A Pengelly Belly Christmas!

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas! Sorry I haven't posted for a while, but the festive season got in the way! Plus we haven't been home and I haven't been near a computer for a day or two!

Anyway, Mr P and I had a lovely start to the Christmas Holidays. On the Thursday before Christmas I went down to Penzance to have brunch with some girlfriends at the Mackerel Sky Cafe which is a lovely little place tucked away down a side street. Great food and great coffee to defrost with! I trotted over to see Kim and John at the Polgoon Vineyard as it was en route to my parents house. Luckily for me I was walking so I could try some samples! I picked up a bottle of their Aval for Mr P and I to enjoy on Christmas day. Kim kindly gave me a bottle of their new Cornish Pink Cider which has an extra squeeze of raspberries added to it. I've had to hide it so that Mr P and I can enjoy it on New Year's Eve!

I was lucky to enjoy lunch on Christmas Eve at the Porthgwidden Cafe in St.Ives with Mr P and some friends. St.Ives was quiet, no doubt getting ready for New Year's Eve, so we had a pre-lunch bimble around the town. Lunch was very good as always. I did enjoy a nice aperitif of Polgoon Raspberry Aval to get me in the festive mood! It went down a treat with the paella. Finished the dinner with Moomaid Ice cream which is made in Zennor and a double espresso!

Christmas Day was a quite affair for us this year. We had a lie in and cat came and joined us in bed. Bless. We always have local eggs for breakfast on Christmas morning - boiled with toast on the side. As it was such a beautiful clear day, we popped on the walking boots... the only present that Mr P would let me open on the morning was a new pair of walking boots... and stanked up to the top of Carn Brea! Breathtaking!

On top of Carn Brea, looking down over Camborne, Portreath and over to St.Ives

There was no wind, no rain, no snow... just clear blue skies and an amazing view!

The monument on top of Carn Brea, looking towards Redruth, Truro and St. Austell

We were out walking for 2.5 hours so we had built up and appetite by the time we got home. After a spot of lunch (homemade Christmas Gammon and Pengelly Piccalilli) Mr P finally let me open my presents!

Christmas Ham from Nigella's Christmas Cookbook

Hoorah! As you can imagine, lots of food orientated goodies, several new cookbooks including The Great British Bake Off, Sophie Dahl and Antonio Carluccio, a lovely green leather bag with cupcakes on it (I'll take a picture for you one day!), but one of our favourite presents was a lovely food hamper from our good friends Mr and Mrs H... Mrs H made the lovely rosewater shortbreads and the little felt gingerbread man that is now hanging on our tree! Look how beautiful it was.... shame to take it apart and eat / drink all the goodies!

Lovely hamper full of goodies... edible of course!

We didn't sit down for dinner until 6pm where I served up a mushroom wellington (from the Cranks Vegetarian cookbook) which I made the day before. We had all the trimmings, including sprouts and chestnuts! Dinner was finished off with a light Christmas Pudding made by the lovely people at Trevaskis Farm which we brought at their Christmas Market, and a lovely cheeseboard an hour later. Stuffed!

All in all, a lovely Christmas Day!

Watch this space for my next blog about the food hampers that I made and what went in them! They went down a real treat!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year! See you in 2011! A big thank you for supporting and following my blog!

Love and best wishes,

Nic xoxox

The best of Cornish Food and Drink Produce - Part 1

I feel that I am really lucky to live here in Cornwall. Apart from the amazing landscapes; the history; the myths and legends; and the beaches (and surf!), we are really blessed with the most wonderfully gifted people who create, make, produce, and sell food and drink.

Whether it's from plough to plate; from orchard to bottle; from hand line to BBQ; or from Daisy producing milk for our famous clotted cream, we are truly spoilt with excellent quality goods that are affordable. You can tell that a lot of love and pride goes into Cornish Produce.

I prefer to buy local and support the local supply chain. I love to go to local markets and meet the people who produce and sell the goods. I don't like to think that I take it for granted, but you can become too complacent.

I thought it would be good to do a series of blog postings about some of my favourite food producers in the county to share my appreciation of them with the wider world. So, first up, I would like to introduce you to the wonderful people down on the farm at Polgoon!

Polgoon Vineyard is located near Penzance, just outside of the village of Heamoor, which is where I grew up (and insidently spent many a time exploring the footpaths that surround the area). My memory of Polgoon, pre Vineyard days, was a derelict farm with run down farm buildings and wild fields. However, new life has been breathed into the farm land and Polgoon Vineyard was born six years ago by the Coulson Family. It really is lovely to drive past and see that the land and the buildings have been rejuvenated.

Polgoon produce the most amazing array of quaffable drinks! I was lucky to have a selection of bottles from some very good friends as a birthday treat. I promise you I haven't drunk them all yet! From "capturing the essence of summer" roses, to berry-licious reds, to sparkling Aval (a champagne style cider!) and soft sparkling drinks including pear and elderflower, they really are a tipple to try! Not only do they produce the most amazing drinks, they have also won a whole host of awards which really seals their success.

It's worth heading down to Polgoon as well as they have open days and you can have a look around the vineyard, see how their produce is made... and have a little tipple... followed by some bottles to take home of course!

Proud to be Cornish, proud to support Polgoon! Hic! Lets raise a glass... cheers!

http://polgoonvineyard.vpweb.co.uk/default.html

Part 2 coming soon... Cornish Cheese... (to go with the Polgoon Wine of course!!)