My Secret Kitchen's Blog

Cherry Bakewell Baby

2012-02-24T20:38:00.000Z

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting our first consultant in Cornwall – Lynne Ratcliffe. As we prepared for her launch tasting together, her husband Nick (also very keen to see how it all works) popped out to the local shop to get some refreshments for their tasting guests. When he returned, he was hiding a packet of cherry bakewells under his arm in a ‘I just couldn’t resist’ kind of way. We all love guilty pleasures and since some of you may be embarking on a chocolate free zone for the next 40 days, here’s something to satisfy your sweet tooth and I admit, a blatant showing off on my part – anything you can do I can do better, this one is for you Nick….

Cherry Bakewell Bread

1 My Secret Kitchen Original Beer Bread Mix

50g ground almonds

50g caster sugar

50ml veg oil

2 tsp almond essence

100ml lemonade

100g glace cherries

125g icing sugar

20ml cold water

Preheat oven 190c and line a 1lb loaf tin. Empty the bread mix into a bowl and add the ground almonds and sugar and stir together. Reserve 6 of the glace cherries and chop the rest in half and add to the dry ingredients and mix. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the vegetable oil, almond essence and lemonade. Mix thoroughly and quickly before putting in to the loaf tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Make the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the water. When the loaf is cool, top with the icing and the reserved whole cherries.

Pancakes Pronto

2012-02-16T14:03:00.000Z

Its nearly Maple Caramel Sauce Day...

Fancy something a bit different this pancake day? We’ve put our creative heads together and perfected a recipe using Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix to make amazing drop scones! Light and fluffy (rather like American style or scotch pancakes) these are divine with melted butter. Or for the more adventurous, turn them into mini sweet blinis with dried cranberries and orange - just waiting for a topping of cream and warm Maple Caramel Sauce.

Did you know you can order with us online by 2pm and receive your delivery the very next day, or contact your local consultant for free delivery so there’s no excuse not to celebrate this year!

200g My Secret Kitchen Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix
1 medium egg
110ml milk
Oil or butter (unsalted) for frying

Put the Lemon & Bergamot Shortbread Mix into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the egg and milk into the well and whisk together thoroughly. Leave to stand for 10 minutes and whisk again. Heat a frying pan with a little oil (or unsalted butter) and using a dessert spoon, add spoonfuls of the batter into the hot pan. Cook for 1 -2 minutes until the edges start to curl and bubbles appear on the surface, turn and cook on the other side until fluffy and golden brown. Freeze any leftovers for emergency breakfast supply when you’re fed up of cereal or run out of milk!

My Foodie Valentine

2012-02-14T06:29:00.000Z

Food has always been my language of love. When it comes to the people I care about, there is nothing more satisfying to me than creating and sharing a fabulous meal together. So when my husband and I created My Secret Kitchen, it was clear from the start that the foods we produced would always have at their heart, great taste, authentic flavours and versatility to enable everyone to make their meals more amazing.

That’s why on Valentine’s day more than ever we want to share some meal ideas for you to share with your loved ones too.
Our Nacho Fiesta Cheese Ball Mix and Red Pepper Cheese Ball Mix make fabulous dips with some simple crudités in front of your favourite movie – how about seeking out the first film you watched together.
For something light and fresh, Thai Dressing with Kaffir Lime makes a memorable salad with grilled haloumi and beetroot. Or for more comforting soul food, a simple sausage casserole with Jumping Jack Chilli Jam will find its way into anyone’s heart.
If you are still in the dating phase, research his / her favourite flavours – we are sure we have something on our menu to help – and consider cooking together as an alternative night-in date.
Even if you don’t have a special some-one right now, treat yourself and the other friends in your life with a cup of tea and a Mochaccino cookie or heart shaped Ultimate Chocolate Brownie dipped in molten Chocolate Peppermint Sauce.
Finally, if you’re in the mood for pulling out all the stops, try rib eye steaks and our Red Wine & Port Finishing Sauce topped with blue cheese and Wild Garlic butter or chicken with White Wine & Porcini Finishing Sauce with fresh tarragon and fettuccine.
So whatever you’re planning for your Valentine’s dinner we hope our ideas make it onto your menu, that’s amore

Thanks and an Offer!.... or two

2012-02-07T08:47:00.000Z

Firstly thank to all of you for your wonderful comments about the new products. We've had a lot of messages that sound as if we've hit the spot again with the concepts, great news and now to let everyone try them through setting up all the tastings around the country.

