WIN | Grazing the Plate with Maggie Beer

Maggie Beer is saving my bacon on the entertaining front at home this month and it’s a WIN WIN for you!

How much pate is too much?

When you can score yourself a trip to Sydney to eat CAKE on set with Maggie Beer, just by purchasing specially marked packs of Maggie’s pate range, I say… “slather it on and throw a party”.

In all seriousness though, if you love pate, you are going to adore the Maggie Beer range. Especially her new signature range that includes Chicken & Smokey Garlic as well as Duck, Honey & Cumin. Pate perfect for your grazing plate or just simply spooned on crusty bread.

A little really does go a long way. In my case, I’m hoping that long way is in fact a trip to Sydney, so I can eat my around the set of The Great Australian Bake Off with Maggie.

If you too would like to take a friend to join Maggie and Matt behind the scenes, just purchase any specially marked 120g Maggie Beer pate in store, answer the competition question via the pack details, and you could be in the running to WIN…

• Two return economy airfares from any Australian capital city
• One night’s accommodation in Sydney for 2 people
• Ground transfers
• One hour set visit and a meet and greet with Maggie
• Dinner for two at Matt Moran’s ARIA restaurant to the value of $500

Competition terms and conditions can be found here.

I was only able to find two flavours at my local supermarket (Pheasant Farm and Duck & Orange), thankfully both packs were specially marked. So I’m in with a chance and you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be on a search and rescue mission to locate and taste the entire range. But enough about the competition for now and more about why I found myself needing Maggie Beer’s help on the entertainment front at home in the first place.

WHY I’M IN TROUBLE

Cue this time last year, when I was kicking my heels up with Vicki aka The Shropshire Stylish (formally The Fashionable MUM) in Sydney on a blogging trip with Kids Business, sponsored by JURA.

Let me tell you, when you fly overnight and arrive on little to no sleep and you’re required to walk the walk and talk the talk, networking with bloggers and brands for several hours, it’s a damn fine thing when the event is sponsored by a top of the line coffee machine with great coffee to boot. I may have arrived at 8am in the morning, clicking my fingers at the JURA team, before demanding that they kept the coffee coming at me, at regular intervals. It’s honestly the only way I got through the event alive awake.

That trip coincided with my eldest daughter’s 18^th birthday AND wait for it…. birthday party for 40 at home. Yes, that’s right. No mother of the year award for me again this year, as I left hubby (and my mother in law who flew to Perth from Sydney – while I flew to Sydney) to fend for themselves and 40 others.

In my defence (should I need one), with three daughters under three (now 16, 17 & 18) and 98% of parties hosted at home by myself, I kind of hoped by the time the youngest turned 15, I could put in for some birthday party long service leave.

Shouldn’t all mums get long service leave for hosting X amount of birthday parties?  X = ?

For the record, the only two other times I’ve missed my daughters’ birthday parties was the time I was in hospital having surgery (youngest daughter’s 2^nd) and when I flew to Sydney for the Oprah Opera House show (middle daughter’s 10^th). So my eldest’s 18th was just me being fair and evening the missed party score.

I think over the years, my girls have had a good enough birthday party run. My sister who wrote the rule book on family birthday parties and guilt trip family obligation, might disagree.

Would you ditch your child’s 10th birthday party and fly across the country to spend time with Oprah and 6000 other people? 

Thankfully, as far as I’m aware, the 18^th party went off without a hitch but because I completely missed it, I’m now apparently back on party duty for the 19^th. This coming weekend.

Apparently, a relaxed semi-formal affair at home with 20 of my daughter’s closest friends on Saturday night. Only thing is, I’m not great at doing relaxed when it comes to entertaining at home lately. I blame our temporary accommodation where I can’t seem to find my flair in the 1960’s kitchen.

Truth be told though, I have this tendency to over plan, over cater and basically go over the top when hosting events. I’m kind of over it.

I’m assuming, given my dear late Nanny Betty was a bistro chef and always catered to the masses, both at work and home, it’s genetic. On the plus side… left overs for days but that was back in the days before teen girls, who now bring teen boyfriends who have bottomless pits for stomachs!

