Win an Asda Extra Special Hamper

Some time before Christmas, I was invited by Asda  to attend a blogger event at Leiths cookery school. You may have seen the TV adverts promoting the partnership between Asda and Leiths, whereby Leiths have given their stamp of approval to a selection of the Asda Extra Special range.

I'll admit that I reacted in a very unbecoming way, disdainful that a respected professional cookery school would be endorsing a range from what I perceived as a cheap supermarket with products to match. So I'll put my hand up and state that I was wrong, unequivocally wrong. Every single one of the products I've tasted from the Asda Extra Special range has been excellent, and would hold its own against products from any other supermarket, whether that's Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose or M&S. When I take prices into account, I'm even more impressed and genuinely disappointed I don't have a branch near me.

At the school, Leiths Managing Director, Camilla Schneideman, explained that her team had not only handpicked their favourite products, based on taste and quality of ingredients, but they had also developed a range of recipes using the products, to give Asda shoppers some fresh ideas on how to use them well. Initially, the partnership focused on Asda's Extra Special Christmas range, but I understand it will be an on-going partnership through the year.

Rather then sit down to a meal prepared by someone else, we scrubbed up, put on our aprons and spent a happy couple of hours in the Leiths' kitchens, cooking a festive feast using the Leiths recipes. In teams of 4, we cooked canapés, starters, a main with sides and a delicious pudding. Luckily, some of the ingredients preparation had been done for us, such as peeling and weighing, so we were able to do a lot in a relatively short time. Only after all our hard work did we sit down and enjoy the fruits of our labours. My stand out favourite was the rich gravy accompanying the rack of venison, and the chocolate Yule log, but everything was very tasty.

Asda kindly offered a Christmas hamper for a Kavey Eats competition, but as I was running a fair few competitions during that period already, I asked for a non-seasonal hamper instead, to cheer someone up through the new year blues. Being a picky sort, I made the selection myself and have chosen everything from biscuits and popcorn to crisps and nuts to balsamic vinegar and dipping oils to pasta and pesto to chutney, gravy and honey. There's even a nice bottle of red wine and one of bubbly cava!

                   

Contents of Prize Hamper: Extra Special mini meringues, Extra Special Aceto Balsamico di Modena, Extra Special all butter parmesan and garlic mini twists, Extra Special soft-baked apple cookies, Extra Special stem ginger chocolate, Extra Special Belgian milk chocolate and pecan popcorn clusters, Extra Special caramelised onion chutney, Extra Special black pepper ciabatta croutons, Extra Special garlic dipping oil, Extra Special hand-decorated toffee cake, Extra Special apricot crumbles, Extra Special Italian conchiglioni, Extra Special Italian pesto alla Genovese, Extra Special rich beef gravy, Extra Special Spanish orange blossom honey, Extra Special spiced plum and ginger marinade, Extra Special Vietnamese jumbo cashew nuts, Extra Special vegetable crisps, Extra Special Marques Del Norte Rioja Reserva, Extra Special Mas Miralda Cava Vintage 2010 Brut

 

How to enter

You can enter the competition in 2 ways.

Entry 1 – Answer the question
Leave a comment below, answering the following question:
What's your best tip for combatting the January blues?

Entry 2 – Tweet
Tweet the (exact) sentence below:
I'd love to win an Asda Extra Special hamper from kaveyeats.com #KaveyEatsAsda

Rules & Details

• The deadline for entries is midnight GMT Friday 27 January 2012.
• One blog entry and one twitter entry per person.
• The winner will be selected from all valid entries using a random number generator.
• The prize is a hamper of food and drink from the Leiths Approved Asda Extra Special range, with an approximate value of contents of £50 (based on current prices). The prize includes delivery, and can be delivered to UK mainland addresses only.
• Asda reserve the right to substitute any items that are out of stock for other Leiths Approved Asda Extra Special items of a similar value.
• The prize cannot be redeemed for cash.
• The prize is offered directly by Asda.
• Valid entries must contain either an email address or twitter account, for contacting the winner. For those leaving a comment using their blogger/ Google ID, please make sure an email address is visible in your profile.
• The winner will be notified by email or twitter. If no response is received by the end of Tuesday 31 January, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.

