In this Issue

	Scottish Food and Drink Award : Excellence Awards
	Salad Dressings and Refillable bottles
	Keep Scotland Clean
	This months recipe : Roasted asparagus
	Out and about

Pass it on

Know anyone who might be interested in our newsletter? Click to forward this email to up to 5 friends at once.

Scottish Food and Drink Award : Excellence Awards

Well we have held off sending out this newsletter as we were short-listed for in 'The Scottish Food and Drink Excellence Awards ' (aka 'Scottish food Oscars') and we wanted to wait to get the results.  The black tie dinner was held on May 7th and we are very proud to announce that we won two awards!  We won the 'Soup, Preserve, Accompaniments' and the 'Healthy Choices/Healthy Eating' categories.  The dinner was held at the Kelvingrove Museum and attended by 300 leading representatives of the food and drink industry and was compared by Stephen Jardine from the STV Five Thirty Show.  It is always great to get repeat custom and positive feedback from our customers, these awards are the icing on the cake of what has proved to be a fantastic first year in business (well it's not even a year yet).  Thank you so much for all of your support it really is appreciated.  The photo shows me and my wife in a field of rapeseed.  As you can see the crop is looking good and we will be harvesting these fields in August ready for pressing and bottling over the following year.

Salad Dressings and Refillable bottles

We have added two new products to our range, namely a 'Raspberry Salad Dressing' and 'a bottle refill scheme'.  The 'Raspberry Salad Dressing' can be bought from some of our outlets and the farmers markets which we attend. 

The dressing is made using our oil and a raspberry vinegar from 'Dalchonzie Farm Shop' in Comrie.  It comes in a single size of 250ml and is a delicious accompaniment for any summer salad.

We are also offering a bottle refill scheme from the markets we attend, we have commissioned bottles which have a permanent label (to allow us to wash the bottles) from 'Image on Glass' in Crieff.  The customer buys the oil in our newly commissioned bottle (just think of the old flip-top bottles) and when they return the empty bottle we sell them a filled bottled and take the empty away to clean it.. This will help reduce the amount of glass we send for recycling, as they say re-use before you re-cycle.

Keep Scotland Clean

Last month we joined forces with Cittaslow Perth and the local cubs and scouts to spring Moncrieffe Island in Perth as part of the 'National Spring Clean 2009'. The scouts and cubs were very enthusiastic and made short-work of the clean up. After about an hour there were many bags of rubbish and a large selection of items, ranging from bottles to bikes, plastic bags to an electric gold cart! Summer Harvest is a 'Cittaslow Business Support ' as we share the same principals towards food; good (it tastes good), clean (it doesn't harm the environment, animal welfare or human health) and fair (producers receive a fair price for their work). We also believe that you should take time to enjoy surroundings and take time to relax and appreciate the food and countryside which we have on our door-steps.

This months recipe : Roasted asparagus

 This month’s recipe is simplicity itself, why over complicate great tasting food? Asparagus is only available in the UK for a couple of months so please make the most of it over the next few weeks, it just does not taste the same when it's imported during the other 10 months of the year.  Roasting the asparagus retains as much of it's flavour as possible, boiling the asparagus can loose some of the taste to the water.

Ingredients

• 400 g asparagus
• Sea -salt
• Freshly ground back pepper
• 2 tablespoons of Summer Harvest Rapeseed Oil

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven the 200oC / 390 F / Gas mark 6 /
2. Remove the woody piece of the asparagus; this can be done by simply holding each end of the asparagus spear and being it. The spear will snap at the natural point where the woody part ends.
3. Place the asparagus on a baking try, drizzle the oil over the asparagus and sprinkle with the sea salt and pepper.
4. Toss the asparagus to ensure they are fully coated with the rapeseed oil, salt and pepper.
5. Roast in the oven for around 15 minutes.
6. Serve hot with an extra drizzle of rapeseed oil.

You could also serve with either a poached egg, shavings of parmesan cheese, slices of Parma ham or a combination of them all.

Out and about

The following shops now stock our oil.

The Courtyard at Kenmore, Perthshire

Sugar and Spice, Doune

Milton Haugh, Angus

This month we are very busy and will be attending the following events :

Saturday May 16th Kinross Half Marathon (1 to 4 pm)

Saturday May 16th PKVAS Party in the Park

May 29th - 31st Tatse Of Edinburgh

If you can't make it the events then you can always buy the oil via our on-line shop.

Cheers

Mark