Masterchef Synesthesia – Swede Mason
ALT-C Gala Buffet Dinner
When I realised that the ALT-C Gala Dinner was going to be a buffet, I have to admit my heart dropped. I had visions of coleslaw, slices of pork pie, pineapple and cheese cubes on sticks, cold indian snacks…
Well my assumptions were dashed and in the end the gala dinner was excellent, if just a little too long!
Produced by students from Leeds City College I was impressed with the quality of catering and presentation of the food. Most of the food was from local producers across Yorkshire which was nice.
For starters we were served with a dish of locally smoked salmon (we were miles from the sea and from Scotland) alongside was a beetroot and potato salad. I had trouble finding the potato and didn’t think too much of the beetroot jelly, but really enjoyed the smoked salmon, which was full of flavour.
The main course was the “buffet” part and we had to get up from the table. There was a choice of four main courses, roast beef, roast turkey, salmon and a vegetarian “pie” option. To be honest I meant to keep a copy of the menu, but forgot to. I chose the beef with Yorkshire Pudding.
It came with roast potatoes, a selection of steamed green vegetables and some roasted root vegetables (parsnips and carrots).
For desert, I think the best way to describe it was as a posh rhubarb custard.
I personally didn’t like it, one part of the rhubarb was rock hard, and the rhubarb jelly cube was not nice. In the end I left most of mine.
The meal was finished off with coffee and homemade chocolates.
Overall I did enjoy the meal, the quality of the ingredients and the cooking was excellent. For me the only downside was the time it took to go through the meal, sitting down at 8.00pm we didn’t get the coffee until after 11.00pm not sure why this happened, but think the buffet aspect may have slowed things down. In the end the length of the meal was a minor annoyance, and the eating experience was excellent.
Pasta with Tomato and Rosemary
This was a quick pasta dish I threw together recently which was enjoyed by all around the table.
I took some tricolour fusilli pasta, you know the one with plain, green (spinach) and red (tomato) pasta spirals. There I cooked in a large pan of boiling water.
In the meantime in a large frying pan I cooked some mushrooms. When they cooked I added the tomato sauce. For the bulk of the sauce I used a jar of Red Onion and Rosemary Pasta Sauce from Jamie Oliver. The rosemary was quite strong and certainly overpowered the tomato and I couldn’t distinguish any hint of red onion. Now I like rosemary, so I quite liked the sauce, but I can imagine that if you don’t then you wouldn’t, but you probably wouldn’t buy a jar like this anyhow!
After cooking the pasta, I drained and added the sauce to the pasta before serving.
Vegetarianism
What is it with these Caramalised Biscuits?
As you know I do like my coffee, and often I will just have coffee, but now and again served with the coffee (as a freebie) is a little something. I have had little squares of dark chocolate before, but the usual is a biscuit. And the usual biscuit is one of those individually wrapped caramalised biscuits!
And aren’t they awful? I really don’t like them, the taste, the texture, nope not very nice at all.
Okay should I be grumbling about the fact that I got a free biscuit? Well it isn’t free, I paid for the coffee so I am in fact paying for the whole coffee drinking experience and if that as part of that experience I am paying for, the coffee shop deems it necessary that I have a complementary biscuit, than I think I can say I am paying for it.
It’s not the fact it’s a free biscuit, it’s just that I never have a choice about my biscuit and it would appear that every coffee shop that gives out free biscuits gives out these caramalised biscuits. Where is the imagination? Where are the fresh ideas?
It’s as though they said, oh look out competitor is giving away free caramalised biscuits, we better give away free caramalised biscuits. Where was the imaginative business idea about maybe choosing something slightly different? Something fresh and interesting? No we all have to have that same caramalised biscuit?
Where are the little squares of caramel shortcake? I like those. Where are the little strawberry pavalova? What about a piece of fruit?
At the end of the day this is much more about the coffee and I am guessing that people think the caramlised biscuit complements the coffee. Personally I like my coffee and if you want to give me a biscuit, give me a choice.
