Padstow Christmas Festival in pictures....

Drifting away....

At work we have a post show meeting. We finish playing the news jingle, make sure the next programme is underway and then discuss how the show went. On Monday it went a bit like this....'So who wants to start....what did we really like about this morning's show?' Me: 'Yeah great show. Can I tell you all about my dinner at the Driftwood on Friday night....' then for about 15 minutes I launched into a full scale review, course by course. Cue weatherman with his head in his hands. Presenter shaking his head trying to work out what I'm going on about. But I couldn't help it. That's just how good The Driftwood is. You want to tell everyone about it.

I'm so over excited by just how great Friday was that my written review will be rubbish. Because even when I think about how to describe it the sentences in my head speed up and phrases like 'yummy crumbly stuff' and 'a red sauce thing' keep making an appearance. Basically it was fantastic. The only thing I will go into detail with is the pudding. I don't really order puddings mainly because I love cheese so much. So I ordered the cheese board and the other half went for a chocolate pudding under the agreement that I could have a spoonful.

It was a chocolate mousse (although it could have been a foam it was so light) a chocolate ganachy layer, puffed rice and then....salted caramel. Not just any salted caramel but the best I have ever tasted. I had my one designated spoonful. Then I went in for another. I think I even managed another swipe before my other half threatened some kind of scene if I didn't return it to his side of the table. Oh God I miss that pudding.

So The Driftwood closes for a couple of months from Friday as it does every winter. And I need something to fill that pudding shaped hole. So I made my own salted caramel pudding. No where near last Friday's effort. However when the other half thought his father in law had polished it off he did almost cry...so it can't have been that bad.

Banana and salted caramel chocolate cheesecake....(serves 8 but probably more...)

2x 200g tubs of cream cheese

250g mascarpone

3 tbsp condensed milk

1 vanilla pod

2 tbsp icing sugar sieved

1 pkt chocolate digestives (I think it was 200g)

100g salted butter

4 bananas

2 tbsps golden syrup

50g butter

2 tbsp dried milk powder

2 flake bars

a little melted chocolate

Crush the biscuits in a food processor. Melt the 100g of butter and add to the crumbs. Push into a cake tin with a detachable base. Chill for an hour or so. To make the salted caramel melt the butter and syrup together when it starts to boil take off the heat and sieve in the dried milk. Give it a good stir and put to one side.

In a bowl put the cheeses, condensed milk, sieved icing sugar and vanilla and give it a good stir. Once the base has been chilled slice the bananas onto the base and drizzle over the salted caramel. Spoon the cheese mix over the top and sprinkle with the crushed flake and the melted chocolate.

Ideally leave it overnight in the fridge. I only left it four hours and it was spooned into bowls. It still tasted awesome but didn't look very cheesecakey. By the next day it was much firmer.

Thanks again to everyone at The Driftwood for a brilliant night.

The Driftwood, Portscatho, 01872 580644

Bonfire Night cake....

It's a race against time. Wasps vs me on who can get through the most apples and pears.

Yesterday I made a delicious apple coleslaw with red cabbage from the Cornish Food Box Co. I sliced it with grated apple and carrot and a few slices of spring onion. It didn't even need a dressing it was so crunchy and sweet. This cake was made for bonfire night. It's not a cake for a birthday or a special occasion. It's just one of those cakes that takes about half an hour so when you fancy a cup of tea and a slice it's there hot out of the oven.

Toffee apple cake (8 slices, 6 if you're as chubby as me)

3 eggs (172g)

172g self raising flour

172g soft brown sugar

172g butter

2 medium apples (don't bother peeling, just core them and chop into chunks about the size of sugar lumps)

10 cubes fudge

Preheat the oven to 180'c. I weighed three eggs in their shells and it came to 172g so weight all the other cake ingredients to exactly the same weight. If your eggs weigh more or less alter the amounts for the flour, sugar and butter. Put the butter and caster sugar in a bowl and mix together. (I usually pop the butter somewhere warm to soften it.) Add a beaten egg one at a time. (If it curdles add a little of the flour. Then add the rest of the flour and give it a good mix.

Add the apple and fudge and spoon into a lined 8 inch tin. Pop in the oven for about 30 minutes or until a knives comes out clean.

Cool on a cooling rack for as long as you can.

I managed to take a photo of a piece with no 'toffee' in at all. #rubbishblogger

Da Bara Sour dough toast with nduja and mozzarella

There's almost something unsettling about walking along a Cornish beach in October wishing you hadn't worn jeans. Normally I'm kicking myself for not packing enough layers but this weekend it was the opposite. It was one of those summer weekends when you spend so long on the beach that your hair curls with the salt and your skin starts to smell like sand. We came home last night beach worn and although we'd had barbecue earlier we were hungry.

Da Bara Sour dough toast with nduja and mozzarella.....(serves 2)

It must have been the sunshine that meant we craved something hot and fiery. I sliced four pieces from the Da Bara sour dough bread we bought the day before from the Fifteen Farmer's Market and toasted it. I then spread each slice with a teaspoon or so of nduja and popped it in a 170'c oven for about 5 minutes. (This is very hot so just use a scraping if you don't want to burn your mouth!) I chopped up a selection of different tomatoes and mixed them with basil and some of the mozzarella.

I then put handfuls of the salad on top of the toast and we washed them down with beers, our lips tingling.

* For another nduja recipe try here

Fifteen Farmers Market.....

Sunshine, food, a free weekend. The Fifteen Farmers Market couldn't have hoped for a more stunning weekend.

Paul Ainsworth was doing a demo there when we arrived. The marquee was packed out...We bought some delicious Da Bara white bread.

And some amazing mozzarella.

The most exciting part was that they were selling nduja which I'm pretty sure you can't get anywhere else in Cornwall. I am now fully stocked up and will blog what we did with it tomorrow.

Feeling blue...

When last year Cornish blue was crowned world champion it seemed as if Cornwall had found it's crowning glory for cheese.

And Cornish blue has to be one of my favourites. It's mild and creamy and great for cooking with. However at the Cornwall Food Festival I found this little star. It's called Blue Horizon and is made by Treveador Farm Dairies. It has quite a kick to it and a delicious rind.

Definitely one for the shopping bag....

Spicy chorizo....

It's one of the most exciting new arrivals at the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival, Deli Farm's new spicy chorizo. I had seen them mention it on twitter and had to go and buy some.

It's fiery and pepper but the heat doesn't hide the flavour of the pork. It doesn't disappoint.