That's it. We've finished for Christmas..

What an incredible last couple of months, smashing all previous records in terms of sales and finding many new consultants who have now joined us too! Thank you to everyone who have joined us as a consultant, hosted a tasting or enjoyed being at a tasting through the year. We've had the time of our lives and judging from the feedback, many of you have had an enjoyable experience too. 2009 promises to be a really exciting year for us, so please feel free to get in contact with us, we promise you a lot of fun in return.

What an amazing Good Food Show!

Hi all,

Just got back from the BBC Good Food Show in London and what a show! 191 of you have requested tastings and 65 have requested information to become a consultant! What was ever better was that we had many people interested in the business opportunity i the places where we currently have no coverage. So, we're busy compiling all the info at the moment and will be in touch over the next few days...
Thanks to all for making it the best show we've ever had.

Gift Packs for Xmas

We've had a record month in October with people gearing up for the Christmas rush. The new products are selling fantastically, new consultants are streaming in and all is wonderful in the My Secret Kitchen world!
Probably the biggest succes has been the introduction of the new gift boxes. We've introduced a whole new range of packs that seem to really appeal to a lot of foodies out there. The chocolate infusions gift pack seems to be the biggest seller, although the cheese and wine pack - where you choose your favourite bottle to add to our gift box - is capturing the imagination well. More at http://www.mysecretkitchen.co.uk/products/gift_packs.html

We're hard at work planning for the BBC Good Food show at Olympia between the 14th-16th November, so if you're into your food and based in the South or East of England make sure you come and see us!

Busy ,busy, busy!

I've just realised that it's been a couple of weeks since a ramble. With the new launch of the Autumn/Winter products we have been snowed under, which is wonderful.People keep asking us how the credit crunch is affecting us and very simply it hasn't. We've had our record sales this week and the business keeps improving. I guess it's because we are such a new and different company, but also how many people are actually going to scrimp down to the "I'm not going to buy quality food" level? Furniture? Cars? Extension? Yes, I can understand that, but not good food. In fact, people need smaller treats to compensate for not getting the big things! We've also noticed a bigger increase in the number of people looking for that second income and contacting us about becoming a consultant. So my answer to those credit crunch questions is really - it's going great thanks!
It's Small Business Week this week and Emma Jones at www.enterprisenation.com has been submitting our business as a good model for home workers - so an offical thanks from us to you Emma - go on her website, it's inspiring!
Lastly I have to tellyou of our lucky escape.... A year ago we were approached by a TV production company who wanted to use our products in a new TV programme. We had just started as a business and the prospect of our products appearing on TV were just amazing. We finally turned it down after meeting the producers and what an escape!! The programme is one of the most talked about ones at the moment..... Natural Born Sellers... we made the right decision!

Extreme Leftover Makeover...

Well.. the challenge was set down and we chose an e-mail from Cheryl:-

In my fridge, you can currently find :

half a white cabbage, carrots, leeks
leftover boiled potatoes and roast chicken
olives, cooked rice, red & green pepper
cooked green beans, tomatoes, cucumber

Any ideas ?!!!

Clare had a go and this is what she came up with:

For a quick mid-week lunch, make a Mediterranean Frittata with some of the potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, olives and add 2 whole eggs and 1 tablespoon of My Secret Kitchen Tapenade with Smoked Garlic per person. Add some grated cheese or fresh herbs if you have them and black pepper. Served with our new Wholegrain Beer Bread it will keep you going until dinner!



For an easy family meal with something for everyone, serve wheat or corn tortillas with a selection of fillings - make a Red Pepper Slaw by shredding the white cabbage with the red and green peppers and make a dressing with My Secret Kitchen Red Pepper Cheese Ball mix using a blend of sour cream and mayonnaise. Jazz up the rice by combining it with some of the chopped cucumber and carrot and add My Secret Kitchen Miso Dressing with Ginger to taste. Serve the fillings alongside some of the cooked chicken. If the family are looking for something hot, pre-make the wraps and cook enchilada style by placing in an ovenproof dish, spoon over My Secret Kitchen Sunset Salsa, cover with foil and back for 15 – 20 minutes and serve with sour cream.



