Exeter Food Festival

Today has been a fantastic day! I went to the Exeter Food Festival with my Mum and we had such a good time! I warn you now there will be quite a lot of photos - there was so much food to try and lust after!!

Before the Food Festival, we went to M&S for breakfast. I had a latte and we shared this Emmental cheese and mushroom toastie...

this was nice - lots of melty cheese plus a decent amount of mushroom chunks, yum.

After an hour or so looking around the shops to try (unsuccessfully) to find me shoes to wear at my wedding, it was time to go up to the castle.

The first thing we did when we got there was watch a food demo by Lesley Waters in the Festival Cookery Theatre. It was introduced by Michael Caines...

Mum was particularly pleased to see him as she ate in his restaurant, Gidleigh Park, last summer. Once he had spoken a little bit about the festival, the sponsors etc, it was time to get on with the cooking!

First, Lesley Waters cooked a roast salmon dish, where a salsa made of mint, capers, broad beans and olive oil all blitzed up, was sandwiched between two pieces of salmon before being roasted in the oven...

Next up was dessert, my favourite of the recipes - Rhubarb and Custard Mille Feuille. For this, Lesley had already made a rhubarb jam (1kg rhubarb, 1kg jam sugar, juice of 2 lemons and zest of 1 orange dissolved over a low heat then boiled for 12-15 minutes, I think it was, until jam-like). She cooked puff pastry in the oven and made a custard (2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp sugar, 3 tsp cornflour, 200ml double cream + vanilla pod). She then assembled it (on the plate you're planning to serve it on preferably) by slicing the puff pastry into three, folding whipped double cream in with the custard then layering pastry-jam-custard-raspberries/strawberries and repeat before pressing it down and leaving to stabilise a bit...

This looked so good!

Finally, she made a starter which she called a "deconstructed crab sandwich". She first buttered some brown bread with a chilli and lime zest flavoured butter, before tearing it up into a bowl which she mixed with crab meat, crayfish/prawns, fresh lime juice and coriander/rocket. She then presented it in glasses...

The finished food...

I went up to the front quite quickly to take photos, not realising that there would be the opportunity to try the food...so we were in the perfect position!! Mum tried the crab starter which was apparently really tasty, she didn't try the salmon as by the time that was cut the crowd around us was pretty huge! We shared a small slice of the mille feuille which was delicious, I loved the sharp contrast of the rhubarb with the sweetness of the custard. A fantastic dessert, albeit a bit difficult to serve!

* I've just realised after writing all this down, and taking notes throughout the demo, that two of the above recipes are available on the festival website! So for more accurate detail, Roasted Salmon with Broad Bean Salsa Verde and Rhubarb and Custard Mille Feuilles, there are also some other great looking recipes on there, I'll be having a closer look once I've finished writing this (super long) post!

After this, we went down the steps to Northernhay Gardens where the majority of the exhibitors were. We tried a few samples in the Food is Fun Teepee such as an Italian torte made of chocolate and, I think, pecans...

and various chutneys that were available elsewhere to buy around the festival...

there was also the option to make top your own pizza for only 50p which I thought was a great idea to get people more involved in cooking...

we didn't have a go at this as we weren't hungry yet, we were however thirsty, so we headed to the Bloom Berry Juice Company's outside stand...

we decided to have a rhubarb and ginger smoothie...

We had to work for it though!

My Mum!

This was a neat idea, or at least a good one to draw the crowds in - rather than using electricity to blend the smoothies, you had to cycle on the bike to get the blender going! Relieved to have the drink in my hands...

This had a really nice flavour - a good kick of ginger, but with honey to sweeten it (the ingredients were rhubarb, root ginger paste, apple juice, orange juice, honey & yoghurt). I don't think we quite cycled hard enough however as there were still lots of chunks of rhubarb in it - it was more a juice with rhubarb in than a smoothie consistency. We did try a blueberry version later on that someone else had cycled, and that was much smoother, so I think it was partly that the rhubarb was more difficult to break down (or just that Mum and I are really weak!!)

After our smoothie/juice, we headed to the two big tents where the majority of the exhibitors were. As much as I would love to, I won't be able to mention all the companies or products that we saw and sampled today - for the full list see here. Coming up are some of the highlights though!

One of the first stands we came across was cheeeese! Namely cheese from Wootton Organic Dairy (I would link to them, but the link on the festival site doesn't seem to be correct)

These were all handmade, vegetarian, unpasteurised and delicious! I didn't buy any as, whilst I loved them, they would have been too strong for Liam so I would have ended up eating it all myself, not so good when I already have several other of "my" cheese in the fridge! My Mum bought the cheese at the far end of the picture though, I'll have to go round to her house soon to sample it again before it's all gone!

Next up was one of my favourite stands - partly because of the tasty products, and partly because the men took the time to talk to us and explain a bit about their company. Mr Filbert's Inventive Recipes, a company from Dorset that has only been running for 10 months. They sold flavoured nuts...

and oils/drizzles...

I tried the Dorset Honey and Mustard with Zingy Gooseberry Drizzle which was lovely and tangy, but my favourite was probably the Summer Herbs Dressing with Dorset Wild Garlic. This was so refreshing and instantly made me crave a big summery salad to drizzle it over! I kind of regret not buying any of these - we didn't buy them at the time as they would've been too heavy to carry around all day, but despite our intentions to come back, our feet (and wallets!) were too tired by the end of the day, shame. We did buy some of the nuts though, well Mum did, but she allowed me to "borrow" them! Sweet Chilli Peanuts which I haven't yet had the chance to try, but Liam is drooling over!

