Karen Wright: Celebration fizz and food for new addition to my family
I recently had a new addition to my immediate family, a new baby girl, another grandchild for me, and I am so delighted!
I received the news via text when I was in the middle of doing a shop in Marks and Spencer food store near our caravan at Ripon. I decided that we needed to splash out and celebrate with some bubbles and something to eat that was a bit upbeat and fun to mark the occasion.
I bought some Champagne, and some ingredients that I could put together to make a grazing board so that we could enjoy some 'picky bits' alongside the champers. Not only that, but I also wanted to use some of the Champagne in a jelly, so I set to work in the shop and gathered my ingredients.
Along with champagne, I bought a strawberry jelly block, various cheeses, salami and chorizo, baby tomatoes, hummus, apples, oranges, grapes, gherkins, cheese biscuits. Of course, the things that could be included on a board or platter is almost endless so you can really personalise them to your own preferences.
This is what I do. With a triangular shaped Brie, I slice it width ways and then arranged the slices slightly overlapping and in a curve on the board. With cheddar I cut into cubes and made a pile of them on the board. With a Camembert I cut into segments and arrange those on the board and with a blue cheese I cut into slices. With the meats I made a chorizo rose by using the bowl of a small wine glass to layer the slices around and then inverted them onto the board. With the salami I folded the slices and made a 'river' on the board. After that the spaces can be filled with your other ingredients, apple slices, orange segments, grapes, pickles and biscuits.
For the jelly I very simply followed the instructions on the packet but instead of topping up with water I topped up with Champagne! It was great, just a bit of fun really, but you could see and taste the bubbles in the finished product. It was just my husband and myself who devoured this special treat. I’m having a housewarming at the end of the month and guess what I will be serving? Yes, correct, a great big grazing table serving about 50 people.