Finally, for a surprise dinner for some-one special, sauté the potatoes until crispy and golden; steam the carrots and leeks adding a little butter and a dash of My Secret Kitchen Lemon & Chipotle Spiced Sea Salt, and warm the chicken with My Secret Kitchen Red Wine and Port finishing Sauce.

Well.... they're here!!

At last! We've officially launched the new products and we've had an amazing reaction so far. We appear to have really caught the attention of lots of people, especially the unusual aspect of the chocolate infusions. But I'm certainly never again doing four regional sales meetings, moving our picking and packing operation to another company and launching six new products in the same week again!!

Have a good look on the website and book a tasting!! We've got the new gift packs coming out at the end of the week too!

What is sleep?

One step closer to winning....

Hi all!

As usual we're beaming!! We had a lovely letter through the post this morning letting us know that we've been slected as one of six companies through to the national finals of the British Small Business Champions Awards 2008!
My comments were "yippee!", Clare just looked at the letter and said "great... new party dress time"
The champions will be announced at Claridges on Nov 21st. Fingers crossed....

A day in the life of one of our consultants

Hi all! I thought it was time to hear from someone else rather than my strange ramblings. So Michelle, one of our consultants, has written a day in the life of a My Secret Kitchen consultant! Many thanks Michelle!!

Michelle Paice, A My Secret Kitchen Consultant and full-time mother of two boys under 4yrs
Typical Day -Thursday 28th August 2008.
Today is busier than most, have a booking for a tasting with Kirsty

7.00am- 8.00am Breakfast, kids ready and off to nursery.

8.30am- 9.30am Local supermarket for ingredient’s for my new product development and evening’s tasting. Made sure I had enough butter, eggs, and crackers for the tasting. I’ve taken it upon myself to do some development work of my own for My Secret Kitchen, which included a few versions of red wine and marsala sauces.

10.00am Received My Secret Kitchen samples, which arrived punctually, all ready to make and bake for the evening’s tasting. Oven on and ready to bake!

10.15am Beer Bread: Mixed a bottle of beer with the dry mix and poured into a greased tin, into the oven and timed for 40 minutes, this has got to be the quickest bread to mix and bake ever!

10.30am- 11.00am Next I emptied the ultimate chocolate brownie mix into a bowl, melt butter and mix in with three eggs, straight into a greased tin. Oven set and baked brownie for 30 minutes. Same with the lavender shortbread!

11.15am What wonderful smells were wafting around the kitchen, just so tempting, did I need all of the brownie’s for the evening’s tasting? I gulped one chunk down, just to check it tasted good, and had the gooey texture the guests all rave about every time. Oh as good as ever!! Chopped brownie up into squares, Kirsty expected 16 to 18 friends. Chopped beer bread into bite size pieces and shortbread into enough squares, with leftovers for family.

11.45am Coffee, sandwich and a spare hour to write the new recipe ideas.

12.45pm Picked up Jake and Sam from nursery

1.15pm – 2.30pm Jake and Sam nap on the way home, up to their beds which gave me chance to do the development work. Three recipes developed, cooked up and reduced down red wine, marsala wine and shallots, with seasonings and fresh thyme, and two versions of Marsala wine and porcini mushroom sauces. Bottles sterilised, filled and labelled, packed up ready for courier to collect.

2.30 Emailed Clare at My Secret Kitchen with the recipes, story and application ideas, explaining how the product can be used in recipes, to suggest to clients at tasting’s, what the product is, and the inspiration I had behind them.

2.45 Enough time before kids woke to mix the red pepper cheese ball mix with cream cheese and into a tub and chilled, ready for the tasting, the same with the choco berry cheese ball mix

3.00 Cucumber and carrots chopped into juliennes for dipping into the Thai and Miso dressing at the tasting. Cherry tomatoes prepared, hollowed out ready for the cheese ball mix to be rolled into balls and filled at Kirsty’s house

3.15pm-4.00pm Jake and Sam woke and had a drink and a piece of the delicious lavender shortbread. Set a game for Jake, Sam and I to play. Check my emails. Couple informative emails from My Secret Kitchen, one detailing the sales meeting’s and one explaining the Accelerated leadership course criteria, and preparation required. I qualified for the course by holding a number of tastings in two months, I attend the course in September and then try to book in eight tasting’s in eight weeks giving me the exposure to meet and recruit potential consultants. The preparation requires me to think about where you want your business to be in the future, which I thought about for the rest of the day.

