Booths - New Lytham St Annes store to open

Booths, the North West based food and wine retailer, will open a new store in Lytham St Annes on September the 9^th. The new Booths is over 36,000 square feet and will feature a café, butchery, fishmonger and state of the art deli counters.  The store has created 90 new jobs.

Ian Jacques has been appointed as the new store manager, and has 31 years of experience of working at Booths. Ian started working at Booths Fulwood at the age of 14, while still at school—with the ambition of joining the Management Trainee Programme.  Following several years managing other Booths stores, in 2011 he was appointed manager of Booths in Knutsford, Cheshire, one of Booths’ largest stores.

“My team and I cannot wait for the new store to open,” commented Ian. “Lancashire producers are making and growing some of the finest food Britain has to offer, and our store is looking fantastic. I think customers will be excited about our new offer. What sets Booth apart is our close link to producers and exceptional produce.”

Booths is renowned for quality food and drink and sourcing fresh, local produce in season.  The vast majority of their fresh food is sourced within this region due to their commitment to working with suppliers in the four counties Booths operate in; Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria and Yorkshire.

Chairman Edwin Booths says “Booths is a supermarket retailer like no other—proudly Northern, family run and independent. Our regional roots and relative small size help to forge close relationships with our farmers & producers. We’re able to source exceptional food and drink from small scale producers who would normally avoid supplying the supermarkets. We’re committed to giving our producers a fair price and offering our shoppers great food and we’re very excited to open in St Annes.”

#BoothsMakesSoup - Health + Value + Flavour

Recently those lovely people at Booths Supermarket sent us a parcel containing two of their new soup bags, each of which contain all the ingredients you need to make a delicious soup. We received a pasta and bean soup bag and Thai sweet potato and noodle soup bag.

They also sent a fab new shopping bag and yes "I flippin' love booths" as I have had the flu recently Mr LF followed the recipe for the Pasta and bean soup carefully, substituting gluten free pasta for the macaroni supplied and he created a great wholesome tasty soup, perfect sick bed food.

Like most soup recipes, its not really complicated, just chopped vegetables cooked in stock with added beans and pasta.

Finished by adding the beans and the pasta, all the ingredients are in the bag except a tiny amount of oil and water for the stock cube. 

Below are the ingredients for the Thai sweet potato noodle soup, again easily made gluten free by subbing the noodles for rice noodles.

The soup bags were supplied by Booths free of charge for review purposes, all opinions are my own.

mini nibs - where do you nibble yours ?

I know this sounds sacreligious but this week we have mostly been nibbling something thats made in Yorkshire !

Mini nibs are handy  resealable snack pots of crunchy munchy dinky cheese straws, which come in three flavours

•  Exceptional cheddar cheese 
• Exceptional cheedar and spicy chilli
• Exceptional cheddar and cheeky onion

Apparently all the cheddar cheese used in nib nibs hails from Garstang in Lancashire

The mini nibs range also includes some very moreish roasted salt and pepper jumbo peanuts (my personal favourites from the range) 

The total range is great to serve as a snack with drinks with friends and the pots are also great for popping in your rucksack whilst out on a walk. The nibnibs range is avaliable  through many quality outlets including Booths Supermarkets, nibnibs have a handy stockist finder on their website. They are also on Facebook and twitter too. 

                               

Now here's the great news we have some nibnibs to giveaway in an easy Rafflecopter giveaway, so if you'd love to try some nibnibs why not join in the fun do you own taste test.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway will run from 12pm on 15th October to 12th November.
The prize is a selection of nibnibs which will be sent direct to the winner.

Roots - Hand Cooked Vegetable Crisps

Roots - They taste so good because "Its in our roots" ! 

We were really pleased to receive a sample of Roots - Hand cooked vegetable crisps in the post recently, we are amongst the first foodies to get their hands on this new delicacy, produced by Huntapac one of the the UK's leading growers of carrots and parsnips. 

Huntapac has its origins in wartime Britain (1942) and hails from the Lancashire village of Tarleton, famous for its potato and vegetable growing. The crisps are made from carrots, parsnips and beetroot grown in Lancashire and across the UK by Huntapac. 

The vegetables are thinly sliced and hand cooked in pure sunflower oil and lightly seasoned with sea salt, sold in 50g bags and also catering packs these are a tasty addition to any lunch or snack time.

The tasty crisps are crunchy and deliciously savoury, yet with a sweet salty edge. Good job they only sent packets and not the catering tub ! as they are very very moreish.

I am also really pleased to say that you can purchase Roots in selected Booths stores across Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire in the sandwich aisle, further strengthening their relationship with the local regional supermarket chain.