Kasbah Spiced Almonds which I tried at the festival...

these were good, but a bit too spicy for me. Mum loved them though so it's down to personal preference - they're good quality, I'm just not that much of a fan of spicy things. More up my street was the final bag of nuts my Mum bought - Dorset Toasted Nuts and Seeds...

Mum let me keep this pack so I tried them tonight...

These were really delicious. Not a huge amount of garlic to the flavour, but lovely and salty, yet with an almost sweet glaze to them as well. I thought I would love the almonds and cashews best as these are my favourite nuts, but actually the seeds were my favourite, all great though! I've currently still got half a bag left, but not sure how much longer it will last!

Back to this morning, and onto the next stand - Hillside Speciality Foods...

I tried the Plum & Port Fruit Paste with a blue cheese, and the Apple & Cider Fruit Paste with a hard cheese...

These were both delicious. The pastes were a really smooth, concentrated almost jelly like (but not wobbly like jelly) texture, and the flavours complemented the cheeses perfectly.

Time for some sweet food now - cakes! There were several stands selling cakes, and in particular cupcakes, but two especially caught my eye. Truly Treats...

where I bought a whoopie pie...

This was my first whoopie pie that didn't come from a supermarket. It was quite nice, but, as with chocolate muffins, I found the chocolate sponge a bit dry. The tasty butter cream made it less claggy, but I wish there had been other flavours - I love the sound of the pumpkin whoopie pie I've heard U.S. bloggers talk about!!

The other cake stand that caught my eye was a great find. No website, but in case you're local it's Olivers Bakery in Crediton...

As well as cupcakes they also make tray bakes which are delicious. The cupcakes were what I was most interested in though - I'm planning to call them next week to see if they're free to make the cupcakes for my wedding. A bit late notice, and we do have a friend of a friend as back up, but fingers crossed! Obviously (!) before deciding on the wedding, it was necessary to sample their cakes. I bought a box of cupcakes plus a white choc chunk brownie tray bake...

chocolate fudge cupcake, "pink" cupcake (for daughter!) and white chocolate & raspberry muffin. There was also a cappucino cupcake but Mum took that one home. I ate the muffin...

this was amazing, so soft and fresh tasting, and I loved the chunks of white chocolate and raspberry as contrasts. I also tried a bit of daughter's, which was again incredibly fresh and sweet. I do hope they're free enough to bake 80 cupcakes in 2 months' time!!

Next was a quick stop at the Cornish Blue Cheese stand...

where we bought some deliciously creamy blue cheese & fig pate to go on the vegetarian equivalent of the smoked salmon blinis we will serve at our wedding's drink reception.

And then it was time for lunch! Unusually for me, I was drawn to the Pie Minister stand...

I chose the sweet potato, goat's cheese, spinach, red onion and roasted garlic pie topped with vegetarian gravy...

this was fabulous, much better than my photo makes it look! The goat's cheese, which I love, was the main flavour, and the sweet potato provided a great texture within the pie. Good choice! Mum decided just to have a glass of champagne (!!) as she was full from all the samples (she was sampling sausages, smoked meat etc as well so ate a lot more than me!) but she still joined me for dessert.

I had been so excited when I spotted this stall earlier in the morning...

Fro Yo!! I'm always so envious when I read about American bloggers' frozen yoghurt delights - this was the first time I'd seen anything like this here! They only had regular flavour frozen yoghurt, but they had lots of toppings to choose from...

I surprised myself by choosing fruit over chocolate - going for a tub topped with strawberries, pineapple and kiwi...

and Mum chose blueberry compote...

these were both amazing! I slightly preferred mine as you could taste the actual frozen yoghurt better, whereas with Mum's the yoghurt and blueberry flavours mixed together more, but both were fantastic! I wish this was something I could buy regularly rather than a one-off!

After lunch, we headed home pretty quickly. I have managed to miss off a few of the products that I bought though so a little bit more reading to do!

The Shute Fruit stand sold lots of jams and other fruit and vegetable based products...

and whilst I sampled these (yum), it was the chocolate truffles that caught my eye...

I bought a pack of 5 - 2 made with ginger preserve, 2 with raspberry jam and 1 with strawberry jam...

I haven't tried these yet, so will report back when I do, but I love the idea of them. Even better, Liam doesn't like fruity chocolates, so these are all mine, yes! :)

The final stand I bought from was Manna from Devon...

Manna is a cookery school in South Devon, but they also make delicious products! I bought some of their chocolate brownies and a chocolate & walnut sticky pudding...

I haven't opened any of these yet as they have longer best before dates than most of the products I bought - they're currently in the fridge waiting for me to give them some attention! I sampled both of these at the festival though, and oh my, amazing does not cover it! I have finally found perfectly fudgy chocolate brownies! Needing to be stored in the fridge is always a good sign, but these are just fabulous, rich, gooey, yum! The sticky chocolate and walnut pudding is also great - they were giving samples of this out in mini cupcake cases, cute! I'm looking forward to eating both of these products very soon!

Phew, and with that I am done! This post has taken me hours to write, so I hope it didn't take you quite so long to read through it though!! Worth it though, I've had such a brilliant day that I wanted to document it in detail. Just to clarify, none of these products (except the clearly stated samples at the festival) were given to me for free - all were bought with either my, or my Mother's (!), money, and all the opinions are completely my own. However if any of the companies featured do want to send me any more products to review, I'd be more than happy to try them!!! :-D you can contact me at porridgeandparsnips@live.co.uk - worth a try right?! :)

Ok, self-promoting done with, I am off to read this post over one more time and then hopefully it will be time to get some sleep. You wouldn't think it, but walking around all day eating lots of yummy food is really tiring! Night all!