Thursday 10 November 2011

Great British Bake Off - Victoria Sandwich

My pic of the finished result
This is the classic Victoria Sandwich!

A pic of the cake from a different perspective

Of course, from my new book the 'Great British Bake Off'!

There was one minor mistake I made and that was... Didn't grease the tin... Now you're thinking it would mess up the appearance... In fact it came out of the tin really clean! If you want any Questions answered please ask in the comments!

Great British Bake Off Book

I have just got the great, new 'Great British Bake Off Book'  from the awesome TV series and will be doing lots of recipes from it... 
If you want to but this book please press the link here:Link to Book (on Amazon)

THANKS

Saturday 5 November 2011

Greece - Are they Food Fanatics?

Well you'll find out...


As we came to Kos Marina the only thing in plain sight was restaurants, packed full of them, pizza, seafood, steak houses, and cafe's at every corner! Obviously the current market demanded them in numbers, because of the massive tourism in Greece. Which one to pick? This is when iPhones come in handy but because of the outrageous price for mega bits, there was no need to bring them. So after we had walked round in circles for about 15 minutes, we settled on... 'The Stadium'


The restaurant was a great success and was based on traditional Greek & Turkish food. I had fish and 'Stadiums special sauce' on skewers with stuffed peppers. Heavenly peppers, crunchy on the outside and the soft rice on the inside topped with melted cheese. The fish was red mullet and tasted very smoky and had a very chewy texture to it. The sauce was brilliant, I wanted the recipe so badly, but they kept on saying it's a 'SECRET.' But, my mum and brother had an unusual spicy bird liver, this was an exceptional dish of food, unfortunately they ate it so quickly that I only tried it once, but it was enough to make my taste buds go mental!

Anyway, we sailed another day going to a small town called Vathi in Kilimnos where we found a beautiful looking restaurant...


So we decided to eat out... As this was a little fishing town, I knew that the fish would be top-notch and they had: Sea bass/bream, Red mullet/snapper, White fish, and a small fish that I can only describe as anchovy's. We all picked the Red snapper, what a treat, we all shared this massive beast of a fish, it tasted brilliant, with quite a surprisingly small amount of bones.

Next, we went to Port Lakki where we went to an awesome restaurant where I had a pork chop, nothing else, just half a pig sitting on my plate, just look at the size of it!


My Brother had Lamb Chops...


Patmos, was definitely an adventure, we had something completely UN-Greece like... PIZZA. I had the 'Special', which included everything possible that goes on a pizza, my dad had an 'Inferno', my mum had the '4 seasons' they were pretty good, almost better than 'Pizza Express!'

On we sailed, going to a small village, and its renowned restaurant, 'Oguns Restaurant' in Turkey.

His food was good and he was quite a character! The restaurant started when he was the age of 13, it was merely his house with some chairs and a table outside... No sign. The only food he served was Chicken Goulash as the fish was to expensive. But, he was determined and so, every time a boat came in he would swim out recommending his restaurant and helping them moor up. Word spread about the boy who swims out to your boat, and, he was getting more and more customers, the restaurant next to his wasn't getting anyone! They had to close down but as the owner had friends in the military and police, he gave Ogun a hard time... They said to him he couldn't swim out to the boats, so, he built a pier for the boats to stay so he could still get customers. They said he wasn't allowed to use his own pier. But, still people came. Once he had enough money, he bought a boat, and rowed out to the boats, they took his boat off him. Still people came. By this time, Rod Heikell had recommended him in his pilot book, and he was getting hundreds of customers, one night he got a whole 2 flotillas of Russian people, as he only had Chicken Goulash he served them 120 Chicken Goulash. What a man. On the night we were there. He made a fire in a wheel-barrow, it was a success! For more: Oguns Site

But, I must talk about one last thing...
The Bakery

From Bread to Cakes, the Bakery's in Greece sold everything!

Bread


Cookies

Baguettes & Waffles

Muffins

Pies & Pizza



Little Treats
 AND that was only a small Bakery!

The other things we did on our holiday, was, visit an 1000 year old Monastery...



Visit a Volcano and a sauna using the heat of the volcano...





And, that's just about it...

Thanks for READING


Saturday 8 October 2011

Eastern & Oriental Woking

Are you looking for a restaurant that sells Eastern food like Chinese & Thai, all you can eat, GREAT VALUE & Great Service... 
 I'll answer that question for you? YES!
         Well I've found it!





This unthinkable, dream restaurant sell the top food of the east, and while doing that, gives a brilliant atmosphere. Also its a set price for all you eat (which fits my dad perfectly). So its great value, great atmosphere, great food... 

What more could you want!?

If you're interested visit:

Sunday 2 October 2011

My first Youtube Video!


Harrison's Cooking Blog goes VIDEO too!

I am now making videos on my cooking, but will still be posting the recipes and all here... Check out my youtube   channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/HarrisonsCooking and while you're there check out my first video... How to make Delicious Shortbread!

