Our blog has moved!

The time has come for our blog to be refreshed and improved so we have moved it over to our new look website.

Any new material will be added to the new one and this old (but faithful) one will no longer be updated.
It will still remain on Blogger while we transfer most of the old posts to our new blog.

Please read our new updating blog at:

http://artisanfoodtrail.co.uk/blog

Three new ‘Delectables’ added to the Fudge Kitchen range

Fudge Kitchen has introduced three new varieties to add to its ‘Delectables’ range. The brittles and caramels consist of Mixed Nut Brittle, Butterscotch and Himalayan Salted Caramels.

Just like Fudge Kitchen’s fudge, these sugar confections are authentically handmade in small batches. The caramels are hand-rolled for a beautiful smooth texture and hand-stretching creates the perfect snap for their brittles.
Only the finest natural ingredients are used and locally sourced where possible.

Mixed Nut Brittle
A deep caramel brittle, hand stretched on marble counters for just the right
sweet snap, embedded with a salty, crunchy medley of walnuts, hazelnuts, almond and peanuts. Taste and texture perfection.

Butterscotch
Generous butterscotch caramel slices, smothered in thick, premium milk chocolate. An iconic British favourite brought hand worked to its zenith of creamy butteriness.

Himalayan Salted Caramels
Soft, sweet, creamy caramel perfectly balanced with a sprinkling of Himalayan salt. Each one hand rolled in milk chocolate and topped with pink Himalayan salt crystals. Three taste sensations, one sensational experience.





All are beautifully packaged making a perfect gift for a host, a coffee morning contribution or as an affordable luxury in just for yourself.

To find out more about Fudge Kitchen visit their page on 
The Artisan Food Trail here

Celebrate British Pie Week 2017

Photo: © childsdesign

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It's a time to celebrate all things encased in pastry, a true honour of what is a great British culinary institution.

This year, British Pie Week runs from 6th – 12th March and is the perfect time to get acquainted with with the pie-fect producers in The Artisan Food Trail.

Something enticing enclosed inside a crisp rich pastry shell never fails to please. A hot pie is the ultimate comfort food during winter, fresh from the oven, the contents bubbling within and when the crust is broken a sudden gush of steam delivers its appetising aromas to eager hungry diners.

A pie can be eaten cold too which of course makes it perfectly portable and just right for any picnic.
Pies can be as simple or as complicated as you wish. You don't even need a recipe – just pastry and your imagination… or you could buy one from our great artisan food producers…

Goddard's Pies make a selection of handmade pies from meat-filled including steak to chicken. There's also vegetable pies for the vegetarians too.

Delicious pork pies from Samphire are made with rare breed pork from pigs reared on their own smallholding.

The most prized beef is used in these pies from The Yorkshire Wagyu Company.

Bray's Cottage hand make all their pork pies which come in variety of tempting flavour combinations.

New look website for The Artisan Food Trail

The Artisan Food Trail originally launched in March 2011 and since then has grown considerably as new members have joined and the digital world has moved forward.

Wanting to offer a better user experience for website visitors as well our members and to make the website responsive keeping up with current technologies, we have given it a complete overhaul.

A cleaner page layout with large images along with functional information panels helps to better showcase each food and drink producer featured on
the site.
Comprehensive menus and content give detailed information on the services offered by The Artisan Food Trail and the recipe section, again, with bigger images, serves to inspire and inform.

We have also included an online application form for prospective members which will make things a lot simpler all round.

The website was designed and built by husband and wife team Graham and Lisa Childs, – both the founders of The Artisan Food Trail and owners of the design company, childsdesign.

We admit it has taken a long time to finally get the website completed and there are still some tweaks to be done and new content to be added.
Building a website from the ground up is a lengthy process (especially one as big as ours) and it's surprising how much more you learn when doing something like this.

We are still in the process of building the members' area and when fully functioning it will allow new members to pay for their subscriptions online and existing members can renew in the same way while getting access to exclusive content, amongst other things.

If you have already seen the new website you may have noticed that we have a shop coming soon. We're very excited about this as visitors will finally be able to buy artisan food and drink direct from our members.

Got a spare moment?
Have a look around our new website www.artisanfoodtrail.co.uk

The networking event for the food sector

Artisan Food Trail partner, Roythorne's Solictors are holding another networking event aimed specifically for the food industry.

• Date: Tuesday 28 March 2017
• Time: 07:30 - 10:00am
• Place: Future Business Centre, Peterborough United Football Club, London Road, Peterborough PE2 8AL

Previous Food Business Breakfasts have attracted over 100 delegates each time and we can highly recommended registering to attend this FREE event.