*If you don't have a secondary email address already and are nervous about sharing your main email address on the internet, why not set up a new free email account on hotmail, gmail or yahoo, that you can use to enter competitions like this?

Thanks to Asda and Leiths for inviting me to the Extra Special cookery class and for offering this prize.

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Recent Competition Winners

We've run several competitions over the last couple of months. Here are the winners, for those who like to know…

Time Out Restaurant Guides

Ute (hungryinlondon.com)
Alex (Eating Soho)
@nitology
@dawncloud
@kirwantaylor

Demarquette Chocolates

Laura (texasonthames)

Stew! by Genevieve Taylor

@ashlallan (Mummy 24)

Green & Blacks Gifts

1) Nursey (@maxineflossy)
2) @frommyplate
3) @sushi_junki

Dishoom Christmas Feast

Deepa (lazygiraffe)

Hotel Chocolat Gifts

1) David Patrick
2) Natalie Newham
3) Debs DKC

Bath Ales Festivity Hamper

@broadfordbrewer

Well done, all!

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"Oh bring us a Christmas pudding and a cup of good cheer"

Stir-up Sunday has come and gone. All over the land, Christmas puddings have been lovingly made and are now maturing in readiness for Christmas day.

But if you haven't made your own, never fear.
Just resort to buying one, as I do every year!

I shall, over the next fortnight, do a review of a selection of ready-made Christmas puddings, including a traditionally-made beauty from Forman & Field. And, of course, I'll give you my low down right here as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I am happy to run another smashing competition offering you the chance to win your own Vintage Forman & Field pudding, plus brandy cream and vanilla sauce. And by "vintage" we're talking about puddings that have been matured for 9+ months and fed with 5 year old Somerset cider brandy. Oh yes! I have high hopes for this one!

How to enter

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me what your favourite Christmas carol is. Please ensure you leave your email address* in the field provided or in the body of your comment. Entries without any means of contacting the winner will not be included in the draw.
2. Enter on twitter by tweeting the following:
   I'd love to win a Forman & Field Christmas Pudding from @kaveyf. Look at www.kaveyeats.com for details! #kaveyeatsformanfield

Details

• The prize can be delivered to UK residents only. Non UK residents are welcome to enter, if they'd like to win the prize for friends and family in the UK.
• The deadline for entries is midnight GMT Wednesday 8 December 2010.
• The prize is a Forman & Field Vintage Christmas Pudding and Brandy Sauce . The prize cannot be substituted or redeemed for cash. The prize will be provided and delivered by Forman & Field.
• A winner will be selected from all valid entries using a random number generator.
• The winner will be notified by email or twitter on Thursday 9 December and asked to provide a delivery address. If no response is received by the end of Saturday 11 December, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.

*If you don't have a secondary email address already and are nervous about sharing your main email address on the internet, why not set up a new free email account on hotmail, gmail or yahoo, that you can use to enter competitions like this?

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Christmas Comforts: Win an Interflora Christmas Hamper!

This time last year I learned that Interflora sell a lot more than flora. They also sell balloons, bubbly and wine, biscuits and cupcakes, fruit baskets, chocolate, teddy bears! And food and drink hampers, including a large range of Christmas hampers.

Last year I kept my Interflora hamper all to myself and was pretty impressed with the range and quality of goods included for the price. Not to mention the wicker hamper itself – I have a bit of a thing for wicker!

This year, I'm entering into the festive spirit of giving and sharing the goodies with my readers instead.

 

Up for grabs is one Interflora Christmas Comforts hamper, worth £49.99, which can be delivered anywhere within the UK.

That's a beautiful lined, wicker basket containing a bottle of Cotes du Rhone Chemin des Papes, some Chapel Bakery Belgian Milk Chocolate Coated Orange Biscuits, a Maxwell & Franks Christmas Pudding, Convivial Yorkshire Crisps, Foxhill Strawberry Jam, Farmhouse Cranberry Biscuits, Chapel Bakery Luxury Deep Mince Pies, Healthy Ideas Luxury Fruit & Nut Mix, Bromleys Sticky Onion Chutney, Just Fudge Cranberry Fudge, Hamlet Praline Chocolates, Maxwell & Franks Iced Fruit Bar and Buiteman Salsa Baguettes.

