its mark you are guaranteed that the produce meets the highest standard of sustainability and quality.

When you see the Marine Stewardship Councils mark on seafood products it’s a guarantee that the produce being sold has come from a sustainable fishery.

Stay informed about produce that’s in short supply and alter your buying habits accordingly, also make yourself familiar with any local producers and purchase their produce where possible – both things will help manage the sustainability of our resources.

So are you in the majority that believes sustainable fishing and farming is important? That it’s important for products to be produced with respect to the environment? That meat and eggs come from animals that have had a high quality of life?

Pomegranate Restaurant Review

So I'd like to start my blog off with a review of a great restaurant in Edinburgh.

Pomegranate Restaurant is based at the top of Leith Walk in Edinburgh. Having been to their sister restaurants, Laila's and Hanams, I decided to try Pomegranate. The restaurants are all decorated to give a middle eastern feel, and the menus consist of dishes from Morocco, Lebanon, Iran and more! 

Pomegranate
With a delectable selection of hot and cold Mezzes for starters, and mouth-watering mains including Lamb Shwarma, Chargrilled Whole Seabass and Merishke Kebab on the menu, it's not an easy choice. The staff are very welcoming, friendly and informative on the dishes.
Having mulled over the menu for a while we decided on Grilled Halloumi and Bayengaan to start, followed by Chargrilled Whole Seabass and Minced Lamb Shwarma Wrap for mains. With each course we were given a portion of authentic naan bread and we'd chosen a more-ish bottle of Carmenere from Tesco's finest range which accompanied our meal perfectly, even more so because Pomegranate charge no corkage! 

Pomegranate has lovely staff, delicious food, and is great value for money, I would thoroughly recommend it.

Pomegranate Website