A Foodie Heaven!

We’re back! After a long absence (almost 7 months!!), Get Stuffed is back! Apologies for the hiatus but our wedding took precedence & with the strict diet I was on, it would’ve been posts rambling about how much I was missing pasta, cakes, bread, alcohol etc!

We’ve also joined the world of Facebook so please give the page a wee like over there: https://www.facebook.com/getstuffedfoodie

A fitting first post back is about my visit to the BBC Good Food Show at the SECC yesterday. Oh my, what a foodie heaven that place was! Both my sister & I are big fans of cooking shows & always wanted to go along to the show. This year, we finally were able to have the time (and pennies) to go along.

Before going to the show, we’d decided to go along to see James Martin in the Super Theatre but when we arrived that show was sold out 😦 Instead we opted to go & see Tom Kitchin of The Kitchin in Edinburgh. Quite fitting actually, going to see a local chef at a local show.

We had a good couple of hours to kill before the show, which I thought would be more than enough time to see all the stalls – it was only enough time to get around most of the show!! There honestly was something for everyone – from cheese to cookies to gin (a lot of gin merchants!) to kitchen gadgets. Everywhere you turned, there were queues for various stalls & lots of tasters & freebies being handed out. What more could you ask for?!

We made our way around the stalls in our agreed on path – there wasn’t much logic to it! I could go on about each stall we visited but there were too many to mention! A few that stood out for me were:

– St Andrews Brewing Co – A one man brewery based in St Andrews

  

– Dough It Yourself – They have the St idea of selling cookie mixes in jars that just need an egg & butter added. Wish I’d thought of it first!

– Hebridean Sea Salt – Regular, Peat Smoked & Seaweed rock salt from the Isle of Lewis. They had run out of peat smoked by the time I got round to them but you need to try it to understand how amazing it is!

– Secret Sausages – They look like sausages but are in fact veggies stuffed in veggie casing. Genious!

A shout out does have to go the The Barnados Big Bake Off for the coolest cake of the day:

Finally 3pm came around, much quicker than I thought it would, so we went off to the Super Theatre to see Tom Kitchin in action. He made 2 dishes – pumpkin soup served in little pumpkins & (I can’t remember the name) mackerel & orange dish. Both looked pretty tasty & I have to admit I will be attempting a pumpkin soup in the next week.

Of course I couldn’t attend the show without picking up a few goodies:

– Black Bean Sauce, Szechuan Chilli Oil & Hot Salt & Pepper spice from Kwan’s Kitchen (had the black bean tonight & it’s soooo tasty!)

– Cairn O’Mhor Cider (Ok I’ll admit they’re a regular at my local farmers market but the cider is pretty good)

– Cute Cupcake cases from Simply Vintage Designs

– Le Mesurier Hollandaise Sauce

– Funkin Cocktail Mixer (normally I would steer clear of pre-made mixers but these were really fresh)

– And of course how could I resist some Border’s Dark Ginger Biscuits!

Tom Kitchin!!

Dough It Yourself

Secret Sausage’s Chilli Man

A Spot of Brunch: 1

On a lazy Sunday morning, making breakfast is generally something that seems like too much effort. Mornings like these, we usually head to the Rio Cafe on Hyndland Road for some satisfying brunch.

This morning, however, we decided to broaden our horizons & go elsewhere (mainly so I wouldn’t be tempted by chips right at the end of my detox programme). After much deliberation, we decided to head to the Hyndland Cafe, purely because they were local & did milkshakes, which I had a hankering for!

When we arrived, we were lucky in that there was a table free. I was surprised at how small it was given all the good reviews I’d read online, I had expected somewhere with more than 5 tables & a window seat! Trying to decide what to eat was tough due to the variety on offer – toasties, bagels, cooked breakfast, french toast, pancakes and different types of eggs. Usually this decision is aided by seeing what other people are eating but in such a small cafe, it was difficult to see what others had chosen.

I decided on a chilli & cheese toastie, something a bit different that I had never thought of putting in a toastie before! Whilst we waited for our food, which was a bit too long for my liking (around 15 mins), the table next to us got 2 servings of french toast, bacon & maple syrup & eggs benedict – all of which looked really tasty!

Our food finally came & I can say I wasn’t disappointed. The chilli had a good flavour to it & not too much cheese in the toastie that it took away from the taste of the chilli.The homemade coleslaw was also a nice accompaniment. 

Overall, a good & fulfilling Sunday brunch. I think we will be back as I really want to sample the french toast which looked really tasty. A word of warning if you go to sit in – expect to wait a while as the amount of people getting take away gives the lone chef a lot of work to do which can leave you hungry whilst you wait for your food.