Gift

A day so happy.

Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.

Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.

There was no

thing on earth I wanted to possess.

I knew no-one worth my envying him.

Whatever evil I suffered, I forgot,

To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.

In my body I felt no pain.

When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Czeslaw Milosz

Traditional Family Christmas is Best

Children really do prefer a traditional family Christmas and spending time with mum and dad to countless expensive presents.


A new study has suggested that what makes children happy at Christmas is being with their family, not receiving sack loads of presents. 

Researchers found that 40 per cent of children would rather Father Christmas brought them time with their parents and immediate family, instead of being given their annual treat of stocking fillers.



A quarter of children are also hoping that they will get festive visits from family members that they rarely see during the year, according to the research by holiday company Butlins.



Board games and quizzes are popular among children, with one in five saying they would be happier if their families played traditional games.



"Seeing mum and dad work hard throughout the year, and not being able to spend as much time with them as they'd like, is prompting kids to think about the bigger picture," according to Mark Hunter, of Butlins.



"Of course they are looking forward to Santa's arrival, but they are also hoping for quality family time - the chance to reconnect and enjoy each other's company," he added.

However, 15 per cent of them worry that this will lead to arguments during family gatherings.

Research was done for Butlins by www.onepoll.com among a sample of 1,000 children aged six to 16 from September 13-26 2011.

Here's culinary adventurer Adam Clark and co-cooking conspirator Adrian Foulkes at the Padstow Christmas Festival demonstrating their panfrying prowess.

If you missed their bravura performance at the festival, here's a little reprise of their recipes.

INGREDIENTS

· 250g of courgette grated

· Salt and black pepper

· 600g minced turkey

· 2 medium free-range eggs

· 1 ½ tsp ground cumin

· 3 tbsp chopped coriander

· 3 tbsp chopped mint

· 2 garlic cloves crushed

· 60g chopped spring onion

· Sunflower oil for frying

DIPPING SAUCE

· 2 tsp sweet chilli sauce

· 1½ tsp toasted sesame seeds

· Zest and juice from 1 lime

· 1 tsp soy sauce

· 1 tsp honey

· 10g fresh ginger minced

· 2 tbsp blended sesame and vegetable oil

· 1 spring onion finely sliced

METHOD

1. Heat the oven to 180*C.

2. Put the grated courgette in a sieve, mixed with a ¼ teaspoon of salt, and leave to drain for 15 minutes.

3. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible with your hands, then put the courgette in a large mixing bowl along with the turkey, eggs, cumin, coriander, mint, garlic, ¾ of the spring onion, a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper. Mix together well and shape into 12 patties weighing about 80g each.

4. Heat some sunflower oil in a large frying pan and fry the patties for four minutes, turning once, until nice and brown on both sides. Transfer to a baking tray and finish off in the oven for a further 10 minutes.

5. To make the dipping sauce just combine all the ingredients and put into dipping bowls.

6. Mix some of the sweet chilli and sesame oil in a separate bowl and brush this over the turkey cakes as soon as they come out of the oven. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve with dipping sauce.

CRANBERRY, ORANGE & PORT SAUCE

INGREDIENTS FOR TWO 12 OZ JARS

· 225g fresh cranberries

· 4 whole cloves

· 1 whole cinnamon stick

· 1 onion, peeled and finely diced

· 50g fresh ginger, peeled and minced

· 1 clove of garlic, minced

· 100ml red wine vinegar

· 100ml port wine

· 250g unrefined caster sugar

· Juice and zest of one orange

· Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

METHOD

1. Peel and finely dice the onion, mince the garlic and fresh ginger and mix it all together.

2. Place all the ingredients apart from the orange zest into a medium size saucepan and season lightly with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

3. Over a low heat, bring to the simmer, stirring occasionally.

4. Cook the sauce until a thickened drip consistency; this takes about 20 minutes, add the orange zest, remove from the heat and leave to cool. It will thicken as it cools, so don’t let it get too thick.

5. Pour the cranberry sauce into a sterilized jar and seal.

6. Try adding a spoonful of the sauce into a casserole, especially lamb or game.

GLUTEN-FREE SUNFLOWER & YOGHURT SCONES

INGREDIENTS FOR 10 – 12

· 225g Doves gluten free self-raising flour

· 1 tsp baking powder

· 25g sunflower margarine

· 2 tbsp golden caster sugar

· 50g raisins

· 4 tbsp sunflower seeds

· 100ml natural yoghurt

· 1 egg

· About 2 tbsp milk

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 200*C.

2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

3. Sift the baking powder and flour into a large bowl and rub in the sunflower margarine evenly.

4. Stir in the caster sugar, raisins and about half the sunflower seeds, then mix in the yoghurt and egg beaten together, adding just enough milk to make a soft but not sticky dough.

5. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 3cm thickness.

6. Cut into 6cm rounds and lift onto prepared baking tray.

7. Brush with milk and sprinkle with the reserved sunflower seeds.

8. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

9. Cool on a wire rack. Serve split and spread with Red Stuff jam and Cornish clotted cream.

SAUCE BASE FOR CORNISH FISH STEW

INGREDIENTS

· 1 red gurnard, head removed, gutted & chopped through the bone into chunks

· 1 pinch of saffron

· 1 star anise

· 1 branch of thyme

· 2 cloves garlic – cut in half

· 1 tsp fennel seeds

· 2 tbsp olive oil

METHOD

1. Place all this into a container, mix well and leave to marinade over night.

2. The next day roast off this fish mixture until golden brown. Set aside.

3. In a large heavy based saucepan roast together: 3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped, 2 sticks of sliced celery, 1 small leek, washed and roughly chopped, 1 onion or 2 banana shallots, peeled and diced, 1 bulb of garlic cut in half across the cloves and a branch of thyme

4. When all of this is roasted golden brown, add the fish mixture to it and stir in 1 tbsp of tomato purée and 1 baking potato peeled and coarsely grated. Mix together well.

5. De-glaze the pan with 50ml brandy and 50ml Pernod and allow pan to flame.

6. Then add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and 750ml of fish stock, or water with fish bouillon cube.

7. Bring this slowly to the boil and simmer for 1 ½ - 2 hours, stirring gently.

8. Remove from heat and allow to cool before blending until smooth in a strong food processor.

9. Pass this through a fine strainer, pressing well to ensure you are left with a beautiful silky fish sauce / soup. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

10. Roast what fish and shellfish of your choice in a large pan, add the sauce base and place a lid on top. Pop this in the oven at 180oC for 8 to 10 minutes.

11. Remove lid. Serve into suitable bowls with saffron dumplings, say, or croutons, chopped parsley and rouille.

COME OVER FOR LUNCH OR DINNER SOON

You don’t have to be an overnight guest at Bedruthan or our sister hotel the Scarlet to enjoy our seriously good food. We are committed to well-sourced, simply cooked seasonal food, and if you tuck into lunch or dinner at either of our hotels you are guaranteed a feast for your eyes as well as your taste buds. Our cliff top restaurants overlook beautiful Mawgan Porth Beach with stunning views of the Atlantic beyond.
So come and experience the Scarlet’s superb menus for £19.50 for three courses. For your special locals lunch offer code, please go to www.scarlethotel.co.uk/localoffer
Bedruthan has an exciting new all day bistro café opening in February 2012 and a seafood restaurant opening in April 2012. Keep an eye on our website at www.bedruthan.com for further details of menus and prices.

To book, please call Bedruthan Steps on 01637 860 555 or the Scarlet on 01637 861 800.

@RedStuffChef @ChefMattBurns @JmEcoChef @BedruthanSteps @theScarletHotel

Homemade Christmas Gifts

Homemade Christmas Gifts

by Genevra Fletcher

Homemade Christmas gifts…a wonderful idea in theory. But how do you pull it off in poised and elegant Kirsty’s Homemade Home style as opposed to DIY bodge disaster?

Bedruthan Steps Hotel has come up with a great way to help you with creating your Christmas crafts this year so you can make some wonderful homemade presents for your family and friends.

Our Cornish Christmas Craft Fair Weekend (25th - 27th November) at beautiful Bedruthan Steps in Cornwall is a chance to stay in luxury and enjoy all sorts of inspiring craft sessions and food demonstrations.

We’re guarantee to get you and your family making a whole range of beautiful handmade presents; we’re talking the sort of bespoke, handcrafted gift your friends and family will treasure and feel blessed to receive.

Our head chef is going to show you how to create the most delicious Christmas dinner - with all the trimmings, but at a fraction of the price and with everything ready prepared so you can have a relaxing Christmas Day. Come to our Christmas Preserving class and we’ll teach you how to create your own festive flavours to add another homemade and personal touch to your Christmas table.

And what’s more, to make your life really simple, we’re hosting a Cornish Christmas Fair at the hotel. Our aim is to make it easy to get your Christmas shopping done and find just the right presents for family and friends. There really will be something for everyone, with plenty of inspiration for gifts that will leave all those ubiquitous and expensive shop bought ‘must have’ presents out in the cold.

We are offering a very special rate from £74 per person per night including dinner, bed and breakfast for two night stays during our Homemade Christmas Weekend of November 25th, 26th and 27th.

The weekends are suitable for every generation.

To find out more, please call us on 01637 860 555 or email stay@bedruthan.com. To book now, please click here.

Homemade jams, sloe gin and vodka anyone?

