Charity Quiz Night, Taste of India Alchemy Festival, St George’s Day at Borough Market..

This weekend,was a busy one food wise, we had our charity quiz night on Friday, raising money for Action Against Hunger, where we will trekking Hadrian’s Wall in June!Then on Sunday I took an impromptu visit to the Taste of India, Alchemy festival on the Southbank (for 2 weeks only).And tottered off to Borough Market afterwards for St Georges’s celebrations in the Jubilee Market.

I made some delicious cupcakes for the winners of our quiz and bingo for our charity night..

Deliciously addictive cake pops, my first time making them! Leftover chocolate cake, mixed with chocolate fudge icing rolled into a ball and covered in sprinkles and glitters!

We had about 3 to 4 cakes, lemon drizzle flavour, chocolate fudge cake and victoria sponges filled with raspberry and strawberry jam..

Now you see them… Now you don’t! Lets just say they sold really well, all together on the night we raised over £400 for charity. So BIG thank you to everyone who came, we still have out £1000 target to reach by June!

Taste of India at Southbank (Real Food Festival)

On Sunday being my day off, I jumped at the chance to check out the last day of the Taste of India festival in Southbank. It has been on for over 2 weeks so this was the last chance to catch a glimpse of the wonderful creators of Indian street food in London and beyond.

It was a great opportunity to meet some foodies, I had communicated with before but never had the pleasure of meeting. I got there pretty early, while everyone was still setting up, before the hustle and bustle of crowds descended upon this small space..

But I suppose it would have a great effect demonstrating the feel of a real street food market, with smells wafting out of stalls, the heat of chilli laced curry in my eyes and the variety of food on show.

First stop was finally meeting Jason of Mauritian Street Food, having spoke a few times its lovely to put a face to a name and well have something as great as diverse Mauritian cuisine in common.. we did natter on for quite a while.

I was being fed hot, crispy gateaux piment (chilli cakes) a traditional gajack eaten in Mauritian street food. And one I am familiar with, as we have cooked this up many times for our Supper Clubs.

I ate pretty much all of these while chatting away, the sweet chilli sauce a perfect addition, these crispy, chilli laced cakes are great for snacks, I hope the hoards of visitors enjoyed it as much as I did.

Also Du Pain Frier, pretty much bread slices fried in batter, with chillies, spring onion, coriander and topped with Satini Pomme D’amour (tomato chutney).. perfect snack.

Jason was also serving up Roti Chaud, delicious grois pois (curry butterbean) with rougaille (tomato sauce) and chillies all wrapped up in a freshly cooked roti. The Mauritian Street Food team will hopefully be travelling around in their colourful mobile serving up some delicious Mauritian street food near you! Keep updated on their website- Mauritian Street Food

Beautiful, HUGE dosas being made by the experts…

Devnaa’s Indian inspired chocolates are housed in the likes of Harvey Nicholls, In these pretty colourful boxes, they take on a new side of Indian chocolates, using sweet cakes like barfi, or spices as chai masala, saffron as inspiration to create some interesting mix of flavours.

Community Kitchen, with their vibrant chickpea curry, wrapped inside large flatbreads. They were also cooking up delicious and tender pieces of chicken or spicy lamb to tempt us with..Can’t wait to try the Colombian or Iberian menu they have to offer.

Wallah Wallah’s amazing beetroot, paneer, coconut dhaal, was so incredibly meaty, I’m not even a big fan of paneer but this was delicious! And combined with lemon raitha, fresh coriander and sesame seeds in a wrap its a match made in heaven waiting to happen..

Their coriander chicken tikka, is fragrant, spiced and combined with a sweet pear and tamarind chutney (im addicted to tamarind chutney anyway) with lemon raitha and rocket salad in a wrap..! I have not seen puffed rice used in this way, but I could imagine they add nodules of texture to the wrap.

Davinderof Sugar Cream Cakes fame, produces eggless cakes, here she had a display of tempting cupcakes, some with a spicy twist, carrot cake and chocolate cake. Her colourful cupcakes, fit with the eccentric Indian vibe and her use of glitter (like mine) is an addiction in the best form to add some sparkle to these beauties.

Moving on from this festival, I scampered over to Borough market in London Bridge in search of the promised Greedy Goat ice cream and well a bit of a shindig for St George’s Day..

St George’s Day- Borough Market

This market decided to open for Sunday’s celebrations of St George’s Day, in the Jubilee area, the stalls were already heaving with gourmand’s, feasting their eyes on Gujarati cuisine, Pieminster pies and traditional Catalan dishes!

Finding Greedy Goat huddled in the corner, with their secret stash of deliciously creamy ice creams, fine for those lactose intolerant eg.. me! Well I tend to try stay off the dairy and eating goat’s milk ice cream is way better than drinking it.. this comes from experience!

Their flavours include raspberry and chilli, fiery, but suits certain people, you either like it or not.. however I enjoyed their exotic mango and in the end went for the refreshing lime, lemon and basil ice cream. Perfect for a summer’s day, when I’m back I may be tempted by their hokey pokey flavour, for st george’s day they had a clotted cream and sorrel concoction, sounded interesting but I’m not a big fan of clotted cream!*Gasp*

There were a few demos being held that day, I decided to stick by for the Ginger Pig demo which was interesting in that the wonders of the rib eye steak were explained to us, butchered into steaks for the demo accompanied with baked field mushrooms and blue cheese. Ideal combination really, creamy, tart, strong cheese with marbled, almost rare juicy steak..Delicious!

I have to say it was ten times better than the previous offering of prune, chocolate bread and butter pudding.. did not really appeal to my sweeter side!

However, in the corner on the side a traditional (calcot) long spring onions, which are barbecued then wrapped in foil and eaten straight away! This is traditional Catalan dish as the event was also in collaboration with the Government of Catalunya.

Many of us only associate St. George as the patron saint of  England, but is also a patron saint of many other communities, including Catalonia. The exchanging of roses and books is a sign of respect and a Catalan custom which was seen on the day.

So what a jam-packed weekend of FOOD! I don’t know where I put it sometimes..