You can find Roots on the internet, facebook and twitter as well.

We received the sample on a complementary basis, all views and opinions expressed are our own and we were not required to write a positive review.

September 2014 - Amy Cheadle from Northern Dough Company

Say Hi everyone to Amy Cheadle one half of the talented Northern Dough Co Pizza dough company (the other being Chris her husband), who lovingly create artisan frozen dough so you can create a superior pizza at home. Available at various farmers markets, quality food outlets and also from Booths,Waitrose and Ocado, this is a Lancashire food business success. Amy is currently cooking a little dough ball all of her own which is expected any day soon so she managed to fit in answering our questions whilst resting at home.

Their ready to roll bases are available in four flavours, original, wholemeal, rosemary and chilli they have a base to suit all tastes. Self confessed pizza addicts they love what they do and the product they have created.

Recently featured in BBC Good Food Magazine as a face of Clitheroe food festival the team are a regular feature of local food shows.

So on to our questions, so what makes Amy tick .....

•      What is your favourite cookery, food book or publication ?

There’s so many cookbooks I love – I have Delia’s ‘How to Cook’ where I learnt the basics and find Jamie’s fresh flavours and simplicity great for everyday, but one of my favourite times of the month is when my foodie mags pop through the door and I can sit down and leaf through the seasonal recipes – I cut out my favourites and keep them as an ongoing scrapbook to refer back to on a regular basis. Olive, Delicious and BBC Good Food are all delivered to the door.

•         What sentence sums up Lancashire Food to you ?

Hearty, homely and comforting – food that brings family and friends together.

•         If you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you like to be ?

I absolutely love working with food, but my long term dream is to write a novel, so I’d love to spend my days in a cottage in the countryside gazing over a lovely view and coming up with plots – food would have to feature heavily though!

•         Which piece of kit could you not do without ?

My pizza peel – it makes getting a pizza in and out of a hot oven on a stone really easy and is always a talking point when people come over for a pizza party. They’re not expensive though, about £10 or so for one that will last a lifetime.

•         Who would join you at your ultimate dinner party and why?

My ultimate guest would be Roald Dahl, his stories fired my imagination as a child, The Witches was my favourite and I thought it was delightfully frightening that you could be turned into a mouse by eating chocolate and sweets! I’d also invite a true Neopolitan pizza chef and the team at Bake Off – Mel and Sue as they would provide the entertainment and Paul and Mary to keep me on my toes and make sure my baking was up to scratch!

•         What advice would you give to your younger self ?

That setbacks are critical to finding the very best solution. Sometimes at the time things not going the way you planned feels tough, but in hindsight I’ve always learned far more from situations that I’ve had to approach for a second or third time – challenge inspires innovation and that’s what keeps things interesting. (This doesn’t however apply to my driving test, which took 9 attempts to pass!)

•         Describe your style in three words

Currently its comfortable, cool and expandable as I’m 8 months pregnant but usually its pretty much summed up as classic – whether it be fashion, food or at home, I love the basics but keeping things fresh with a little twist here and there.

•         What was your latest foodie gadget purchase ?

A Kitchen Aid pizza wheel, it was ludicrously expensive given you can pick up a similar gadget for a few pounds, but it slices through any pizza/ topping like a knife through butter and at food shows we can cook 50 pizzas a day and cut them into 30 mini slices for sampling, so efficiency is a must!

•         What is your greatest achievement to date ?

Creating a brand at our kitchen table and getting into onto supermarket shelves nationally within two years. We started the business with a small sum of money left to my by my late Grandmother, who was renowned for her larger than life personality and strong work ethic and it makes me very proud to think of the delight she’d take in our success. I also love when people are surprised that as a husband and wife team, people think that Chris and I would drive each other crazy living and working together – its quite the opposite, I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather run a business with.

•         What is the worst mistake you have made ?

Making things overcomplicated – at our first food show in 2011, we were making samples so people could taste the pizza dough freshly baked. I devised an elaborate list of different toppings, and tried to re-create them on the stand only to find that it was an absolute disaster and meant timings were all over the place. Since then, we opt for tomato and mozzarella and let the dough speak for itself – I also always look to Chris to simplify things, he’s great at seeing through the detail and pulling out the one or two key elements that are important.

•        Tell us a secret about yourself ? may be something we wouldn’t expect !