To give you even more of a reason to try them, we’ve set up a wonderful reason for you to come along to a tasting (or host one yourself) Attend a tasting and purchase any 2 of our new products and receive a red wine & port or white wine & port finishing sauce for free. Ping us an e-mail if you’re unsure of your local consultant and we’ll help you out.

Lastly a thanks and a request. 2011 was a record year for us in so many ways. People are really waking up to understanding how My Secret Kitchen can be a great way to try new products and share recipe ideas with friends in a social environment. We would love to be in a position where we have a consultant in every town in the UK to satisfy the demands of tasting requests. We’re not there yet! In February and March it is only £49 to receive the starter kit and join us as a consultant where you’ll be able to earn extra money by showing people great products. Get in contact and see if My Secret Kitchen could fit in your life. We’d love to hear from you.

Store-cupboard Secrets

2012-01-29T18:59:00.000Z

Store-cupboard Secrets
Clare Moran (Co-founder My Secret Kitchen)

I often gaze at the collection of packets in our kitchen cupboards and consider challenging myself to see how long I could feed our family of 4 on their contents – with a little help from My Secret Kitchen of course and the local village shop for back up. Split peas, puy lentils and polenta occupy our shelves, not to mention the obligatory cans of tuna, white beans and chick peas, just waiting to be transformed into something gorgeous to grace our table.

The same goes for the freezer with home-made stock, white fish filets and little packets of cheese sauce squirreled away as well as lesser known ingredients that I couldn’t bear to get rid of – the spent sloes from Phil’s sloe gin (destined to be an addition for drunken Ultimate Chocolate Brownies one day), strings of authentic Thai black pepper, and grated pecorino cheese.

January can also feel a little glum and lack lustre in the kitchen department so what better time to put our creativity and store-cupboards to the test?

The recipes and ideas that follow are the culinary equivalent of ‘make do and mend’ and aim to bring those dull packets that we all have in our cupboards to life with My Secret Kitchen. They all feature Tapenade with Smoked Garlic which is true foodie’s life saver and maybe in a few weeks, like Old Mother Hubbard, our cupboards will be the streamlined version ready to be filled with more secrets.

(Make your own substitutions and tweaks with the store-cupboard ingredients you have available)

Baked Coley with Tapenade & Pecorino Crumb Topping

Bake the fish in paper or foil with a sprinkling of olive oil, fresh herbs and a slice of lemon (or orange) at 190C for 10 - 12 mins or until just cooked through (if frozen, add another 10 minutes to the cooking time). Top the fish with 1 tbsp Tapenade with Smoked Garlic and a crumb topping made from fresh bread crumbs, Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt and grated pecorino (or parmesan or strong cheddar). (Prepare ahead tip – these can now be chilled until needed) Place under a preheated medium grill until the top is toasted and the Tapenade warmed through.

Tapenade & Tuna Bean Burgers

Makes 4 burgers

1 can (240g) borlotti beans, rinsed, drained and dried on a paper towel
1 can (130g) tuna fish, drained well
25g fresh breadcrumbs
1 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tbsp My SecretKitchen Tapenade with Smoked Garlic
½ tsp My Secret Kitchen Lemon & Chipotle Spiced SeaSalt, ground
1 tbsp My SecretKitchen Smoked Rapeseed Oil
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp semolina
2 tbsp olive oil

Mash the beans in a large bowl and add the tuna fish, breadcrumbs, parsley, Tapenade, Smoked Oil and Lemon & Chipotle Sea Salt. Mix together (Prepare ahead tip: the mix can now be refrigerated for later). Form the mixture into 4 burgers (approx. 100g each). Mix the flour and semolina together on a plate and flour the burgers in the mixture on both sides. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the burgers for 1-2 minutes on both sides until golden. Place on a baking sheet and into a preheated oven (190C) and bake for 25 – 30 minutes. Serve with another dollop of Tapenade and a green salad. Alternatively serve in a toasted sesame bun with melted swiss cheese or form the mixture into nuggets (25g each) and serve with noodles and a simple tomato sauce of chopped tomatoes whizzed together with another tablespoon of Tapenade. These also freeze well – double the recipe and freeze half for another day.

