Mr Pickles Yorkshire Food Emporium

This Saturday we took a trip down to Sheffield’s vintage quarter at Abbeydale Road and  visited Mr Pickles Yorkshire Food Emporium. I’d been eager to visit this place ever since I had read about it and wasn’t disappointed with the offerings. Everything on sale is from local producers around Yorkshire, there was so much on offer I was spoilt for choice on what to spend my pennies on. There was a variety of delights from ice cream to gin (sheffield brewed gin) to bread to chutneys to butter to meat to cheese to vegetables just to name a few.

 

I could of literally spent my whole months wages in there but chose these, we had also been to the hop hideout and treated ourselves to a few international beers and some proper beer glasses.

My absolute weakness is cheese so I chose some Coverdale, which I have been in love with since I had some at the Wendsledale cheese factory. I also chose some Olde York a creamy ewes milk cheese and a Ribblesdale Goats Parmesan which I can’t wait to try. To go with it I selected some chutneys & pickles and some lovely looking cheese biscuits. I also picked up some Pontact which I had never seen before, it’s a fruity spicy sauce to enhance the flavour of sauces and stews. And I just couldn’t resist the pork pie with Chorizo and fire roasted red pepper, mmm tasty. I’m such a sucker for pork pies.

Recipe: Chocolate and Hazelnut Truffles

Yesterday I made these little beauties and oh my god they were stupidly amazing. Such an indulgent treat, perfect for gifts, sharing with friends (or probably not) and the way to any chocoholics heart. The incorporation of the hazelnuts gives the truffles bite and also stop the truffles becoming too sickly, so you can eat more (yay!!). These are easy to make but I must warn you things can get a little messy.

You will need:

• 300g dark chocolate with hazelnuts (if you can’t get this just use 200g dark chocolate and 100g hazelnuts)
• 100g Nutella
• 100ml double cream
• 20g butter
• 2 heaped tea spoons Cocoa powder, plus an extra 2 for the coating
• 2 tea spoons liqueur (optional, I used raspberry gin liqueur)

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Method:

1. Roughly chop the chocolate to break up the hazelnuts and place in a heatproof dish along with the butter, cream, Nutella and Cocoa powder and place over a pan of simmering water making a bam marie.
2. Keep stirring the mixture until everything had melted and incorporated together which will look nice and glossy.
3. Take the bowl off the heat and leave to cool for a couple of mins. Stir in your liqueur of choice.
4. Line a shallow baking dish with baking parchment and pour in the mixture.
5. Let me mix cool for a while before putting in the fridge to chill and set for a minimum of 4 hours.
6. After the setting time prepare by sprinkling Cocoa powder onto a plate/ tray (or anything else you decide to coat your truffles in).
7. Using a teaspoon scoop out the chocolate into truffle size portions, roll into a ball quickly with your hands and roll in the cocoa powder. It will be easier to do this a few at a time as once out the fridge the mix starts to melt fast!!!
8. Once you have used all your mix and made into truffles store in the fridge until you want to devour them, try not to eat them all at once.

Here the truffles with some salted caramels, recipe coming soon. Place in petit four cases and a cute little box, homemade truffles such a good present.

Enjoy and do over indulge.

Recipe: Gin and Raspberry Cocktails

So after a beaut meal at the Wig and Pen we’ve come home to a night in of Cocktails and Captain America. Yum (cue: stop drooling, or try).

This week’s Saturday night treat is a gin special with fresh raspberries; fresh, zingy and so so tasty.

1. You will need (per glass):

• 1 shot of gin (my choice is tanqueray or portobello road)
• 1 dash of lemon vodka (I used grey goose)
• 6 raspberries, plus more to garnish
• tonic
• elderflower sparkling water

Method:

1. Add the ice a raspberries to a glass, for a quirky feel why not try using jam jar style. Muddle together until the raspberries are broken up.
2. Add your spirits to the glass and mix.
3. To finish fill the rest of the glass half up with tonic and the rest with sparkling elderflower water. Add more raspberries to garnish and enjoy!!

Yorkshire Gin Ice Cream. Now you’re talking

I was absolutely ecstatic this week to read that 3 North Yorkshire businesses had worked together to combine 2 of my favourite things, gin (in fact this is more than likely my most favourite thing, ever!) and ice cream! Wow.

SLOEmotion, Brymor Dairy and Hunters of Helmsley have come up with the worlds first sloe gin truffle ice cream. The ice cream is made using milk from Guernsey cows and rippled with sloe fruit ganache spiked with gin and dark chocolate chips, all locally sourced. I need need need to try this!! It’s available this summer at Hunters deli. Race you there.

 

Eating Out: The Common Room

I was very wrong in thinking that The Common Room on Devonshire Street, Sheffield was just a pool hall, it is in fact home to some of the best American food and Cocktails I have ever had.

After a long week at work all I wanted on a Friday was a couple of drinks (or maybe a few) and some good food so headed to my favourite street and it did not disappoint.

What to eat: As I am one. very indecisive and two. like to have a bit of everything we chose a mixture of starters/ sides and sharers. Pulled pork and burnt ends were good, you can definitely taste the benefit of the in-house smokers but I must say the stars of the show were the mac & cheese and shredded beef philly cheese topped fries. The cheesyness of the sauce was just amazing (as a cheese fanatic myself this is a must!) and the fries were just what I needed.

What to drink: The evening was started with a pint of local ‘guest ale’ which never fails to hit the spot. Then after dinner it was time for dessert cocktails, a mojito never fails then it was gin time with a Gin Ting which was like nothing I’d ever had before with ginger beer and lemongrass, wow. Needless to say after these I was on happy (and very full) bunny.

When eating here make sure you sit in the bar area ‘booths’ the atmosphere is spot on and as the night gets later you get a laugh from the wobbly after work drinkers. I also must say I was very impressed with the condiment offering, alongside the Hendersons (seeing this always makes me a happy girl) there was also offerings of favoured BBQ Sauces which I’m pretty certain were homemade. I lathered my food in Chipotle BBQ sauce which had all the flavour of the chipotle and a slight heat, winner!!

If you like good American food or just want a decent drink (or both in my case) I would definitely recommended coming here, I’ve been a couple of times now and was very impressed.