GRAZING PLATE GA-GA

In the end, slightly inspired by all the over the top grazing plates shared in the lead up to Easter on Instagram and knowing our 1960’s oven wasn’t going to cut the catering for 20 mustard. I had a plan of attack. A long table grazing plate for starters, followed by DIY wood fire pizzas. I even gave it (the grazing plate) a mini trial run. I failed. Completely. Although my starving family were more than happy to devour (read inhale) my poor attempt but they will eat anything when they are that hungry.

I then eyed off the costs involved in having a professional do the hard yards and deliver the finished Instagram worthy grazing plate goods for the party. The frugal, I like doing things myself to save a small fortune, girl in me almost died.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for outsourcing when it saves you time and stress but having just dropped a hefty deposit on our new house, with our new improved kitchen, we are on a pretty tight budget this month. So, when Maggie Beer flicked through NEWS of her new pates, I couldn’t respond fast enough asking for ideas for a little DIY grazing plate action.

Oh how I love Maggie. Just like the time when I had an overabundance of lemons and was looking for recipe inspiration, Maggie came to the party. This time, it was the grazing plate party. Well not literally but I’m hoping you know what I mean.

A little mini Maggie Beer entertaining hamper arrived by courier later that week with a list of stockists for the pate (HELLO my local Woolworths which is just a five-minute walk) because it should go without saying, perishables like pate, aren’t suitable for posting.

You could say, thanks to Maggie, I’m now armed and not so dangerous when it comes to our grazing party plate for my daughter’s 19^th. I’ve also been having a little too much fun playing the ‘choose your own Maggie Beer’ adventure board game. It looks a little like this…

Such a great range to kick start my grazing plate adventure. You’ll have to keep an eye on Instagram for a glimpse of the results next weekend. I’m hoping you’ll find me in the background, kicking back with a Maggie Beer Non-alcoholic Sparkling Ruby Cabernet, hogging the pate, celebrating the 19^th anniversary of giving birth for the first time, as I write up my official ‘birthday long service leave’ application for next year.

MORE, MORE, MORE… GRAZING PLATE TIPS

In my grazing plate kerfuffle, I’ve produced a little DIY guide for you to enjoy…

• My biggest tip is to keep things simple. Start with a couple of items from the Maggie Beer range. They’ll not only add the flavour and gourmet factor but they will also give your platter a great foundation to start from.

• Select in-season produce or specials, where you can, to keep costs down. If fresh figs are going to cost you an arm and a leg because they’re in demand and hard to find, go with dried figs or another fruit altogether. Pear and apple also work well.

• Bulk your plate out with plain crackers, mini bread rolls or bread sticks.

• Keep extras on hand, in the pantry or fridge, so they remain fresh and you can top up the platter throughout the event when needed.

• Experiment with different size and shaped boards. Use cake stands and other kitchen items you already own to provide texture and layers to your grazing table. Also look at textured placemats as an alternative to boards if you have a long table.

• It doesn’t need to be picture perfect. Food safety and hygiene should always come first.

Happy 19^th Anniversary of giving birth for the first time to me!

While I’m back in oversharing mode (have you missed that side of me?)… my first labour was 3 hours 5 minutes. It could have been sooner but I refused to push because…

A) no one believed me that I could go from 1 cm diluted to 10 cm in less than half an hour (the last time they checked); and

B) they decided to give me pethadine to calm me down (because I apparently had hours to go); and

C) my hubby was enjoying the birthing spa completely naked (without me) a little too much; and finally,

D) my doctor had just left the building.

My second labour, was just 30 minutes (5 weeks early), my third (10 weeks early) 5 hours and 28 minutes but they’re whole other stories. 

Over to you….

** We were gifted products for review purposes for this post ** All measures taken to keep my family from eating the produce before I could photograph the evidence will, like the remaining produce, remain under lock and key.  Competition closes May 8, so make sure you have Maggie’s pate on your shopping list for this week!

Mystery Case

Managing Editor at Agent Mystery Case

Follow Raychael aka Mystery Case on her mystery adventures 'casing' people, products and places to bring you her worth casing favourites.