Fairview Camembert Promotion - Camembert & nutbutter springrolls with a fig, balsamic and honey dip

More and more companies are getting the idea that social media, such as Facebook, twitter and blogging, is the best way to expand the "word of mouth" side of marketing. Getting people to comment, retweet and blog your product for a chance to win a prize or fame is a great way to get your product out to as many people as possible while not spending too much money on the process. The best part of it is that bloggers like me get challenges and have fun.


Fairview is one of those genius companies. Not only do they make some of the most delicious cheeses and wines but they also cottoned on to us food bloggers loving a challenge. Here is how it works:
"We invited all South African food bloggers to submit their suggestions and recipe ideas to us, all of which needed to include our Fairview Camembert"

I decided to take ingredients that I always associate with stinky cheese. Nuts, honey, phyllo pastry and figs and turned them on their head.

What you need

1 round Fairview Camembert

1 packet mixed nuts

1 roll phyllo pastry

4 dried figs or 2 fresh figs

1 cup honey

½ cup water

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

olive oil

What to do

Preheat the grill. Cut the philo pastry into rectangles. Cut the Camembert into long pieces. Place the nuts in a food processor or pestle and mortar. Crush finely then add water slowly until you get a smooth paste. brush a teaspoon or 2 of paste into the corner of the philo, place a piece of camembert ontop. Fold the corners in and roll till tou have a small triangle left, place a little bit of nut butter on the corner to stick it shut. When done place spring rolls in baking dish. Mix a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with a little bit of honey. Brush the springrolls with the mixture. 

Seperately, place the figs in a food processor and blend well. heat the honey, water and vinegar in a pan and add the fig. Allow to come to the boil then take off the heat. Allow to cool throughly. Meanwhile place the springrolls under the grill until golden brown. 

Serve warm and gooey with the dipping sauce

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My Easy cooking - Event #1 - Thai Entry

If followed my comments on Food24 you would have picked up very quickly that I am not a fan or pre-made, pre-cooked, pre-packaged foods and sauces. In fact that's putting it mildly. I hate those things. I feel very strongly that taking a piece of chicken, mixing some pre-made mushroom sauce with some milk, drowning the chicken in that and popping in the oven, is not cooking and definitely not blog-worthy cooking.


So I have taught myself to make a lot of things that people just buy. For example "sweet chili sauce". I scoured the web for recipes, threw out the ones that had corn flour in them (after all my 1 complaint about store bought stuff is the starchy mouth feel) and came up with my own. I never did blog the recipe as it was in the time when I was fed up with blogging that I had made it that first time. However, one friday afternoon while browsing other food blogs I came across a recipe for butter chicken which had sweet chili sauce in it. For me that's just scandalous, a dish as rich and complex doesn't need sweet chili sauce shoved into it. 


I mentioned this to Marisa, over at The Creative Pot, and also mentioned that I make my own sweet chili sauce so the though of that fake stuff they sell at the shops glooped into my butter chicken just made me ill. She said I had to blog the recipe so she could steal it, so off I went and cooked up a batch.  


Now if you are anything like me, you cant cook up a batch of something without tasting it and while you can taste sweet chili sauce with a spoon I decided to make something a little more tasty to go with it. What better accompaniment then sweetcorn fritters.


All this cooking came at a great time. As Nina, over at My Easy Cooking is having her first Blog event. Go check it out  and see for yourself. Nina is an outstanding cook and food stylist so I jumped at the chance to participate in something that is linked to her blog. Also I love Thai food and Wang Thai is one of my favourite Thai restaurants. My corn fritter recipe was given to me by some one who used to be the manager there (of course with a  few embellishments of my own as I cannot follow a recipe to the T).

Thai sweet chili sauce
What you need
2 cups Rice wine vinegar
2 cups Sugar
Chilies
Coriander (preferably fresh)
Garlic


What to do
Put the sugar and vinegar into a saucepan and starting heating it through. Int he meantime pop all the rest of the ingredients into a food processor or blender. You want to get everything as small as possible. If you a milder sweet chili sauce then de-seed your chillies. Put the chili mixture into the saucepan and stir till all the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Allow it to cook for about 35-40 minutes. I used a trick I had learned earlier that day at Oded's Kitchen: put a plate in the freezer, when you think the sauce is ready place some on the plate to test the consistency.
Allow the mixture to cool slightly and bottle it.


Thai sweetcorn fritters
What you need
500g Sweet corn off the cob 
½ red pepper
1 baby marrow
2-3 eggs
2 tbs flour
fresh corriander


What to do
Mix all the ingredients together. Heat up some oil in a frying pan and place spoonful of the mixture into the pan. Fry until golden on both sides.


Just a small caution. Both these recipes originally had exact measurements unfortunately I never followed them or copied them. They both are very forgiving and so do what feels right.

General Something

Some of my readers might know that I am getting married in March 2010 and so I have started trying to lose weight. I started with Sports Science and did well and now I am on Weight Watchers. Before all this I would eat anything and so one of my favourite foods was General Tsao Chicken. I was so happy when I found this recipe from WW for my favourite dish and so I immediately tried it out.

I will say this, it was tasty. It wasn't however the dish I was expecting (maybe the place where I used to eat it used a different dish entirely and this is what General Tsao chicken is supposed to taste like)

Here is the recipe from WW and my alteration in brackets

POINTS® value | 6
Servings |  4
Preparation Time |  20 min
Cooking Time |  10 min
Level of Difficulty |  Moderate

You will need:
¾ cup(s) canned chicken broth, reduced-sodium  (I used 1 Tbsp Thelma chicken soup powder and diluted it in ¾ cup of boiling water)
1½ Tbsp cornstarch 
2 Tbsp sugar 
2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce  (I used normal soya sauce, I want to remain healthy and lose weight and low-sodium soya sauce has a lot of added preservatives to make up for less sodium)
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar  (I used rice wine vinegar)
1/2 tsp ground ginger  (I used 1 Tbsp of freshly grated ginger instead)
2 tsp peanut oil 
2 medium scallion(s), chopped  (Those are spring onions for those who dont know)
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced 
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or 1 dried chili pepper, minced  (I used fresh green chillies)
1 pound(s) uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 2-inch pieces  (I floured the chicken as it gives it a nice coating)
2 cup(s) cooked white rice, kept hot  (I used Jasmine rice)
 

What to do:

In a medium bowl, whisk together broth, cornstarch, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and ginger; set aside.
(I kept the corn starch out until just before adding the mixture to the chicken, it works better)
Heat oil in a wok or large pan over medium-high heat. Add scallions, garlic and pepper and cook 2 minutes. Add chicken and cook until browned all over, about 5 minutes.
Add reserved sauce and simmer until sauce thickens and chicken is cooked through, about 3 minutes.
Serve chicken and sauce over rice.