Long Meadow Cider are hosting a Murder Mystery Night on Saturday 17th February 2024 @ 6pm in the Bramley Barn.

£60 per ticket

Doors open @ 6pm to be seated by 6:30pm sharp.

The evening will include:

• Glass of Blossom Burst Cider on arrival
• Play Dead presents Diamond Eye, their Bond themed Murder Mystery Night
• 2 course meal provided by Flavoursmyth (main course and dessert)
• Prize for the winning detectives
• Our award winning ciders can be purchased throughout the evening
• Event to finish approx. 11pm

Description of the evening

Come to the heart of the orchard and be hosted by the amazing PLAY DEAD for a night full of murder and mystery, The Diamond Eye, James Bond style Murder Mystery evening.

On arrival enjoy a refreshing glass of chilled Blossom Burst Cider before taking your seat where the hosts will set the scene at Casino Regale a glamorous hotel and casino.

Story line for the evening

The Casino Regale Hotel is hosting the famous World Emissions Summit, which begins tomorrow, where the world’s largest diamond, the Regeneration Diamond will be unveiled. There are also rumours that the famous clairvoyant Scarlet Talons is in town, but that is yet to be confirmed….

MI6 had one of their top agents staying at the hotel to protect the diamond from a suspected theft and also to investigate the kidnapping of two public figures who recently went missing from the hotel.

The agent, however, did not manage to accomplish his mission at Casino Regale and was found dead in his suite earlier. .

Will you succeed where MI6 failed?

Do you thrive on danger, and have you chosen your team wisely?

Who can you trust when you need them the most?

Menu for the evening

Main course

Roast sugar-pit pork served with Kale, local roast carrot and parsnip, Fondant potato accompanied with a thyme cider cream.

Dessert

Armagh Bramley and ginger crumble cake served with salted toffee custard and honeycomb ice-cream.

Vegetarian option available

Please make us aware of any food allergies.

No set table plan for the evening.

Tickets are non-refundable.

This event is for Over 18’s only.

CLICK HERE to book your ticket today!

It’s time to roll up your sleeves, or dig out an unloved bread machine, or head to your local, indie bakery for the 15^th annual, international Real Bread Week!

What is Real Bread Week?

Created and run since 2010 by the Real Bread Campaign, #RealBreadWeek (17-25 February 2024) encourages people around the globe to:

·         BAKE Real Bread

·         BUY Real Bread

·         BOOST the Real Bread Campaign

The Real Bread Campaign website is where to find free recipes, as well as places to buy additive-free bread from more than 600 bakeries that have added their details to the Real Bread Map. The map also includes places to learn to make Real Bread. While out shopping people can look for The Real Bread Loaf Mark.

The Campaign invites everyone organising public Real Bread Week classes, events, tastings, fundraisers and other activities to add details to the Real Bread calendar, while schools, nurseries, care homes and community groups help many more people to join the fun.

As well as celebrating making Real Bread by hand, Real Bread Week 2024 echoes its origins by inspiring people to dust off and use an underemployed bread machine, or pass it on to someone who will.

In 2023, #RealBreadWeek generated over 4000 posts from more than 40 countries on Instagram alone.

The Real Bread Campaign is run by food and farming charity Sustain. Ways that everyone can help to boost the charity’s work include joining the Campaign, making a doughnation, and buying Real Bread books and other gifts.

Full details of all this and more can be found at www.realbreadcampaign.org

Real food

Real Bread is a delicious, nutritious, additive-free timeless original. With questions and concerns gathering around ultra-processed food (UPF),  for many people the idea of the much-wasted Chorleywood Process loaf is staling. With a heritage dating back perhaps as far as around 14,400 years, Real Bread has a bright future as the crust you can trust.

Real Bread For All

The Real Bread Campaign continues to encourage business owners to run schemes that bridge the gap between what it costs a financially-sustainable small bakery to put Real Bread on its shelves, and what people in their local communities living on tighter budgets can realistically afford.

The rise of the machines

Mixing, kneading and shaping dough by hand takes very little of your time and many people find the process therapeutic. Others discover that the answer to taking control of the food they do (and the additives they don’t) eat – and perhaps feed to their families – is a bread machine.

According to research carried out in 2023 for independent not-for-profit organisation Recycle Your Electricals, there might be around 1.4 million bread makers going unused in UK homes. Rather than asking anyone to shell out for a new machine, the Real Bread Campaign suggests people find a second-hand one from a trusted source, such as a charity shop or a reputable dealer.

