Today is the first day of The East of England Co-op‘s sourced locally fortnight. I have always loved how the EoE Co-op has supported our local producers and this fortnight celebration highlighting what you can buy from local producers is an amazing way to discover new foods, last year I found Hadleigh Maid and I’m now addicted to their Hot Chocolate.

So last weekend in preparation I went on a shopping trip to my local East of England Co-op, grabbed myself a basket full of local goodies and created a couple of gorgeous recipes to share with you all. A fantastic cheesy stuffed mushroom and a simple two pig parcel. 

Cheesy Stuffed Mushroom

The following weights are approximate, I’m not an exact kind of a cook and are for two mushrooms.

What you need

• Locally Sourced Flat Mushrooms
• Suffolk Gold Cheese
• Garlic & Herb Cream Cheese (not locally sourced)
• A local bakers Cheese Straws
• Stokes Tomato Ketchup

  

Method

• Preheat oven to 200 c and lightly oil a baking tray
• Remove stalk from mushrooms and place on tray
• Cut approx 30g of the Suffolk Gold Cheese into small cubes (0.5cm x 0.5cm)
• In a bowl mix approx 20g cream cheese with the Suffolk Gold, and a dollop of Stokes Tomato Ketchup and mix adding more ketchup if required for consistency
• Spread onto the mushrooms
• Crumble a cheese straw and use to top the cheesy mix, eat rest of cheese straws another day, in secret (if you don’t have cheese straws a few crisps will also work)
• Bake for 20 minutes or until golden

  

  

Two Pig Parcel

The following weights are approximate, I’m not an exact kind of a cook and are for two parcels.

What you need

• Locally Sourced Sausage Meat
• Locally Sourced Ham
• Suffolk Gold Cheese
• Stokes Tomato Ketchup

  

Method

• Preheat oven to 200 c and ready two sheets of foil (for parcel wrapping)
• Cut two lengths of Suffolk Gold cheese, approx 1cm wide
• Place a slice of ham onto a piece of foil
• Using about 1/3 of the tube of sausage meat form a disc (this will eventually be wrapped to create ball)
• Into the centre of the sausage meat pop in your cheese and add 1tsp of ketchup
• Fold the sausage meat around the cheese and ketchup and mould into a ball
• Wrap the ham around the parcel of sausage meat and then cover with the foil
• Bake for 20 minutes ensuring it is cooked through
• For a crispy finish remove from the oven after 15 minutes, remove foil and finish by shallow frying

  

Both dishes are excellent served with Jacket Potatoes and Locally Sourced Asparagus.

For dessert I bought two options, Carrot Cake Cupcakes from a local bakers or a bar of Gnaw Banana Chocolate, both were excellent 🙂

So why not head to your nearest East of England Co-op between 30th May and 12th June to show your local producers some love and maybe you’ll find something new that you just can’t do without.

Disclosure – I was given some gift vouchers so that I could buy the products to create these recipes, all opinions are my own.