Whether you are a producer, supplier or advisor this is good for:

• Make new contacts with other delegates and develop your food network
• Speaking to like-minded people from the sector
• Finding new customers – bring some samples as there will be plenty of room to display them!
• Exchanging information – bring some brochures!

Guest speaker
The event will be joined by guest speaker, Paul Kenward, managing director of British Sugar. He'll talk about the story behind the business, how it works with British farmers, sugar as fuel as well as ingredient and how British Sugar is evolving to meet the market, regulatory and political challenges it faces.

Register by 21st March to secure your place
Register here

Further information can be found on the Roythornes website

Smoked salmon leaps ahead

Photo: © childsdesign

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After having been impressed with J Lawrie & Sons (Jaffy’s) kippers we looked forward to tasting their Oak Smoked Salmon.
Even though smoked salmon can be found just about everywhere in the large stores, these days, it is still no less a luxury. There are cheaper versions but paying a little extra is definitely worth it to enjoy a better product.

Read full review

We are pleased to award J Lawrie & Son (Jaffy's) our 'Artisan Food Trail Approved' status for their Oak Smoked Salmon.

To find out more about J Lawrie & Sons (Jaffy's) visit their page on 
The Artisan Food Trail here.

Shetland Air-Dried Salt Cod from Thule Ventus

Thule Ventus is now taking orders for their Shetland Air-Dried Salt Cod to be delivered in time for Easter 2017.

Available in two pack sizes of 50g or 250g which can be ordered direct from the Thule Ventus online store.

Each pack contains cuts of the finest skinned and boned cod fillet making it the perfect choice for trying out in a variety of dishes – salt cod is very good for fishcakes.

Read more…

To find out more about Thule Ventus visit their page on The Artisan Food Trail here.

A taste of Mallaig – kippers win AFT approval

Photo: © childsdesign

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Jaffy’s Mallaig Kippers have already won a raft of food accolades and now it is their chance to be put through The Artisan Food Trail approval process.

Read full review

We are pleased to award J Lawrie & Son (Jaffy's) our 'Artisan Food Trail Approved' status for their Mallaig Kippers.

To find out more about J Lawrie & Sons (Jaffy's) visit their page on The Artisan Food Trail here.

Turkey Pastilla

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
Pastilla, pronounced 'bast-eeya', is a Moroccan dish which is very much like a pie with an interesting filling of sweetly spiced meat, almond, eggs and herbs encased in crispy filo pastry and dusted with icing sugar. Sounds weird? Actually it is rather good and would make an ideal Boxing Day meal using leftover Christmas turkey.

The combination of fragrant spices including cinnamon and sugar is surprisingly agreeable and don't be put off by the scrambled egg either as it turns out less eggy than you'd expect. The texture is soft and moist and carries the flavours really well.

View recipe

Photo: © childsdesign

Turkey Cacciatore

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
This is our version of an Italian dish and although not entirely authentic, it is ideal to use up leftover turkey.
‘Cacciatore’ means ‘hunter’ and this recipe is hearty, rustic and full of rich flavours with our added spike of chilli heat.
For an extra twist we topped with Mozzarella for a lovely gooey layer.
It is good served with some pasta on the side or a hunk of country bread to mop up the juices.

View recipe

Photo: © childsdesign

Turkey Farmer’s Pie

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
Shepherds have got one so why not turkey farmers? When we came up with our recipe we were going to call it a turkey herder’s pie but that sounded somewhat euphemistic (stop giggling!)
It is inspired by the shepherd’s version and is equally as comforting. It is also the perfect opportunity to use up some dark meat which often gets left as everyone ends up having a preference for breast meat on Christmas day.

View recipe

Turkey & Ham Croquetas

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
With their crunchy exterior and irresistible creamy centre, these croquetas are delicious with a cool beer or glass of white wine.
This recipe is based on a Spanish dish and although wouldn’t normally include saffron, we thought we’d make them a little more special.
Eat them dipped into either a rich tomato or chilli sauce or even a chilli jam.

View recipe

Turkey ‘Vatapa’

Photo © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
This recipe idea is based on the fiery Brazilian stew know as Vatapa and is very straightforward to make as Capsicana has done most of the work for you.
It’s full of flavour with a good kick of chilli to perk up your taste buds.
If you need to feed more, for example four people, you’ll need another pack of Capsicana Cook Sauce and double up the other ingredients.

View recipe

Turkey, Brie & Cranberry Sandwich

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
Once the turkey has played its part on Christmas Day there’s usually quite
a lot left. One of the most popular ways to carry on eating it, is to stuff it into
a sandwich.
Perhaps, after a while, turkey sandwiches could be boring but that does depend on what else goes into the sandwich with it.

If you’re lucky enough to have a lay in on Boxing Day a turkey sandwich happens to make a very good brunch.

