An evening with Tilda..

Last Wednesday, I spent a gorgeously hot summers evening with a lovely bunch of food bloggers at the gorgeous, quirky location that is Food at 52 in London, I believe most of us had serious house envy during our visit! It had a real homely feel, with lots of random jars lining the shelves (reminded me of my windowsill!) and big deep sofas to get lost in!

The evening was hosted by Camilla from ‘Tilda’, the ‘rice people’ who have just launched a new range of stir-fry rice’s that are already cooked and flavoured, all you need to add is your meat or vegetables and cook through, great for when time is short! All the packets serve two which is ideal for us. The range currently has Kung-po, Peking, Thai green and Thai red rice.

Whilst you can use the packets just as they are, we were very lucky to have Jo Pratt demonstrating other uses, including a delicious prawn and rice broth, gorgeous Thai chicken toasts with a nutty cucumber relish, which were a real crowd pleaser, tasty duck & rice pancakes and last but not least, a tasty and fragrant lamb rice dish.

After Jo’s demonstration, I teemed up with Kavey and Gary, and whilst Gary expertly stirred everything me and Kavey rounded up goodies to add into the wok, this was our final dish using Tilda’s Peking rice:

Tilda select only the best grains of pure basmati rice, and following a little talk, I have strange visions now of a big red laser zapping all the baddies out, but no wastage is involved as this goes into animal feed. Tilda also works closely with over 10,000 farmers, providing them with the seed to ensure they receive the best market prices and ensuring a better future for them so you can buy with confidence.

All of the rices are gluten free, suitable for veggies and with no nasties in. They will be available via Waitrose or Ocado imminently.

Big thanks to the ladies at Wildcard for arranging the evening, the great hosts at Food at 52, Tilda and the lovely Jo Pratt for taking the time to discuss her chilli con carne recipe with me (one of my favourites !) and her really fab book In the Mood for Entertaining, which I plan on cooking the entire book through! Oh and most definitely a big thanks for my lovely new wok, I will try really hard not to kill this one - have gone through 5 so far on our ceramic hob, I must get one of these portable gas cookers:

P.s. don’t stand near MiMi when she is armed with a wok and hot oil! ;-)