4.15pm Courier arrived to collect the developed products for Clare and Phil to sample at My Secret Kitchen.

4.45pm Started dinner. Spaghetti Bolognese, kids favourite, but tried it with a little My Secret Kitchen Tapenade with smoked Garlic. Sat down to eat as a family, delicious, if I do say so myself, and clean plates says the family all enjoyed it! The Tapenade added a great texture and smoked garlic depth to the Bolognese sauce. Another recipe idea I shared with the guests at the evening’s tasting.

6.00pm Ready for tasting and packed up the samples, literature, and crackers for dipping, and the set of retail samples and displays.

6.40pm Left the house, leaving Nick (My Husband) to babysit, only had to drive five minutes to Kirsty’s house.
Previously met Kirsty, when dropping off the host pack I’d put together with invitations and information she would need prior to the tasting.

6.45pm Once into her kitchen I was able to do the final preparations before all the guests arrived, whilst Kirsty organised the seating and glasses for drinks. I laid out the tasting menu’s, order forms and feedback sheets on each seat (all prep-printed yesterday). Kirsty left me an area to set up the retail products to show the guests and the literature on hosting a tasting, becoming a consultant and the press releases on the Company since it’s launch in June 2007.

7.15pm I laid out fifteen product samples onto plates and into ramekins ready to start the tasting. Strawberries washed, cherry tomatoes stuffed with red pepper cheese ball mix, and the tasty choco berry cheese ball mix rolled into one and placed into a ramekin for dipping.

7.30pm Ready to begin, when guests were arriving, Kirsty and I greeted them. Drinks offered.

7.45pm-10.30pm I began with introducing myself and thanking Kirsty for hosting the tasting. I have been with My Secret Kitchen for three months, and heard about them on a mother/working website, with it being the only food position on there, I gave it a go, having a food development background and being a ‘foodie’, I thought I’d be perfect! The history of My Secret Kitchen, set up by Clare and Phil Moran just over a year ago doing food tasting’s in people’s homes, and an explanation of the tasting menu, starting with lighter product, through to spicier and then the sweet and more decedent products to finish. I passed the products round one after the other and talked through the ingredients and recipe ideas, from everyday recipes, to more special and exotic ideas for dinner parties and buffets. It was great to see people’s faces and reactions as they enjoyed the foods on offer. Guests were getting involved with talking about the flavours and coming up with their own recipe ideas, and enjoying the evening, it was a great tasting! I took orders after everyone had tasted the range, and offered the host her gifts, and free products. Feedback forms were filled in, and the person’s name drawn out of a hat won a beer bread mix. I also took a booking for a further tasting on the night. A guest was interested in becoming a consultant, so I talked through what is involved and took details to send out and meet further to discuss. All that was left for the next day was to place the orders online! Few!

A sad goodbye to an old friend

Hi All!

Well.... we're hoping you are as excited about the new products coming out next month as we are. The plan is still for the 15th September and although I'm sure everyone says this when they launch new products "we have an amazing new range of fantastic new ideas coming out!!!"
The sad news is that one of our original products has decided to gracefully retire. Our blueberry and acai drizzle will no longer be available from the 15th Sept. So if it's one of your favourites please put your orders in with us before then.
On a personal note, I no longer require any more e-mails about the photo in the Wiltshire Times that is on the news page (www.mysecretkitchen.co.uk/news) suggesting that it looks like Clare's dad with her rather than her husband.....

Extreme Leftover Makeover...

Here's a challenge for you!

What is in your fridge right now? Challenge us to come up with leftover recipes; call us or email us and we will come up with an idea on how to use your leftovers – we will even send you a free product to make your limp leftovers luscious!

Press, press everywhere!!

Following on from the wonderful news about winning the three gold star for our Maple Caramel Sauce, this morning Clare's been on BBC Radio Wiltshire and we've also had the Wiltshire Times arrange a photo session for tomorrow for Thursday's edition, which is all great for us. We also officially submitted the press release to the world and fingers crossed that we get some good results from that. We're still waiting for that first TV tasting... who's first??!!

Award Winners!!

