Gourmet Garden goodie bag. This one I didn't buy, but won in Tobie Puttock's show. They were handing out prizes before he came out, and I took a picture of the guy with gifts. He stopped and did a twirl, then gave me the bag. I was really disappointed that his photo turned out blurry because he was really cool. If that guy ever comes to read this, thanks!!!
I do love Gourmet Garden herbs, because my black thumb kills any type of fresh herbs if I don't use them immediately. I mean, same day. For example, I bought some beautiful basil, coriander and mint from the markets the other week. They all still had their roots, so I popped them in a jar with a little bit of water and put a plastic bag over their leaves. They were dead by nightfall.
Fresh herbs are always my preference, but I love that I can flavour my sauces and marinades with a herby taste without the need to constantly shop for fresh herbs. This was a double bonus because I had just culled my store of Gourmet Garden and thrown all of them out, so I was instantly restocked.
Organic pasta and sauce from Spiral Foods. The pasta sauces tasted so good. They were so full of flavour. We've had the Basil and Garlic, but I'm saving the Pizza/Pasta sauce for a special occasion.
These Kikkoman sauces were 4 for $10. We are always looking for new ways to jazz up our chicken (which is the meat we eat most often), so it was a nice cheap way to try things we wouldn't normally use. At the Kikkoman stand they also had these mixed with sour cream and yoghurt (I think) to be used as dips. They even tasted really good just as a simple dip.
We have tried the Roasted Garlic just as a marinade for chicken, but it's too salty on its own. Next time we tried the Lime, Lemongrass and Soy mixed with the Roasted Garlic and had it over noodles. That turned out really well, a definate winner!
I don't remember what really prompted me to buy this Hans variety bag. I know that I did enjoy all the samples they had and maybe that led me to try and buy one, but they had sold out when I asked on Saturday. The guy said that they had 30 more for Sunday, so that meant that the first place we went when we came back on Sunday was to the Hans stall.
Anyway, we loved the cheese Kransky and I absolutely adored the Barkers Creek pork. The pork was amazing. I've got to find some more of that stuff. More of the Kransky too, for that matter. The rest of the stuff was used to make some home-made meat lovers pizza. I had all this meat floating around and it was never getting used, so we bought some pizza bases and loaded them up. They were quite good, but we needed a vegetarian meal for the next night.
A selection of curry pastes from Island Curries. These are by far the best tasting curry pastes I've had for a long time. They are so beautifully spicy. The stall at the show also had them mixed with cream or sour cream as a dipping sauce, and that was fantastic too.
A selection of chilli sauces from The Chilli Man. DD and his workmates love chilli sauce so DD bought the two hottest ones there to take to work to test their manliness. I was a little more sedate and went for the chutney and BBQ Sauce. We've been using the BBQ sauce as a marinade for steak and it is making our steaks awesome!
Chocolate Mousse powder from Nicholson Fine Foods. This was an impulse buy after tasting some of their prepared mousse. It's so chocolatey and rich. I haven't been able to make it as well as what we had at the show, but I'm putting that down to the fact that I'm scaling the recipe so I'm only making one serve at time. My measurements must be off a little.
Cheese Selection from South Cape Fine Foods. I realised after Saturday's visit that I hadn't had any cheese. I was quite angry with myself, as I love my cheese. I marked every cheese stall I could find on our list of must-dos for Sunday's visit. The South Cape stall and the Tasmanian Heritage stall were combined, so we got two for the price of one (more or less, it was two for $15 instead of $10 each or something like that)! What sold us on the South Cape bag was the Persian Fetta - it is amazing! So rich and creamy. The most exciting thing we've done with other than have it on crackers is to stir it through pasta sauce though. It doesn't matter to us really, we enjoyed it no matter how we used it. The Trilogy cheese was okay, but I'm much more of a soft cheese person.
The star of the Tasmanian Heritage bag was definately their Blue Opal. It's a beautiful brie with blue veins running through it. I am scared to try a lot of blues because they are normally very strong, but the combination of the brie and blue in this was perfectly matched. It had the extra flavour and strength of the blue and the creamy smoothness of the brie. I really loved it. Again, apart from having it on crackers, all we've done with this one is have it with pasta. We're so innovative.
I don't like Swiss cheese generally. I don't mind it on sandwiches and stuff, but I'm not really a fan. Unfortunately, the St Claire really didn't do it for me.
Finally, we have a Dello Mano brownie. We visit Bien at the Jan Powers Farmers Markets far more often than we should for our waistlines, but how can we resist his fabulous brownies? He and his wife Deb are just the loveliest people too, I have no idea how he remembers us from all the other people that flock to his market stall. He always does though, and he gave us a cheery greeting when we visited him at the Good Food Show. He also gave us this Classic Belgium brownie, which we happily accepted.
We put it to good use that night for dessert, popping it in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt slightly and serving it with cream to be shared by the two of us.
You can buy Dello Mano brownies online too, so if you want to try brownie bliss for yourself, you should go and have a look at their online shop.
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