There’s not much in the food world that I don’t enjoy – sweet, savoury, all the cuisines of the world and food is always a huge part of holidays and day trips wherever I am. Not a secret, especially for someone working in the food industry, but if someone was to offer me a last meal ever, it wouldn’t be lobster or fillet steak, I’d head to a chippy in Preston city centre and order chips, cheese and gravy and sit on a bench outside to eat them, covered in vinegar! It was a student staple years ago, and still something I crave as comfort food.

#Boothcheers - South African version

We will be taking part in #Boothscheers - the South African version tonight from 7pm on most social media channels, why not join in the fun ?

We are tasting two wines from South Africa - Boschendal 1685 Chardonnay and a Boschendal 1685 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon. Use the hash tag #Boothscheers on twitter and join in the discussion.

Lancashire Summer and wow what a week !

I don't normally do a post without food pictures, recipes and the like, but I just felt the need to jot down what a busy week its been for Lancashire Food this week. The week started pretty calmly with the start of Slow Food Week, we have been working with Slow Food UK on their ark of Forgotten Foods and creating a post for their website and the blog about Goosnargh cakes. 

I then found out that we had a our tomato ketchup recipe featured in Modern Vintage Magazine, a popular online  vintage magazine.

On the same day we also received notification that the recipe for Chocolate courgette spelt cake (featuring Agave nectar) was to be used by the Groovy Food Company in their competition from the Clandestine Cake club.

Midweek, we also took part in our first live Google+ hangout with Booths and their #BoothsCookalong and had the great pleasure of virtually hanging out with non other than Edd Kimber, Winner of the First series of Great British Bake off , whilst the chef Rob produced delicious Trout, Formby asparagus and pico de gallo in their store in Media city. I just love how Booths have embraced modern communications despite being a very long established family grocery company.

Last but not least we had an email from non other than Jamie Oliver's production company requesting assistance in seeking out another "forgotten" Lancashire delicacy. So as you can see its been a busy week and remember that this is our hobby. So seeing its such beautiful weather here in Lancashire, were having a day off today ! and a trip to the seaside.

Cheese of the Month

Lancashire Food has decided that as inspiration to encourage you to buy more British Cheese and to try something different, we are starting a monthly cheese club. We are really pleased to support local producers and we hope tempt you to buy more British Cheese.

We have a lovely logo too, kindly designed by Mr Lancashire Food also know as Sixes and Seven design house. 

So every time we are buying cheese we will attempt to purchase something we haven't tried before and blog about it, of course keeping it from within the UK, I am going to try were possible to feature Lancashire Cheese's too. Its also really important that if at all possible that you purchase your cheese from independent cheese shops, market stalls, cheesemongers and deli's, outlets such as these are much more likely to have a better selection of artisan local cheeses and know the provenance of their stock. Luckily near to me I also have the wonderful regional supermarket chain Booths who are also great supporters of British cheese, other favourites are Liverpool Cheese, Pats Cheese stall on Chorley Market and The Cheese Shop @ Botany Bay.

So follow our adventures in cheese and take a tour round the fantastic produce of the British 
Isles.

May 2014 - Garstang White - Dewlay

March 2014 - Nannykins - Leagrams Cheese

February 2014 - How's Yer Father - Saddleworth Cheese Company

January 2014 - Sykes Fell Ewe's milk cheese - Greenfields Diary

December 2013 - Smoked Goats cheese from Garstang

Novenber 2013 - Booths Cheese from Booths and Dewlay Cheese

October 2013 - Fiery Jack from Kickass Cheese

September 2013 - Pextenement Devils Rock Blue

August 2013 - Dewlay Smoked Lancashire Cheese

July 2013 - Kickass Cheddar

June 2013 - Ramshackle

May 2013 - Kidderton Ash

April 2013 - Bowland Cheese

March 2013 - Leigh Toaster - Dewlay Cheese

February 2013 - Double Gloucester

January 2013 - Garstang Garlicky Goats Cheese

Pork tenderloin with cider and caramalised apple sauce for #Boothscheers

Shh ! I have secret , I'm not really a fan of pork unless its in the form of  bacon, sausage, ham or gammon, this cut of pork however is my favourite if we are talking roasts, its also very quick to cook which in my book is always a bonus. Pork tenderloin or pork fillet is a very tender part of Mr Piggy and therefore doesn't take long to cook, here I am serving it with the traditional accompaniment of apples and cider which makes for a great quick roast dinner or supper, ideal for serving for that after work dinner if you have friends round.

