Cottage Garden Catering

Laura offers catering with flair for your dinner parties and other events, in your home or outside venues, or supplied to your door for you to present. She can help with those special occasions when you need stress-free entertaining without compromising on quality.

I can manage the full menu, including wines — or provide a main-course, starter or pudding, if that’s what you need. I am delighted to discuss menu suggestions based on your requirements and the best of what’s in season.

My goal is always to please you and your guests with something memorably delicious and out-of-the-ordinary, of the quality that only the best ingredients and home-made treatment can produce — and to make it possible for you to enjoy your own party.

Specialities include: sit-down, plated dinner parties; larger-group buffets; afternoon teas; luncheons; and Sunday brunch menus.

Cooking from the Garden

[photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Summer seafood medley, with home-cured citrus salmon, Cromer crab amuses bouches, and tamarind prawns with fresh chili, lime and coriander.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Tamarind, chili, fresh coriander and lime make these prawns with mint and watercress pretty irresitible to those partial to shellfish. They can serve as a bright, fresh summer starter or part of a buffet table.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Interesting side dishes take advantage of the best fresh produce in season. Laura makes her own herb vinegars and always uses excellent-quality oils and other ingredients.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

A refreshing starter or part of a buffet: tender baby artichokes, steamed and served with a bright sauce of dill and lemon.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

This dish is an example of beautiful ingredients prepared simply, with care and reverence. When seafood is this fresh and gorgeous, nothing more is needed than a splash of wine and a little garlic and herbs -- and of course attention to timing. Some crusty French bread and chilled wine complete the blissfulness. This is a rave-worthy starter or main course when the little animals are available.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Cottage Garden Cookery can provide a selection of light finger foods and canapes for summer drinks, or as part of afternoon teas. Laura cures her own salmon with a mix of lemon, lime and orange for a bright, fresh taste. Where bread is involved, she seeks out artisanal producers, so all components of such a simple dish as this are exceptional.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

This refreshing main-course salad with lamb and figs is dressed with pomegranate molasses, honey and Sardinian olive oil.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Cottage Garden Cookery delights in beautiful vegetables, and vegetarians are well-catered-for. This leek and goat cheese tart, made with crisp puff pastry and topped with crunchy crumbs, is a favourite with carnivores and vegetarians both -- even those who are not normally fans of goat cheese.

[Photo by Olivier Restif]

Cottage Garden Cookery is very international in its approach and draws upon many world cuisines to design menus that work beautifully with locally available ingredients.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

This event had three courses, served in different parts of the house and garden. This middle course was roast lamb and fresh fig salad, a lentil and tahini side dish, and a main-dish vegetable tart. It made for a leisurely and varied afternoon for guests and hosts that accommodated a variety of tastes and dietary requirements.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

A favourite Sunday lunch menu: roast lamb with homemade medlar jelly, a clean and simple salad, and an extravagant potato gratin made with cream and Comte cheese (with something light and fruity to follow: lemon dainty, perhaps? Or raspberry brulee?).

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

This Italian-inspired chicken dish is succulent with roasted lemon, fennel, capers, peppers and potato, and served with organic broccoli. It is carefully cooked to give a crisp skin and juicy bird.

[Food prepared and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Less is often more in food as in other things. If ingredients are of exceptional quality, they shine on their own merits, with minimal fuss from the cook. The effort comes in seeking out first-rate ingredients: getting to know local producers and when and where to find culinary treasures, humble and grand.

[Food styled by Katherine Restif; photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

A selection of desserts in a buffet, or after a sit-down dinner, is always popular so guests have the pleasure of choice. These dishes have been chosen to complement each other, so everyone can have some of each: chocolate roulade, coeur a la creme with raspberry coulis, homemade meringues, airy shortcakes, chantilly cream, homemade jams, and seasonal berries.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

This roulade is very light in texture and very chocolately. It has the added advantage of being gluten free. It is invariably a hit: cream, chocolate and fruit, and not at all heavy despite it all.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Laura can cater a swish cream tea, with homemade scones, jams, cakes, finger sandwiches and other savouries. She can also provide flower decorations for the table, and source modern or vintage china for your occasion.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

Cottage Garden Cookery can provide homemade cakes and scones for a garden party, or can cater the full event from start to finish.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

As well as serving hot Norwegian waffles to order at markets, Laura can make them for your guests at an afternoon tea or coffee morning. Served traditionally with sour cream and strawberry jam, waffles are a celebratory feature of Norwegian holidays and special occasions, much as a cream tea is in the UK.

[Food made and photographed by Laura Donohue, Cottage Garden Cookery]

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