And you can keep it all to yourself or have it delivered direct to a (much) loved one!

How to enter

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me about the best Christmas food, drink or kitchen gift you've ever received. Please ensure you leave your email address* in the field provided or in the body of your comment. Entries without any means of contacting the winner will not be included in the draw.
   
2. Enter on twitter by tweeting the following:
   I'd love to win an Interflora Christmas hamper from @kaveyf. Look at www.kaveyeats.com for details! #kaveyeatsinterflora

Details

• The prize can be delivered to UK residents only. Non UK residents are welcome to enter, if they'd like to win the prize for friends and family in the UK.
• The deadline for entries is midnight GMT Saturday 4 December 2010.
• The prize is an Interflora Christmas Comforts hamper. The prize cannot be substituted or redeemed for cash. The prize will be provided and delivered by Interflora.
• A winner will be selected from all valid entries using a random number generator.
• The winner will be notified by email or twitter on Sunday 5 December and asked to provide a delivery address. If no response is received by Thursday 9 December, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.

*If you don't have a secondary email address already and are nervous about sharing your main email address on the internet, why not set up a new free email account on hotmail, gmail or yahoo, that you can use to enter competitions like this?

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Win Hotel Chocolat Christmas Gifts (& Review)

It's that time of the year when Hotel Chocolat launch their Christmas Gifts range. The clocks have gone back, the dark nights are drawing in and fallen leaves damp with November rain squish and slide underfoot. It would be positively depressing if it weren't for the anticipation of Christmas excesses to come. Christmas excesses including chocolate!

It's easy – especially if you spend a lot of time with top chocolatiers and dedicated chocolate experts – to focus only on the top end stuff. And I do love Rococo, Paul A Young, Artisan du Chocolat and countless other fabulous brands.

It's easy to forget the better known (and more readily available) delights that most of the country know and enjoy. Delights like Hotel Chocolat.

I'm happy to put my hand up and tell you that I am a fan of Hotel Chocolat. Ever since I stumbled into their first shop shortly after it opened, I've been happily eating my way through their chocolates. I'm particularly keen on their tiramisu truffles, rum soaked sultanas, Yule logs and the new Purist chocolate bars (some of which are from Hotel Chocolat's own Rabot Estate in St. Lucia).

When they approached me to ask if I'd like to review some of their Christmas products as well as share the love with my readers, I was happy to accept.

Win Hotel Chocolat Deliciousness For Yourself

1st Prize = Christmas Collection Gift Bag Luxe (worth £35)

2nd Prize = Goody Bag Of The Season (worth £15)

3rd Prize = Christmas Chocolate Goody Bag (worth £15)

Not one, not two but three prizes for Kavey Eats readers!

How To Enter

1. Leave a comment here on the blog sharing a Christmas chocolate memory. Please include your name and email address in the comment; entries with no email address provided will not be entered into the draw.
2. Enter on twitter by tweeting the following:
   Yes please, @kaveyf I'd like to win one of your 3 Hotel Chocolat Christmas prizes #kaveyeatshotelchocolatprizes

The competition deadline is midnight GMT on Friday, 19th November 2010.

Details

One blog entry per person.

One twitter entry per person.

Winners will be chosen using a random number generator, from all valid entries received by the deadline.

The prizes can be delivered anywhere in the UK and Europe.

The prizes are provided (and will be delivered) by Hotel Chocolat.

The Reviews

Pick-Me-Up Gift Bag (£10)

Containing a 100 gram bar of chocolate (with a moulded reindeer decoration), 6 liquid caramel chocolates and a bag of little chocolate "gemstones" this gift bag is good value. The lightly salted liquid caramels are decent, though the salt is a touch too light for my tastes. The gemstones are lovely – simple chocolate nibbles that are surprisingly moreish. The chocolate bar is simply a (decent) chocolate bar. At this price point, I think this bag would make a great gift for work colleagues with a sweet tooth or friends you'd like to treat without breaking the budget.