Culinary adventurer Adam Clark

Adam's gooseberry jam.

Nature's bounty.

The family that forages together stays together!

by Culinary Adventurer Adam Clark

You may not know this yet, but I decided a little while ago to stand down as head chef of Bedruthan Steps Hotel. Why? An exciting new culinary adventure was calling me.

I've taken up a new role as food development chef for Red Hotels (the company that runs Bedruthan and its sister hotel the Scarlet) and my ambition is to create a range of Red Hotels own branded products.

Wooden spoon in hand, I've got off to a good start by creating preserves for both hotels to serve with breakfast, afternoon tea etc.

And I've been lucky enough to have spent quite a bit of my working day food foraging some of Cornwall’s most beautiful spots, gathering edible hedgerow treasures from which to create some wonderful Red Hotels fare.

On days off, I've taken my family on food foraging expeditions, gathering the most wonderful sloes, so abundant this year and so early. I've never seen them so big. I've also discovered the merits of the wild plum, and squirrelled away a bumper crop.

Back in the busy Bedruthan kitchen, I set to work with my finds. Now, if you stop for a drink at Bedruthan's bar, and you will see on the spirits shelf our very own sloe gin - a wonderful liquor with a lovely flavour and wonderfully warm feel to it. Just what you need on your return from a windy beach walk.

Excited by my success with the sloe gin, I used some of the wild plums to make a flavoured vodka, which after just a few days is already looking enticing. I can only imagine how quickly that is going to go once I put it in the bar. Be sure to look out for it when you next visit us.

Hopefully, with all the sloes I picked with the help of my family, there will be enough to go round. My children Archie and Daisy, my wife Tania, my brother Nick, sister Penny, niece Anna and I all really got stuck into the picking and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on a beautiful sunny day in St. Agnes. We had walked over the beacon with views as far as St Ives one way and Newquay the other, and the colours of the heather and gorse over one of the highest points for miles was incredible. The different shades of purple and golden yellows were really lovely.

It hasn’t all been a blue skies ideal life though, I've been in my full on wet weather and bramble protection gear as I took on some seriously spiky bushes.

Firstly, the blackberries. Well, I had to get stuck in didn’t i? So in I went and came out laden but truly scratched and bloodied. It was worth it though, and our apple and bramble jam is a real seasonal treat.

Then there was the rosehips and the sea buckthorn, discovered on our own sand dunes below the hotel, so in i went again. If the prickles from the roses weren’t bad enough, have you seen the thorns on a sea buckthorn? There is no easy way of gathering these as the thorns are massive and not easily seen in amongst the berries and leaves but i managed to get myself a little routine going on and got a little savvy in how to handle this plant. And again it was well worth it after using a River Cottage recipe to make sea Buckthorn and apple jam, a real special jam that I will be making for our speciality range.

As for apples, I have never seen so many wild apples as I did this year. I have taken up most of the conference fridge with crates of crab apples and am slowly working my way through them.

I'm enjoying my new role; it's very satisfying to be providing both hotels with their preserves and I have been receiving good feedback too.

We have been spending time getting our labels and jars organised so that we are able to let our guests have some memories of their stay to take back home with them, so please ask when you visit if you love tasting our preserved Cornish countryside.

Seaweed Crisps Recipe

Seaweed Crisps Recipe
By Adam Clark



I thought it might be nice to share some knowledge with you about our beautiful Cornish countryside. As some of you know, I have a passion for wild food and enjoy getting out and spotting ingredients that can be bought back to the kitchen.

There's great joy to be had in making the most of our local larder.

I’m sure as kids you all used to love looking, feeling and playing with the different seaweeds on the beach. Well, who knew that some of them can be turned into something delicious?

Here I am going to talk about sugar kelp, so called because of it’s lovely sweet flavour. It is also known as sweet oarweed.

It is a very common member of the kelp family and is distinctive for its long, dark brown curly edged belts. It's usual a good six inches wide and sometimes over six feet long.

You can normally find it very near or below the low tide mark, as it does not like too much exposure by the tide. You can normally see them hanging vertically in the water, swaying in the current.

So, to make delicious crispy sugar kelp crisps

1. Rinse the seaweed well in fresh water
2. Hang the fronds up to dry; they don't need to be completely brittle when you cook it, but they should at least be shrivelled and leathery (yes, really).
3. Cut across into two cm strips and fry in batches in at least one cm of hot sunflower oil.
4. In a matter of seconds the strips will puff up and change colour.
5. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

So, there you have it…delicious sugar kelp crisps.

Bedruthan salutes The Loose Salute

We are very proud of our local musical talent. The Loose Salute, a band from just up the road in Newquay, were on Dermot O'Leary's Radio 2 show this weekend.

Listen here from about 13:40.