By the way if you do in fact like them, you can buy them in bulk from Amazon…. order them now
High Teas
For me this is a new place for coffee in Weston-super-Mare, I don’t think they’ve been open that long, but glad that they have. It’s a really nice independent tea shop for tea and coffee, with cakes and other things. With a smart decor, excellent tea, great coffee and delicious cakes, it’s the sort of place that you hope to find, but rarely do.
With tables and chairs, alongside sofas and comfy chairs, they have various options for sitting down depending on the amount of time you have and the company you are in.
If you like tea (and yes it has been known for me to drink tea now and again) then they have a large range from Taylor’s and it is loose tea, not teabags!
So what of the coffee? Well it’s from Italy, Capo Di Monte, a brand I have not heard of. However it is very nice coffee, full of flavour, but without the burnt overtones that you can get with over roasted beans in some chains. I enjoyed my Americano and I was also able to get skimmed milk with mine, something that I have found isn’t always available in the smaller independent coffee shops. Good value at £1.70 too.
They have a range of cakes and they look homemade, we went for a posh slice and an apple cake. The posh slice was their version of millionaire’s shortbread, you know the one with shortbread, caramel and topped with chocolate. This was really nice, sometimes they can be too rich, but this was just right and delicious. The apple cake tasted fresh and of apple. I could have it warmed with cream, but we had it as was. It was really nice, and I suspect it would have been scrumptious warmed. Both were £1.80 each and I thought very good value. What I also liked was that they were served on china plates with half a strawberry as a garnish.
There were a few other things that caught my attention on the menu, as well as the ubiquitous toasted teacake, you could also have toasted crumpets. You seem to be always able to find teacakes, so it was a nice change to see that you could have crumpets.
The service was excellent, it’s a combination of counter and waiting service. You order your drinks at the counter and they bring them to your table. The staff were friendly and efficient.
Overall compared to the industrial nature you find in a lot of chains, it is nice when sitting in the coffee shop to have proper china, decent efficient service, tasty food and outstanding coffee. Recommended.
What’s inside your sandwich?
A week or so ago I linked to a site that scanned the inside of chocolate bars, well this week it’s a site that scans the inside of sandwiches!
So if you don’t like chocolate, but do like sandwiches then this site is for you!
Apart from the obvious silliness of the whole affair it is quite useful in some respects in giving you ideas for your own sandwiches.
Go to Scanwiches
Puttanesca Linguine
I didn’t buy it, but was quite impressed with the Lloyd Grossman Puttanesca tomato sauce. It tasted fresh and you could certainly taste the chilli, olives and even a hint of anchovies in the sauce, as well as the tomatoes.
Generally I am not a fan of prepared sauces, they often taste processed and too salty. However as I am not the only person who cooks in the house, sometimes they prefer the convenience of a jar of sauce. This one though we quite liked.
For the dish in the photograph I first cooked off some diced chicken breast before adding some diced onion, red pepper and courgette. I cooked this for a further five minutes before adding some chopped mushrooms.
Once the linguine was cooked, I added the sauce to the pan with the chicken, onions, pepper, courgette and mushrooms and heated it through.
I then tossed the linguine with the sauce before serving with some freshly grated parmesan.
According to Italian tradition I should have used spaghetti, but we didn’t have that in the house and I actually prefer linguine myself.
Spicy Salad
I know that some people get bored with plain lettuce, but it doesn’t take much to take that plain lettuce and jazz it up!
For this salad, I took some mixed leaves and added slices of tomato and cucumber. I do like to use “proper” tomatoes, you know the ones that actually taste of tomato.
To jazz it up, I added some mini chilli salami (no not pepparami, but a posh version) and some Spanish manzanilla and couchillo olives.
I didn’t add a dressing, as there is plenty of flavour in the olives, the oil from the olives and the spicy salami. However if you are that way inclined I would make a simple dressing of good olive oil and some white wine vinegar.
Chocolate Scans
So do you enjoy eating chocolate bars?
Have you ever wondered what was inside them? Well more did you ever wonder what the inside of them looked like?
Nope me neither…
But wonder no more!
For all those people who like chocolate http://scandybars.tumblr.com/