Having waited just over a week for the judges, Julia and James, to choose their winning top 3 entries to the Farewell Floyd Food Blogging Event, I received an email from them yesterday morning, letting me know that my blog post Coq au Vin – A Tribute to Keith Floyd had been chosen as one of their Top 3 Winners, therefore winning myself a copy of ‘Floyd’s Food’ from Absolute Press. It was lovely to receive their email and kind words about my dish, first thing on a Monday morning and it made my day!
I had such great fun creating my tribute to Keith Floyd, for me and my family, and several glasses were consumed on his behalf during the cooking and eating, true Floyd style!
I was astounded by the lovely dishes the other winners and entrants had made and realised that there are other big Floyd fans out there that will miss him.
The other 2 winners were: Going With My Gut: Kenyan Goat Feast — For Farewell Floyd: Food Blogging Event Foodycat: Farewell Floyd – Jambalaya
both of which are fantastic recipes.
I cant wait to cook up my first dish from Floyds first publication and blog about too.
For the announcements and round-up from the judges please read the following posts:
Having had a busy week at work, I have been playing catch up on all my emails, tweets and blog posts. One nice email to receive was from the new Food Social Network – FoodCandy.
After not being able to take part in the ‘Farewell Floyd Food Blogging Event’ last weekend due to feeling ill, I was so happy to read that the deadline for the competition had been extended to the 25th October, meaning I was able to take part after all!
The idea of the event is that we all cook a meal in tribute to this much-loved chef either by cooking up a classic Keith Floyd recipe, an adapted Keith Floyd recipe or a recipe of our own design inspired by, and in tribute to Keith Floyd.
Having been lucky enough to borrow my mum’s original copy of ‘Floyd on France’, I spent an evening trawling all the delicious recipes to find a true classic that I could attempt to cook for this event. I ended up deciding to cook his Coq au Vin recipe which is translated in his book as ‘Cockerel in Red Wine’.
So I set about getting all the ingredients including a decent bottle of red Burgundy as Floyd uses it specifically in his recipe and mentions that “Burgundy is supposed to be famous for Coq au Vin”.
As for my own take on this recipe, I decided to use free-range chicken from Somerset as well as local cider brandy.
Now for my gluten free twist, I used cornflour to make my Beurre Manié and gluten free bread for my Garlic Croutons. This meant that my whole family could enjoy this fantastic dish, as I cooked it in Somerset on a weekend visit home.
I hope everyone that had taken part in this event has had as much fun creating their dishes as I have with mine and I hope that others try this fantastic Coq au Vin recipe. I also hope the late, great Keith Floyd would appreciate my twist of his recipe, as he was born and raised in Somerset too!
Having collected too many blackberries last week, I decided I would try other suggestions I had read about of Blackerry Brandy. This would probably make a more enjoyable xmas present for my Dad than the Sloe Vodka!!
The great thing was, it was so much easier to make than the Sloe Vodka too – no pricking the fruit involved thank god. Other than that the recipe is the same, substituting Brandy for Vodka and Blackerries for Vodka – ta da!!
12ozs Blackberries
6ozs Caster sugar
75cl Brandy
1 Mix the blackberries with the sugar and then add them to a large storage bottle or container with the brandy.
3 Store the bottle in a cool dark cupboard and shake it every other day for a week. Then shake it once a week for two months.
4 The blackberry brandy will take on a even deeper reddish brown colour than the sloe vodka and be ready to drink.
5 After two to three months, pour the mixture into bottles through a funnel lined with fine mesh or cheesecloth and store in a cool place again.
A home for my personal foodie ramblings, culinary attempts, information on local produce and also for collecting my mum's recipes and culinary teachings, before she leaves this mortal coil!