Gazpacho with Puy Lentils and Grilled Polenta Wedges

Serves 4

1/2 jar My SecretKitchen Tapenade with Smoked Garlic
2 tbsp My SecretKitchen Balsamic Reduction
1 can chopped tomatoes
½ cucumber, finely chopped
25g puy lentils, cooked and chilled
2 tbsp olive oil
My Secret KitchenLemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt
Handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
500ml cold water

Combine all of the ingredients together and serve very cold (put your servings bowls in the fridge for extra effect). For the polenta wedges, prepare the polenta as instructed but substituting half of the water with milk and season with Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt. Rub a tray with Smoked Rapeseed Oil and pour the polenta onto the tray and smooth over – chill until set. Cut the polenta into wedges, brush with more Smoked Rapeseed Oil and under a preheated grill until the polenta is golden and sizzling.

What secrets have you found in your cupboard? We'd love to hear from you so do get in touch,

Enjoy!

Clare

New products round the corner

2012-01-16T13:56:00.000Z

Hi all!

Well we're just round the corner for the exciting time of the year for us. In two weeks we will officially be announcing the new products for the season and we've worked hard! Can't tell you what they are but we will be launching the first of what we hope will be a new range of products that will be with us for quite a while. We will also be launching another product that is a first in it type for us, so we really have tested ourselves this time. Products we feel are on trend, have a huge number if uses to them and the main thing.... very very tasty!

National Conference Success

2012-01-08T20:00:00.000Z

What a day we had on Saturday! A celebration of a great year for 2011 with a good number of consultants in a great setting in Coombe Abbey. We had some lovely food, some inspirational talks from consultants, management and a guest speaker and got to learn all about the new products that will be launched at the beginning of Febrary. Thanks to all!

Preparation for the National Conference

2012-01-06T09:02:00.000Z

Hi all,
Here at The Willows we're busy preparing for the conference tomorrow where we launch the new food products!
Lot of new recipe ideas and we think we'll be setting the trend once more.
More news to follow.....

Top ten food predictions for 2012

2012-01-03T08:49:00.000Z

We've pondered and thought rather hard about what we reckon is going to be the next big foodie thing. Our educated guesses are below. Comments?

As we predicted last year, money will be a key factor in the food trends for 2012:-

1 Price Increases on food – At the back end of last year the manufacturers supplying the retailers realised that they needed to force the raw material increases through the chain if they were going to survive and understandably so. Anything grown in the ground has increased, especially the basics so expect people to think even more carefully about what they put in their shopping basket.

2 Granny’s cooking – Retro was big in 2011 and the desire for security and safety in an uncertain environment will steer cooking towards old family recipes. People still have egos and pride and what better way to show off than by resurrecting that old recipe that was handed down through the generations? – Could there be a rise in dumplings, suet puddings and the like?

3 More of the Grain – Home baking and cooking is a hot trend and people want to know more about what they are eating but without spending a huge amount. Whole grains are great value for money and the likes of Quinoa, oats and cornmeal could see a surge in 2012.

4 Forage, forage, forage – we predicted hedgerow flavours for 2011 and this will continue but expand into the general wild. Expect to see a rise in types of mushrooms, herbs and berries in people’s diets. Wild garlic anyone?

5 Whatever Twitter says – As social networking becomes viral, people want to share the good and bad things in food. In the past it was all about what Delia said, going forward it will be a lot more about that latest blog report, that Twitter comments and that facebook photo. And we can’t predict what ‘that’ will be.

6 The rise of the minor celebrity chef – following on from the previous comments, there will be a big rise in passionate cooks moving into doing video blogs on recipes, and these will become so much more accessible through the social media movement. So it won’t be Delia’s goose fat as the big thing next year, it will be a Youtube special chef. My Secret Kitchen will be jumping on this trend with a new video blog starting soon.