As the cost of basic ingredients and energy to run a bread maker are pence, and the skill required to use one is minimal, adopting one is a very affordable and accessible way of more people being able to enjoy Real Bread.

Lots of new life in the next bepisode

The hugely popular ‘RARE BREED – A Farming Year’ continues this Thursday where it’s now March and it’s all about new life in this episode, be that lambs and calves or planting vegetables. We’re on the Ards Peninsula, in Enniskillen, The Belfast Hills for this episode.

‘Rare Breed – A Farming Year’ is the ground-breaking year-in-the-life observational documentary series charting the agricultural year. Filmed during 2023, each episode captures the highs and lows of each month of the year, as the families deal with economic and environmental challenges.

All the families featured reflect the diversity and innovation in Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector.  Be they big or small, traditional beef, sheep, dairy, pig or arable, farm shops or even tourism, the passion and commitment shines through in every episode.

In the third episode, it’s March and the episode begins in the Fermanagh Lakelands, with Rodney and Emma Balfour at their farm in Mullygarry. They are busy with new arrivals while their rams James and Donnie get a break. They specialise in Rylands, Isle de France and Dutch Spotted and they’re part time farmers as they both work in the NHS. Emma
comments how her nursing skills are very useful when she’s tending to the newly born lambs.

Next we’re off to outside Cookstown in Tyrone, where Bronagh O’Kane is in the middle of calving her small herd of beef cattle. Jobs like tagging give Bronagh the chance to get a really close look at the animal’s condition. Freshly calved cows can be dangerous as they are protective of their young. The calves are too small for the cattle crush, so Bronagh creates a safe zone in every pen.

Next up, we’re back at Adrian and Emily McGowan’s vegetable farm near Killinchy in Down. In this episode, they’re busy planting early potatoes for harvest in mid-May. Adrian explains how they are planting smaller crops to service mainly the farm shop. Elsewhere, the cauliflowers need attention, and Adrian and Emily work together to bring them in at the right
time. Adrian says, “It’s a basic human instinct, to grow things and to farm.”

As Belfast wakes up and commuters make their way to work, 18 year old Dan McCaffery has arrived home after a night’s work. But before he can catch up on sleep – he has a herd of cattle that needs breakfast. He talks about being at Greenmount and how much he enjoys both the theoretical and practical elements of his course. “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing
than studying agriculture,” he say .

The McClements farm on the Ards Peninsula in County Down. In March, Jude, Josh and Sarah are preparing the latest batch of cows for calving. They do this every week. It’s a busy time for all the children and Jude has mock exams to revise for. He doesn’t have time for his other hobby at the moment – posting on Tik Tok.

The episode ends back in Fermanagh with Emma Balfour setting up milking stations for the lambs that have been hand reared in the farmhouse kitchen, as they are now ready to leave the kitchen and move back into the shed.

UTV’s Mark McFadden and Rita Fitzgerald narrate this series. Sponsored by NIE Networks, ‘Rare Breed’ – A Farming Year continues on Thursday 1 st February at 8.30pm on UTV. You can catch up afterwards on ITVX. Simply select ‘Categories, then News, select UTV as your region from the box and scroll across to find the episode.

This January Northern Ireland’s tastiest cheddar brand*, Dromona is encouraging consumers to turn the ‘worst month’ of the year into the most comforting, by ‘Getting Toastie with Dromona’. 

Dromona took the streets of Belfast alongside Cool FM Presenter, Pete Snodden to treat passers-by to a melting-ly good, cheesy toastie, made with the No.1 choice of cheddar* – Dromona, of course! Crowds gathered in Belfast City Centre, not only to tuck into a freshly made toastie but to feast their eyes on the bespoke ‘Smelter’ bus shelter. An eye-catching bus stop with a built-in sensory device that wafted the delicious aroma of toasted bread through the air. 

For over 60 years, award-winning Dromona Cheddar has been made locally in Cookstown, using only the freshest Northern Irish milk from grass-fed cows. So, it’s no surprise Dromona tops the taste-test polls, having been officially voted the No.1 Choice of Cheddar during an independent survey, conducted by the Ulster University. Taste-testers blind-tasted Dromona cheese against two leading competitors, with two out of three people preferring the taste of Dromona Cheddar – a ‘grate’ success!