The cider used in this recipe is one of the selection from #Boothscheers for their Beer and cider festival

Ingredients

• Trimmed pork tenderloin
• Fresh rosemary, picked and chopped
• 2 apples (ideally english if in season), skins on and chopped chunky
• Garlic cloves 2 or 3 peeled , sliced finely if using
• 2 tbsp creme fraiche or double cream
• Demerara sugar 
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into chunky pieces
• Cider about 150ml 
• salt and pepper
• Oil - about 1tbsp or small knob of butter
• cider or wine vinegar about 1 tbsp
• Fresh thyme, picked and chopped

Method

• Preheat your oven to 210C fan, 230c non fan
• Place the oil, cider vinegar in a bowl to mix, toss the apples and onions in the mix and place in your baking dish
• Now if using the garlic make slits all over your fillet and squish in the slithers of garlic, gently toss in the oil and vinegar mixture
• Now sprinkle the onion and apple with a little sugar and the herbs , sprinkle the herbs also on the pork, season the whole dish with salt and pepper
• Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until the pork is cooked and apples and onions have softened and started to caramalise.
• Remove from the oven and put the pork and apples in a seperate dish, keep warm.Bring the the roasting juices and cider to the bowl in the roasting pan, bring to the boil and reduce by half.
• Wrap the roasting dish in foil , turn off oven and place dish in oven to keep warm
• Once the sauce has reduced add the creme fraiche / cream
• Serve with your chosen vegetable and slice the pork diagonally, serve accompanied by some of the caramalised apples and onions and your delicious cider sauce.

Boothscheers beer and cider festival

Those lovely people at Booths (that wonderful Northern supermarket chain) are holding another #Boothscheers celebration as they are holding their first beer and cider festival. They have very kindly sent us a parcel of 2 lovely beers and 2 lovely ciders, one of the beers  has been specially brewed for the festival aptly called "Festival Ale" for us to sample and tweet about.

Stringers Delta V -a pale ale brewed in Ulverston Cumbria, Stringers is a microbrewery and is powered 100% by renewable energy and uses the lovely lakeland water in all its brews. A lovely flavoured brew and a great ale to use in our Ale and Spelt bread.

Festival Ale - limited edition ( our bottle is 2710 of 6400 bottles) specially brewed for Booths by Hawkshead Brewery to celebrate Booths 2013 Beer and cider festival. Try and get hold of a bottle and use the #BoothsAle to share your comments. Light refreshing and summery ideal with the summer BBQ.

Browns Medium dry cider - organic medium dry cider, pressed, fermented and bottled at Dunkertons cider mill in Herefordshire. Browns is a special type of cider apple , hence the name. We have used this cider in our Pork tenderloin and cider, caramalised apple sauce.

Orchard Pig Reveller - medium sparkling cider from Somerset, this one needs to be served chilled orginating from a brewery nr Glastonbury.

Ale and spelt bread for #Boothscheers

Mr Lancashire Food is developing quite a talent for bread baking and one of his tastiest bakes so far has been a Ale and spelt bread he baked specially for #Boothscheers Beer and Cider festival, this bread is great served with soup, cheese and particularly smoked fish such as hot smoked salmon or gravalax as the beery hoppy nutty notes particularly complement the oilliness of the fish. Its a relatively straight forward recipe in bread terms and also features my favourite bread grain spelt too.

Ingredients

• 175g spelt flour
• 275g strong white bread flour
• 7g of dried yeast
• 7g of salt fine grain
• 100ml of ale ( We used Stringers Delta V) but any ale would do
• 100ml of water
• 100ml of skimmed milk ( or you could use watered down yogurt) or just more water
• Good squirt of honey - (about 1/2 tbsp) you could use brown sugar
• knob of butter

You'll also need a round proving basket, floured well.

Method

• Place the butter, milk, beer, honey and water in a pan and warm until the butter has melted, leave to cool until just warm to the touch
• Place all the other ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and attach the dough hook , give it a quick run to distribute the yeast and salt .
• Now add the cooled liquid mixture to the bowl with the mixer running on slow until you have added all the liquid, don't worry if it looks like it won't come together as it will.
• Now leave your mixer doing the work on a slow setting for approximately 6 minutes or so until you have a soft elastic dough.
• Scrape out your bowl onto a floured surface and shape into a round , now place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap and leave until doubled in size
• Turn out onto a floured surface and knock back the dough with your fingers, now reshape in a ball and place in your well floured proving bowl, cover and let prove until doubled in size again.

• Preheat the oven to 200c
• Gently turn out onto a silicone baking mat or silicone paper , bake for approx 30 minutes until well risen, golden and so that it sounds hollow when tapped.
• Allow to cool on a wire rack.

#BoothsCheers with The Spice Tailor

                                     

We lucky to have been invited to take part in #Boothcheers again, this time excitingly we have a very special guest, TV chef Anjum Anand who will be joining us to discuss Indian food and her delicious Spice Tailor range. 