Saturday 30 July 2011

Maritius - A Country who LOVES their food?


Mauritius, the home of spice, seafood and traditional ways of cooking! (Also some amazing weather to top it off!) So you can imagine my excitement, the equivalent of drinking 1000s of red bull, when we heard about the lobster night! Lobster, a scary creature alive, a absolute delicacy dead. How is it that all scary creatures normally taste good? Shark, a delicacy, for its shark fin soup. Squid (not that dangerous, but counts as "can be"), calamari can be a beautiful dish if done by a experienced chef (like me!). Anyway, Lobster evening...









Sorry for showing the pudding, I just couldn't help showing you how beautiful it looked on the plate! This Lobster evening was a lobster evening to remember because of these facts.

1. Presentation - Presentation  is key, no - ones gonna eat your food if it's looks horrible.
2. Taste - Spice, sweet, sour, soft, hard, seasoning, these are great things to add to your cooking to make it interesting and more pleasurable for your guest.
3. Effort - A good plate of food, is only made with effort and so to reward that effort, respect the chef! you could tell this chef put effort into all 3 of these facts. 

That is why this night was fabtastic, because it was faultless. The rest of my week was brilliant, food, food, food was the fashion in Mauritius, so I guarantee where ever you go in Mauritius, you'll find food, is what they think is special! 

Thursday 2 June 2011

Hampton Court Food Festival

A sunny day, an endless sight of stalls, smells choking the air of so many different kinds of delightful food, today was set to be a brilliant day. 11:00 it opened, and the crowd poured into the Foodies Festival.


The first thing that caught our eyes, well my eyes was... Jimmy's Iced Coffee!
Now I know everyone who is reading is going to be thinking iced tea. YEP! Iced Coffee. What??? But yes, there is such a thing, and yes again, it does have caffeine in it, which is just why this appealed to me! It was absolutely, mind-blowingly, cold, icy (surprisingly), refreshing, and overall... nice! So we bought one. Look out for it in Waitrose in big 1 litre cartons! For more, visit: Jimmy's Iced Coffee Website or visit their page on Facebook: Facebook - Jimmy's Iced Coffee

Moving on, the next thing that caught our attention was some Indian brilliance, some say it is a squashed triangular prism, but all we now is that it's the legendary samosa! Also people say they are like edible tea bags! These samosa's were AMAZING, they were crunchy and crispy on the outside, and soft and scrumptious on the inside!
We visited the plant section (My Mums idea), and I found some peculiar plants...

Banana Mint?
Chocolate Mint?
Apple Mint?
You can just see the Moroccan mint aswell!
How many different mints are there?!?



Before lunch we managed to do a once in a lifetime thing...



What Happened: Well, before lunch we attended a session where we were supposed to find out who has the most taste buds, so, we used some cotton wool and some special dye, and painted our tongues blue. Then the the instructor or whatever you want to call her, forgot the the whole point of the activity and forgot to tell us how we could tell how many taste buds we had, and for the rest of the session she was wondering why we had blue tongues. Overall it was a complete waste of time!

After that disappointing half hour, we had lunch, which was something truly magical, it was... burger and chips! Just JOKING!! We had Paella! It was amazing, fantabulous and just, very edible and traditional Spanish! We agreed that we would have the seafood and the chicken paella and would have half of each. But after tasting the Seafood Paella, I wanted nothing else except the Seafood Paella, so, I said I didn't like the chicken and so my mum was forced to eat the chicken, and so I scoffed my Seafood Paella in triumph! 


After my Spanish lunch, I set off to find 2 weird and wonderful foods:




These Munchy Seeds were really tasty, and they are really good for you.
 For more, visit: Munchy Seeds Website or visit their page on Facebook: Facebook - Munchy Seeds.


Fruit Crisps are surprisingly nice and come in loads of different fruit flavours! 
For more, visit: Nim's Fruit Crisps Website.

I will now show you photos of what other stalls there are:


RAW Health.
For more, visit: RAW Health Website or visit their page on Facebook: Facebook - RAW Health


Cupcake stand.


Pots and pans etc.


Fiona Sciolti Botanical Chocolates. 
For more, visit: Fiona Sciolti Botanical Chocolates Website or visit their page on Facebook: Facebook - Fiona Sciolti Botanical Chocolate.


 Panjaban curry sauces.
For more, visit: Panjaban Curry Sauces Website or visit their page on Facebook: Facebook - Panjaban 
Curry Sauces.


Mobile Massage.


Fresh Ice Tea.


Roast Hog.
For more, visit: Roast Hog Website.


Cooking Books.


Jams and Chutneys.


AND LOADS MORE!

Now for 2 weird PICS:


MASSIVE Yakult!


A Cow? On a Stand?

This was a great day out, RECOMMEND IT! There was so many tasters, and so much to watch, listen and do.

Thank you for READING THIS POST!