Cheese lovers across Northern Ireland have been commenting on why they voted Dromona their No.1 choice:

“I am converted, Dromona’s Cheddar Cheese tastes delicious and is even better when melted in a cheese toastie”.

“My favourite Dromona cheese is the Mild Cheddar Cheese, I love the creamy texture as it melts in your mouth’’.

Claire Hale, Dromona comments:

“We are delighted to launch the ‘Get Toastie with Dromona’ campaign to give our consumers the opportunity to try our award-winning cheese and find out what makes it the No.1 choice! 

During January and February, our Dromona Toastie van will be setting off on its ‘Toastie Travels’, as it visits shopping centres across Northern Ireland, encouraging shoppers to ‘Give into the Mmmelt’ and enjoy the taste of a Dromona toastie on us!  

To find out when the Dromona Toastie van will be at your local shopping centre, follow @dromonamakesit on Instagram.

*To verify visit www.dromonamakesit.com/verified-no-1-choice/

High protein steak biltong from Newtownards will shortly be on sale in over 160 Aldi stores across Ireland as a result of a recent deal signed by Moorcroft Foods.

Moorcroft Foods, the first South African manufacturer to set up in Northern Ireland, is producing biltong, air dried steak snacks and droewors dried meat sausages, for Northern Ireland and further afield.

The small company, a new food business started by South African businessman, Gavin Moorcroft, is producing a range of branded food-to-go beef snacks from its premises in Newtownards.

Renato Lopes, 49, Moorcroft’s general manager, commenting on the Aldi deal, the company’s biggest to date, says: “This is immensely significant business for us such a short time after we set up in Newtownards. We expect to see Fenners and Coopers, our biltong brands on the shelves in around 160 Aldi stores in the next few weeks.

“We secured this important business as a result of the outstanding quality and flavour of our product. We’ve worked closely with Aldi to develop the business which establishes us firmly in the Republic of Ireland,” he adds.

The Moorcroft family is well-known in South Africa, spanning five generations of South African meat farmers in the Eastern townships.

 “Our biltong uses 100 percent Irish silverside steak from a local supplier and traditional South African recipes,” continues Renato, an experienced manager and a native of Johannesburg.  “We have identified real growth opportunities for our products across the UK, Republic of Ireland and further afield,” he adds.

The company produces a range of delicious biltong flavours including chilli, garlic and pineapple, honey ad chilli

Moorcroft’s biltong brands are a protein-rich, MSG-free, and low-sugar snack. They are also gluten-free, making the biltong a top choice for a healthy snack. Beef biltong is a long popular snack in South Africa.

Emphasizing its appeal to diet-conscious consumers, the biltong is keto-friendly, allergen-free, and gluten-free. “Our biltong is not just a snack, it’s a lifestyle choice that respects your dietary preference,” adds Renato.

A unique wild strawberry and elderflower gin from Wild Atlantic Distillery in Castlederg, Co Tyrone has won gold and been named the ‘Best Flavoured Gin’ in Ireland in the prestigious World Gin Awards in London.

Wild Atlantic emerged victorious from more than 900 entries from 47 countries in 12 categories. Alongside the big-hitting countries such as England, Australia, and the US, this year’s competition saw entries from several emerging countries from Europe (including Denmark, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, and Slovakia) and South America (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile), and Asia (Lebanon, Vietnam, and Indonesia).

Tyrone business partners Brian Ash and Jim Nash, the owners of Wild Atlantic Distillery, were delighted when the judges selected their flavoured gin as Ireland’s best for its outstanding quality and taste.

“This is a tremendous start to the year for the business,” says Brian Ash. “The year ahead is going to be immensely important for us as we prepare for the launch of our whiskey, the first in the Derry region in more than a century.  It’s going to be an exciting time for us and for all our whiskey club members,” he adds.

The global awards select and reward the very best in all internationally recognised styles of gin.

Brian (50) and Jim (54) have also produced a unique lemon-infused Irish vodka at the distillery, which began production in 2020, outside the small townland of Aghyaran, near Castlederg.

The vodka features lemons sourced from Italy’s Amalfi coast and is also sugar-free. In addition to its gin and vodka, Wild Atlantic is gearing up for the development of single malt whiskeys in Tyrone.

The purpose-built distillery, constructed on land owned by Brian, also features an impressive visitor centre, a traditional New York-style bar, a gin school, a programme of tours and cocktail master classes.  Both are widely experienced businessmen with vast experienced in markets outside Northern Ireland.