Well, we can now tell you... My Secret Kitchen has won two gold awards at the Great Taste Awards, the Oscars of the food industry!
Our Balsamic Reduction won the 2 star Gold Award and the Maple Caramel Sauce won the highest award available - the 3 star Gold Award.
We're obviously really delighted. Tasting food before buying is really what our business is all about. We have the confidence in the foods that we create for people to try before they buy anything. That, along with all the wonderful recipe ideas that we share at a tasting makes for such an enjoyable evening!

School has broken up.....

With the school holidays upon us and a growing business to run, we're having a "fun" time here as I'm sure a lot of you are! This is the first year that William has broken for the school holidays and he's at the perfect age for "I'm bored, let's tease my little sister" So it's definately going to be a long summer break!
Conveniently I need to set up our new consultants in Peterborough, Huntingdon and Manchester so I'm on a road trip....
We're just finishing the new gift bags and boxes and it's going to be the best set ever! We can do all the official announcing at the beginning of September! Anyway.....I'm late....!!

Girl on Film!

Good day to all!

We're right at the end of the compilation of the DVD, just dotting the i's and cossing the t's now. It's hit home to me how good Clare is on camera! I turn into a dalek when I'm in front of the camera, complete with strange strangled voice, Clare on the other hand, is wonderfully animated and totally herself. We've had a couple of companies interested in interviewing her, we all need a new Nigella on TV. My campaign for Clare starts now!!

The record is broken

I did my first tasting in Wales last night! Well... it was literally one foot in Wales, the other in England, in Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, which is a big foodie area. On the way there, Lyndsay, our first ever consultant, called and informed me that she'd broken the record for the biggest amount of sales at a tasting! She then proceeded to let me know that she would prefer the Sheraton over the Holiday Inn. I should explain that our top consultant is accompanying us to Chicago next May to attend the Fancy Food Show, one of the biggest food exhibitions in the world. With her two closest rivals being on holiday for the next three weeks, Lyndsay is going for it!!
I'll be working on the newsletter today so for those who have subscribed, this should be getting through to your inbox later. For those who haven't, why not? You get one newsletter a month with some tantalising recipes and offers galore! Myself and Clare are then off to Williams first ever sports day. As a competitive Dad I just hope I behave myself and don't accidentally trip up anyone ahead of him, it's just not the done thing...

Some secret good news!

We had some lovely news yesterday about one of our products - but we can't tell anyone until the end of next week, which is agonizing!!
Clare's spending the rest of the week finalizing the new products for launch in September. I keep on thinking, how can we improve our current range, it's just perfect? (not in a big headed way at all)but Clare continues to amaze everyone when she has her strange foodie development head on. The ideas are fantastic, we'll drip feed you some hints over rhe next few weeks....

Some more new consultants and something for the weekend!

Good day all!
Another busy week with one lady from Ashby de la Zouch and one from Huddersfield joining us. Where o where are foodie loving people on the south coast? We still have no consultants along the whole of the coast!
This weekend we're going to be busy at the village food fete in Ashton Keynes, showing a few of our wares to the locals, in the meantime I'm just finishing the July newsletter to the consultants, including the latest website statistics. We're getting around 150 different people coming to the website each day which is absolutely wonderful! Hopefully they're liking the new look front page!

Our new blog!

Welcome to the new blog! The simple idea is to let you know what we're doing every week, where we have new consultants, new ideas that we're working on etc etc. 

Please let us know any comments you have or any ideas you'd like us to look at. If you want a sneaky secret peek into My Secret Kitchen, this is the place to come to!

We've just launched the July promotion which is spend £20 at a tasting and receive a FREE bottle of our Thai Dressing with Kaffir Lime worth £6.99. 

And if you'd like some inspiration for things to do with our Thai Dressing just send us an email – we've got ideas coming out of our ears for great salads and marinades!

Our new Summer Salads gift pack

Let's face it – summer is an amazing time of year. All those barbecues, parties in the garden, get-togethers with friends... mmmm, we love it! In celebration of the sunniest season of the year (and to provide you with the perfect present to take along to those barbecues and parties) we've introduced a brand new 'Summer Salads' gift pack.

The pack contains a bottle of My Secret Kitchen's Blueberry & Acai Drizzle, a bottle of Miso Dressing with Ginger and a bottle of our new Thai Dressing with Kaffir Lime. Neatly presented in a gift box, we reckon this will bring a big summery smile to the face of any food-loving friend.

Find out more...