Gingerbread Liquid Chocolat (£8)

A friend gave me a bottle of the regular Hotel Chocolate drinking chocolate recently and I've been enjoying it daily at work, mixed into hot milk. This gingerbread version is absolutely fantastic with a strong ginger flavour and even a touch of ginger heat. The tiny chips of chocolate are fairly easy to dissolve too. I really, really like this.

Mulled Wine Cherries (£7.50)

I don't love these as much as the regular kirsch cherries (also £7.50) but I do like them a lot. The mulled wine spices are subtle and balance nicely with the moist cherries and chocolate. A great stocking filler!

The Ultimate Milk Chocolate Advent Calendar (£17)

£17? I'm afraid it doesn't matter how good the chocolate is (and it's decent enough milk chocolate, certainly), it's pretty hard to justify spending so much money on so little chocolate even when it's hidden behind pretty numbered doors. Tastes good, looks good but just isn't good value for money. And it's difficult to prize the individual chocolates out of the plastic mould into which they're slotted.

Personally, I'd buy something like this adorable fabric gingerbread man and pop my favourite chocolates into its advent calendar pockets!

Chilli Penguins (£7)

I'm a little disappointed when I open these, as I expected penguin figures that would be able to stand up. Instead, there are two layers of flat moulded shapes which bear little relationship to any penguin I've seen.

I know, I know… with two trips to Antarctica and a month in the Falkland Islands, I've spent more time watching and photographing the strange creatures than your average chocolate shopper but really… these don't even look like the cute little cartoon penguins in Madagascar or Happy Feet!

And I think HC have missed a trick in not combining white and dark chocolate to make the penguins look more like, well… penguins!

But on a more serious note, what do they taste like? The chocolate is a fairly sweet 70% dark chocolate with a mild hint of chilli that provides a little warmth but not much of a chilli kick. Pleasant, but will disappoint those looking for a more obvious chilli presence. There's more heat in the gingerbread hot chocolate than in these penguins.

Here are some real penguins I spent a few weeks with in the Falklands in February:

You can check out the entire Hotel Chocolat Christmas Range here.

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Win Tickets to The Wine Show (London Olympia) & The BBC Good Food Show (NEC)

Fancy attending The Wine Show (12 – 14 Nov at London Olympia) and/ or The BBC Good Food Show (24 – 28 Nov at the NEC Birmingham)?

Well, you might be in luck! I have 5 pairs of tickets to each show for readers of Kavey Eats!

The Wine Show

Stroll through the Wine Market, meet celebrity wine experts, try and buy wines from around the world, perhaps even learn the art of sabrage – opening a champagne bottle by slicing the top off with a knife!

Also on at London Olympia at the same time is Masterchef Live, where you can meet the MC celebrities, watch them cook in the Chef's' Theatre, try and buy from a range of food and drink producers and take part in the Masterchef Experience (you can read about my efforts in the Masterchef Invention Test, here).

The Wine Show tickets include free entry to Masterchef Live.

The BBC Good Food Show

Visit the stalls of hundreds of food and drink exhibitors in the Producer's Village, take part in the Masterchef Experience, watch James Martin host a live sessions of Saturday Kitchen, attend food and drink master classes including specialist CAMRA sessions and taste some of the winners of the World Cheese Awards.

How to Enter

1. Leave a comment here on the blog stating which show you'd like to attend. Please include your email address; entries with no email address provided will not be entered into the draw. If you'd like to enter both draws, please leave two separate comments, one for each.
   
2. Enter on twitter by tweeting the following:
   
   Yes please, @kaveyf I'd like to win one of 5 pairs of tickets to The Wine Show! #kaveyeatswineshowtkts
   and/ or Yes please, @kaveyf I'd like to win one of 5 pairs of tickets to The BBC Good Food Show (Winter)! #kaveyeatsBBCGoodFoodtkts
   

The competition deadline is midnight GMT on Thursday, 4th November 2010.

One blog entry per show per person.

One twitter entry per show per person.

Prize Details

Both prizes are for entry to the shows only and do not include travel, accommodation or any additional paid classes or activities within the shows.

Tickets for The Wine Show will be available for collection.

Tickets for The BBC Good Food Show will be mailed out by post.

Many thanks to BBC Haymarket Exhibitions for the prize tickets.

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