Suffolk Weekend 2015

Bank holiday weekend we went off to Suffolk to stay at Happy Days Retro Vacations. If you like retro caravans, camping and quirkiness it’s a great place to stay. The Airstream caravans are really cool, the campsite has a nice atmosphere with friendly owners and the facilities were great. 

Anyway onto the food...

The campsite was in Saxmundham. A mile down the road was a Waitrose store. To us Waitrose is a real treat as we don’t have any close to us at home so we always like a browse. It had a nice Free From section with all the staple items. I found quite a few items that were naturally free from too. We brought some Gourmet Burger Kitchen Burgers that were pure beef to use on the bbq and some chipolata sausages which were also safe. We didn’t need too much as it was just for the first nights bbq.

Day two - I booked lunch at Jimmys Farm near Ipswich. For the last few years we’ve been to the Sausage and Beer Festival (read here)which is a great day out but couldn’t make it this year so it was nice to be able to visit the farm and have lunch in the restaurant. The restaurant has a separate Gluten & Dairy Free Menu which is always bonus as it elevates asking as many questions.

I chose to have the Rare Breed Salt Beef Salad which I can honestly say was one of the most tasty salads I have ever eaten. The beef was really flavoursome and tender, I loved the combination of salad leaves, gherkins and dill dressing and the star of the show was the crispy capers which were amazing. I rarely eat capers as they aren’t something that I buy very often but since being home I have tried them out myself on a salad and they are fab. Just dry them off from the jar and fry for a few minutes in vegetable oil until crispy. Yum!

For dessert I chose a scoop of Elderflower Champagne Sorbet and a scoop of Raspberry. Both were really nice and refreshing. It made a change to be able to have a dessert (no fruit to be seen for once). The Restaurant staff were all really helpful and I’d highly recommend eating there and the food is really really good.

The farm has a great shop filled with meats from the farm and lots of lovely items from local suppliers. I spotted the Bionita Gluten Free Gnocchi which I was really wanting to try so I brought a few packs to take home. I also got some local coffees, rasberry salad dressing, a local Gin and some Old Colchester Forest Bacon for our evening bbq.

The farm is a lovely place to spend a few hours wandering around the fields, woods and shops. If you have kids there’s lots of fun stuff for them to do and see.

Day Three – The lovely Pippa Kendrick (The Intolerant Gourmet) had recommended some places for us to visit so to start the day we headed out to Snape Maltings which is a very nice place with some lovely craft, homeware, clothes and art shops plus a big Farm Shop/Deli. The shop had a section of free from baking mixes, biscuits and sweet & savoury treats. I like farm shops as a lot of other products are naturally free from too. Just read the labels. I picked up a few packs of biscuits, a pizza base mix and a pasta meal. The pasta meal was ok but not something i'd buy again. Both biscuits were good. I've not tried the pizza mix yet.

Afterwards we headed to the coast to have lunch in Aldeburgh. Pippa had mentioned a hotel restaurant which sounded perfect so we had lunch at The Brudenell Hotel. The waitress was knowledgeable about allergies and told me to choose what I liked the look of and it could be adapted. I had to have seafood being at the seaside so I went all out and ordered half a lobster grilled and served with boiled potatoes and a side salad. It would have been nice to have some sort of dressing for the salad but the meal was still delicious and fresh. It was a lovely place to have a meal with views over the beach and sea.

We had a walk along the seafront and came across the local fish sellers in their little huts. I love smoked anything so we stopped off at one of them to get some smoked fish for our tea back at the campsite. I picked out some hot smoked salmon and king prawns and my husband had a seafood platter which was a selection of everything. We threw them on the bbq for tea and everything was delicious.

All in all it was a very successful weekend for free from food. The county has lots of farm shops and deli's around every corner with great local produce. I love Suffolk and would highly recommend Happy Days Retro Vacations as a place to stay.

East Of England - Suffolk & Stamford

'Last weekend we headed down to Ipswich. We had a few things planned while we were there, one of which was the Sausage & Beer Festival at Jimmys Farm.

We stayed for two nights at the Premier Inn at Chantry Park. It's a nice quite location with a country pub The Beagle next door. It was within ten minutes drive of everywhere we were going which was good. 

Anyway hotel breakfasts for me are always the same. I stick to my safe options and don't often stray. I like to have bacon and grilled tomatoes, cranberry juice and peppermint tea. I did take some DS brown ciabatta rolls with me too so the 2nd morning I used one of those to make a bacon cob (roll, bab, tea cake, butty...whatever you may call it). The breakfast was nice and cooked to order. I did notice The Alpro logo on the menu so assume they have soya milk available.

On Saturday afternoon we headed over to Jimmys Farm for the Sausage and Beer Festival. We'd been two years ago and really enjoyed it so we thought we'd go again while we were in the area. Much to our surprise the festival had grown in size compared to when we last went. It was huge. Lots of food stalls, craft stalls, music stage, kids areas, smaller stages with cooking demos, sausage making classes and other performances. The sun was beaming down and the atmosphere was great. My husband even won me a pair of Joules Wellies in the wellie wanging :)

The hunt for safe food began. I saw a few stalls with "Gluten Free available" signs but obviously it didn't mean it was also dairy and egg free for me. I don't like to ask too many questions especially when stalls are busy so I wondered around until I came across Glorious Fodder. They had all their food marked with allergy information so it was easy to pick a safe option. I chose a sausage pasta box. It was a great choice as it was really yummy :) They are on twitter @gloriousfodder and make savoury and sweet foods that are gluten free and some dairy & egg free. As the temperature heated up I headed into the farm shop to find an ice lolly. I found a Chilly Billy which was made of pure apple juice and mango juice. It was tasty and refreshing. 

Over all I would highly recommend visiting the festival or even just visiting the farm. It's a lovely place to relax and have a stroll looking at the animals, plants and shop. 

After the festival we headed to The Brook Inn for our evening meal. A tip would be to book as it seems to be a popular place. I found it by searching for gluten free food in Ipswich. This place had great reviews for the amount of choice there is for GF diets and the quality of food. They are also more than willing to help with other allergies too. You can find their sample menu online. You will be spoilt for choice with the options. I believe the owners wife is coeliac which is why the focus on great GF options.

It was a toss up between fish & chips or scampi for me. I've not had scampi for years so I made my choice. The waitress checked with the chef that it was also DF & EF which it was. It came out with hand cut chips and a side salad. It was really really nice and a good portion size. The others I were with really enjoyed their meals too and we all left with full belly's. It's not often that a pub goes to so much effort to cater for allergies. More should follow in their footsteps.

The following day we decided to break the long journey up by stopping at Stamford, Lincs. We knew we needed to find lunch somewhere so started to wonder the lovely quaint streets. First we spotted a building that was hosting a "quality market". We went inside to investigate. As soon as we stepped through the door I saw a food stall, not just any food stall though, to my delight there were veggie, vegan and gluten free options. My eyes lit up. How lucky! The company was called FarrinHeight Foods (@FHFoods). I chose a GF & Vegan Blackberry Sponge cake. I ate it later in the day and it was scrummy :) 

We decided on Pizza Express for lunch sat on the terrace overlooking the river. I didn't fancy pizza so I chose the Leggera Salmon Salad. It was marked as GF and upon checking was also DF. I really enjoyed it. I love hot smoked salmon so it was a perfect salad. I'll definitely be having it again.

I went into the weekend wondering when or if I'd find free from food but it actually turned into a really great weekend will lots of options and no need for me to use the emergency supplies I'd taken (well except for a late night Lazy Days Millionaires Shortbread).