First choose your bread. It could be a couple of nice slices of crusty bloomer, sourdough or even a baguette. Spread the bread liberally with butter then slice up some Brie, or any of your favourite creamy cheese and lay it on the bread. Place generous slabs of cooked turkey on top, spoon on liberal amounts of cranberry sauce (although we prefer lingonberry), season with salt and black pepper. Put the second slice of bread on top and eat.


  Notes on ingredients                                                                                            
The turkey in this sandwich is a free range Norfolk Bronze from Morton's Traditional Taste.
Handmade real bread can be sourced from The Hungry Guest.
The Courtyard Dairy has a range of cheeses including specialist British varieties.
If you fancy a different relish try Hibiscus Lily and Edible Ornamentals.

Bray's Cottage Christmas Pie Offer

© Bray's Cottage

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Good news for pork pie lovers, Bray's Cottage has given Artisan Food Trail readers and supporters 10% off any pie orders up until the end of December.

Visit www.brayscottage.com to order online.
Use code AFT10 at the checkout to receive your discount.

Everything is sent in beautiful chilled packaging which is a real joy to receive not only for personal pie feasts but as a perfect gift too.

Choose from small and medium pies cooked and ready to bake at home in a variety of flavours. They also have large pies available and you can even add bespoke a message for a very personal pie gift.

The last delivery date before Christmas will be for pies to arrive 
on 21st December.

THIS OFFER HAS NOW ENDED

© Bray's Cottage

A whole host of artisan food and gifts to be won in our '12 Days of Christmas' competition

We're excited to be able to bring back our 
'12 Days of Christmas' competition again.

We're very grateful to our producers who are taking part and donating some fantastic prizes which means we have a great selection of food (and a few gifts) to suit all tastes.

This has to be one of our greatest competitions yet with a cache of 32 prizes up for grabs!
Already, hundreds of entries have come in and we expect many more as there are so many wonderful things to be won.
As usual, the competition will run over a 12 day period and entrants can pick their favourites from the list and there'll be a chance of winning one of those selected.

We have a wide range of artisan and handmade food, drink and gift items as well as experiences, training and of course the Christmas turkey.
So what are you waiting for? Head over to The Artisan Food Trail website, get entering and good luck!

Sorry this competition is now closed
Thanks to our members/producers for taking part and offering prizes making this such a spectacular competition:

Blossoms Syrup
Breckland Orchard
Capsicana
Edible Ornamentals
Fudge Kitchen
Great Glen Charcuterie
Hafod Cheese
Hibiscus Lily

J Lawrie & Sons (Jaffy’s)

The Kandula Tea Company

Max Olive Oil
Morton’s Traditional Taste
Needwood Ice Cream
Oakley Grange Farm
Ragini’s Mauritian Curry Powder
Red Cat Partnership Ltd
Susannah’s Sauces
Tg Green Teas
Truffle Hunter
Yare Valley Oils

Coronation Turkey

Photo: © childsdesign

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🎄USING YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY LEFTOVERS
This is our version of a chicken dish which was originally created to celebrate the coronation of our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Love it or loathe, since then, it has become a popular sandwich filling which sometimes can be a little sloppy and bland.

Ours has a bit more oomph with the help of some quality curry powder
and is nice and chunky in texture. It is also a great way to perk up leftover Christmas turkey.

You could serve it, traditionally, with rice but we like it wrapped up in a chapatti with some baby gem lettuce leaves. Slightly messy but very delicious!

View recipe

Not all olive oils are the same

© Max Olive Oil

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Much like wine, olive oil has different characteristics depending upon where the fruit is grown, the olive variety and how the raw ingredients are treated to achieve the end product.

Read full review

We are pleased to award Max Olive Oil our 'Artisan Food Trail Approved' status for their Donna Lucia Riserva Extra Virgin Olive Oil 

and Donna Lucia Etichetta Nera Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

To find out more about Max Olive Oil visit their page on 
The Artisan Food Trail here.

Chicken, Fennel & Apple Pasta Salad

Photo: © childsdesign

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Chicken goes so well with creamy textures and the aniseed flavour of tarragon and fennel.
Our salad uses tarragon mayonnaise to create an unctuous herbal sauce which combines with pieces of crunchy tangy apple.

View recipe

Traditional Taste: Turkey on test

Photo: © childsdesign

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Christmas can be stressful enough for most of us, what with all the presents to find and wrap, not forgetting someone on the card list and then there's the food preparations to be made.

Read full review

We are pleased to award Morton's Traditional Taste our 'Artisan Food Trail Approved' status 

for their Free Range Bronze Turkey.

To find out more about Morton's Traditional Taste visit their page 
on The Artisan Food Trail here.