7 Moroccan – Full of Spices and flavours, a healthy diet with grain and greens and a little different with not too many expensive ingredients, Moroccan has been hovering around for a while. Expect 2012 to see a full blown launch of all things North African.

8 South American – We were wrong last year. We stuck our neck out with predictions that this continent would be big in 2011. It grew but not how we thought. Peru is widely predicted to be the big flavour country in the ‘States for 2012 so we expect this to jump over to the UK along with Brazil for 2012. And if the food goes superbly with Caipirinhas we won’t be complaining.

9 French Macaroons – 2011 was the year of the Whoopie Pie, an attractive and fun filled cake. One of the key reasons for it’s popularity was it looked cute. We think French macaroons will be big for 2012 for a similar reason, so expect to see gaudy shop windows full of ‘em. Whoopie pies will also get a makeover and remain popular but with alternative flavours and styles becoming big.

10 Back to the Dinner Table – As family values become ever more important, there will be a push to get more social interaction into the family dinner table which has declined over recent years. More family get togethers and more group meals will mean recipes involving more members of the family. What better way of bring a family closer together than cooking.. unless it goes pear shaped…

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T20:17:00.000Z

May we wish all of you a very Happy New Year and here's to a prosperous and enjoyable 2012

Last Day!!!

2011-12-19T09:03:00.002Z

Last day to get those orders in for it to arrive before Xmas so quick!!!!

Press release sent out today

2011-12-12T15:42:00.000Z

Hi all,

We put out a press release today in response to the recent articles on the rise of the party plan concept. Please find below!

Foodies grab a financial lifeline offered by My Secret Kitchen

Monday, 12 December 2011

My Secret Kitchen are having record sales month after month during the current economic climate as a result of fulfilling the needs of foodie families looking for an extra income. Very simply, the business has taken the Tupperware style concept of “party plan” direct selling, but instead are showing a range of lovely foods and ingredients with recipe ideas to go along with them. After all, food is the most obvious product that should be sampled before buying. My Secret Kitchen is giving a business opportunity to mums and dads, that fulfils their passions, gives them the opportunity of sharing an enjoyable evening with other people and in doing so, make some money for themselves at the same time

Phil Moran, co-founder of My Secret Kitchen comments “we’ve found that we’ve connected two of the biggest consequences from the economic downturn; a desire for more home cooking, and earning an income, to make a business that encourages more people to understand and experiment with food and ingredients and earn money at the same time”

The products are developed by Clare Moran, who had a successful career in food science before being promoted to full time mum 9 years ago and starting My Secret kitchen in 2008 “All the products can be used for everyday meals or as part of gourmet dining and in both cases invite consumers to ‘make it more amazing’. The products come ready to use or require the addition of one or two store cupboard ingredients and are produced solely in the UK” explains Clare “ Every item has been designed to have many different uses and are free of artificial colours and flavours. The range has something for everyone with interesting new flavours (Szechuan Pepper Pot) a twist on a classic (Maple Caramel Sauce) and more traditional products which aim to be the best ever! (Ultimate Chocolate Brownie Mix). Recipes and ideas on how to create great meal time occasions are provided with all the products”

Clare’s hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed, having won the “Mumpreneur of the Year 2011 – best saleswoman” award recently.

More about My Secret Kitchen can be found on video at:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzTrP0nt89s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkHjo73akrw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bt-oNkuF0

http://www.mysecretkitchen.co.uk
philmoran@mysecretkitchen.co.uk
0845 0945319

On the Radio today

2011-12-12T15:40:00.000Z

Did you hear Clare on the radio today? She spoke about My Secret Kitchen on BBC Radio Wiltshire at around 11am and if I find someway of putting this onto the blogpage I certainly will!

Welcome to the new My Secret Kitchen blog

2011-12-05T17:58:00.000Z

Yes, our brand new blog is live and it's bigger and brighter than ever! Watch this space for news of new products, special events and all the other lively goings on here at My Secret Kitchen...