Masseys More than just another village Shop

Peter Topping very kindly sent us his impressions of our wine tasting event:

“Went along to the wine tasting session at Masseys which launched the wineclub.

Posted under Shop news

We’ve taken all the hard work out of shopping for cook books. Just  launched:  our cooking shop.

To start with, we’ve searched for cook books from some of the celebrity chefs we all love and hate. Let us know if we’ve missed your favourite – we’ve only picked a few to start with.

And given the recent news from the farmers’ survey which indicated that many children don’t know about the origin of every-day food ingredients, we thought it would be a good idea to include cook books for children and cooking equipment for children in our lists.

Our final launch category is cooking with vegetables. We’re all dealing with post-Christmas belt-tightening, and looking for healthier ways of dealing with food. What better way than to increase our fruit & veg intake. If you’re looking for new ways to prepare your daily 5, have a browse through our bookshelf now.

We’ll be adding categories from time to time – special diets and seasonal cooking come to mind. Which others would you like?

Photo credit: Roland

Posted under Recipes, Shop news

We’ve just launched our young artists picture competition.

So, if you’re under 16 years old, the mission is:

While it’s still cold outside, have a bit of indoor fun by entering Masseys picture competition?

Draw a picture on the theme of

‘My Village Shop’

and you might be the winner of a fabulous parcels of sweets and chocolates.

You can do it any way you like: pencils, paint, a collage… and don’t forget to give your work a title.

Closing date: noon on Sunday January 31, 2010.

Entries available in the shop or download here.

Photo credit: Laffyk4

Posted under Shop news, Whittlesford

So, Christmas is over for another year and we’re all supposed to start thinking about making resolutions for the New Year.

Reflecting on this Christmas, I can say it was really different and made me think about how we deal with all the glitz and the bling of this particular holiday. For various reasons – some of which were a result of the fantastic support we’ve had in the shop over the past couple of months – we had no Christmas decorations, tree or baubles at home. I just about managed to get our Christmas cards put up, and I must admit that, to my embarrassment, some of our cards were only delivered yesterday. Our Christmas was disorganised to say the least. And yet, it was one of the best I can remember.

We had our busiest Christmas ever in the shop – thank you all for your custom. It was fantastic. (We’ve had brillian  feedback on our pre-ordering system for veg, bread and basics and many customers used it for their Christmas orders rather spending time in the supermarket).

This meant we just didn’t have time to do anything fancy for Christmas ourselves. Christopher and Helen made lunch on Christmas day, and we spent the time, quite simply, being with family. It was just perfect.  For us, Christmas was spent doing what we enjoy; cooking good food and sharing it with people we love. Simplifying it all meant we could be more relaxed and focus on getting back to basics. I thoroughly recommend it. I hope yours was just as good and you got to celebrate in whatever way you enjoy the most.

One of the highlights of this Christmas for me was taking the food we’d collected and donated to Jimmy’s Night Shelter. It was sobering and at the same time immensely uplifting to hear staff saying things like, “Oh, look at this broccoli!”, and “Brussel sprouts! Fantastic!”. They told me that this was just what they needed and said we’d somehow managed to give them just the right quantity of fresh fruit and veg for their Christmas. Here’s the list of what went to Jimmy’s

And so, on to the New Year…

I am questioning the wisdom of New Year resolutions this year. We make them in the hope that we will become better – healthier, thinner, more knowledgeable or whatever you think you should be – all of which sounds laudable. But here’s a thought: Why do we only think we should start doing these things on the 1st of January? Why not the 29th of December, or the 15th of May, or any other date for that matter?

(If you’re interested in some more thoughts on this idea, Dave Navarro writes a compelling article about resolutions – New Year or otherwise – here)

So we’ve decided to simply continue doing some of the things we started this year:

• Let us know if there’s something you want that we don’t have in stock, and we’ll source it and add it to our regular stock list
• We’ll continue to get fresh fruit and veg to order, including some of the unusual and exotic if you fancy trying something new
• Our blog will still carry simple recipes for great tasting food. If you have any to share, please drop me a line. I’d also love to hear what you think if you’ve tried any of them.
• We’ll let you know about special offers and what’s new in stock in our weekly newsletters – sign up on our website if you’re not getting that news yet.
• Our Jimmy’s collection will continue online so we can donate fruit and veg from time to time during the year rather than just at Christmas
• And overall, we’ll make every effort to provide a truly local, personal service for our customers.

Let me know if I’ve missed anything off the list.

I was going to post a recipe for turkey rice bake for all those leftovers, but I thought you’ve probably finished them by now. But just in case, here’s a link to Rick Stein’s Christmas Odyssey on BBC iPlayer which covers the subject of leftovers far better than I could.

Have a great New Year celebration.

Photo credit: Ahisgett

Posted under Shop news

Don’t forget that we can help with your Christmas food shopping.

If you’d rather not spend hours in the supermarket car park and waiting at the till, why not download our Christmas Order Form, drop your list into the shop by December 22nd, and pick up your completed order by 3pm on December 24th.

And if you’re a fan of great gammon, why not get one of our Christmas gammons, from the same specialist supplier as our extremely popular bacon.  Gammons come in a minimum size of 5.5kg, and gammon orders must be received by December 15th.

And here’s the easiest way we know to cook gammon. I usually do this on the evening of Dec 24th and it’s cooked perfectly by morning.

1. Soak the gammon in a large bowl of water for an hour to reduce the salt content
2. Place 2 layers of tinfoil across the base of a roasting pan, lay them in opposite directions and leave enough length each side to wrap over the top of the gammon
3. Place the gammon on the tinfoil and pour over 1 cup orange juice and 1 cup lager.
4. Close the foil over the gammon and place in the oven.
5. Bake for 30 mins at 160 degrees, then reduce the temperature to 150 degrees for a further 150 minutes.
6. Switch off the oven and leave overnight.

Glaze and eat.

(Or you could try this Glazed Gammon with Parsley and Cider Sauce from BBC Good Food)

Don’t forget to download your Christmas Order Form

Posted under Shop news