In our lovely VIP parcel from Booths we also have received a bottle of Spice Trail Hungarian  Pinot Grigo / Irsai Oliver, wine specially blended to match Asian and pan asian food and a bottle of Wye Valley brewery HPA which again is a great match for spicy food.

Why not join in the fun ?

#BoothsCheers !

                                  

So very very proud to be asked to take part in the first online and in-store simultaneous beer and wine tasting event for Booths, the wonderful regional supermarket that really knows what it means to keep it local. Its a family firm founded in 1847 with a reputation for quality produce. They have 29 stores throughout the North West, the latest being Milnthorpe in Cumbria.

#BoothsCheers is running for the next 6 weeks up to Christmas and their are some great deals every week on beers and wines to get you in the festive mood, if you are lucky enough to live near a store you can visit and taste that weeks special offers, their will also be recipes and food matching advice being shared both in store and online. Lots of other bloggers are taking part too on instagram and twitter. So its a great excuse to have friends round for a sociable evening.

Well what a great time we had for the first #BoothsCheers event, the two wines that were sent for tasting were delicious, the Isla Negra Sauvignon blanc was crisp fresh and light with a slight hint of grapefruit, ideally for serving with fish. the Isla Negra Merlot was juicy and fruity and very easy drinking and would be ideal with steak and other red meats.The Marstons double drop beer was popular with the chaps and they thought would be great served with traditional party snacks such as sausage rolls. We had a great time swapping menu suggestions on twitter and posting pictures via instagram, we are all looking forward to next week. 

Week 2 we received a red  Emiliana camerenea chilean wine and a Emiliana  White chardonnay , along with a bottle of budvar budweiser. One of guests this week is a wine connisseur and particularly enjoyed the red , whilst his wife liked the chardonnay. The wines were food matched to a spicy chilli for the red and creamy chicken dishes for the white. It was felt the budvar would be a good match to hot dogs or similar . Mr Lancashire Food was also lucky enough to win one of the photographic challenges on the night too, not sure what his prize is though !

Looking forward to week 3 , we were pleased to discover that our wines are a Rose and Sauvingnon Blanc from Brightwater Bay from New Zealand and our selected beer is Cocker Hoop from Jennings. 

Week 3 , we received our lovely wine and beer and were joined by no less than two sets of couple friends, our first tasting was the Sauvingnon Blanc , this was more citrussy than our first bottle of this variety in week 1 with a tropically nose , very drinkable all the same. We then moved onto the Rose at 13% a pretty feisty bottle which we all thought tasted like fruit pastilles and was very quaffable  Our beer from Jennings a Cumbrian Brewery , was a nicely balanced hoppy ale, which we thought would be lovely in onion gravy with toad in the hole.

On the night @synergymono (Mr Lancashire Food's twitter handle) was delighted to  receive a personal message from Booths for his photographs.

Week 4  and we are tasting Saint-Emillion Grand Cru and a Croft 'Indulgence' Port. We have presented with a "secret mission" in our parcel this week and my mission challenger is fellow blogger Northwestnosh , we have to come up with a great comfort food that either features or match to our bottles tonight, check out the associated blog post here for a recipe of what we came up with. This week due to time pressures we are #BoothsCheers on our own, writing christmas cards and have a more relaxing evening than of late.

Week 5 - the penultimate #BoothsCheers party will see a Cote du Rhone and a Pouilly Fume. Lancashire Food was really lucky to have one of our recipes featured as the perfect match to the Cote du Rhone

 

Booths‏@BoothsCountry

Our recipe to match our #BoothsCheers red this week is by the talented cook@LancashireFood. Here's Slow Cooked Brisket http://bit.ly/YWFzGz 

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7:22 PM - 12 Dec 12 · 

and all received a lovely christmas message and thank you from the store on instagram.

Next week is the last week :-(, we have a chateau neuf de pap and a chardonnay to look forward to. ever inventive the PR company choose to mix things up by sending out different parcels to the online bloggers, our was a bottle of manzanilla sherry and a jar of ground cloves. That taxed us some what ! but after a bit of a think I cam up with a rabbit basque based on Delia Smiths classic chicken basque, which would use the sherry as part of the stock and a pinch of cloves to spice up the dish. A dry sherry can also be used in a cheese fondue which would be a great party dish. 

BoothsCheers has been a great online and instore event and has really brought peoples attention to Booths , we are so lucky in the north to have a great local supermarket chain, who knows the real meaning of local.