Heya all my festive folks! 😄

It’s so close to Christmas now and everything is beginning to fall into place! Well, sort of…The Christmas dinner is planned and ordered for, presents are (almost) wrapped and the festive tunes are in full swing. I hope you guys have been eagerly watching our 12 Day Christmas Countdown Giveaway! Each day we’ve been giving away some incredible gifts. If you haven’t been keeping track, here’s what you’ve missed…

🎅🏻 25% off all January Detox Classes
🎅🏻 Buy one Fish Class get one half price
🎅🏻 £10 off ANY Class
🎅🏻 20% off all Kids Classes
🎅🏻 £20 off £120 Gift Voucher
🎅🏻 £20 off Sushi in The City and Valentines Cooking with Cupid in The City!
🎅🏻 Free Avenue Cookbook for those that buy a £250 Gift Voucher
🎅🏻 Child goes free to Vegan Class with 2 Adult Bookings
🎅🏻 £15 off Easy Canape Making Class

AND, because we are feeling the festive love today we’re giving you 25% OFF all our adult weekday daytime classes!🍎 That includes our amazing new Back to Basics, Experienced and Clean Eats classes! I’m out of breath just reading all of those! Once again, we’ve pulled it out the bag this weekend with even more jaw-droppin’ prizes! I’d LOVE to give you guys a clue…(*cough* FREE MONEY *cough*, but that just wouldn’t be right…😉 so you’ll have to keep a beady eye on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds for your chance to win.  👀

It wouldn’t be The Avenue’s Weekly Shenanigans if we hadn’t had another busy week right? It was a week full of our Young Holiday classes so us lucky office birds have been treated to deliciously naughty lunches! Can’t complain. Some say you have got to eat like real piggies over the Christmas period and we’ve gotta agree there… It wouldn’t be Christmas if you didn’t eat to your heart (and stomachs) content. The festive feeding started in November though, right? 😏

Anyway, as mentioned we kick-started the week off with the first of 5 Young Holiday classes and WOW was it a busy one. When we say busy we mean busy… 30 kiddos all under one roof. Anyone heard the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”. Well, we don’t believe in that at The Avenue!

The kitchen and office were flooded with Christmas tunes and lots of hungry tummies. Grrrrr… Including ours! Everyone came to muck in and within seconds The Avenue became (controlled) Christmas chaos! Just how we like it. The smell of homemade plaited loaf drifted around the busy kitchen. Even the windows began to steam up! Bread heaven followed by homemade ravioli. 😍 It was wonderful to have so many smiley students on Monday and they finished off a successful day of cooking with some homemade bounty bars! Bet you didn’t know about these bad boys…😜 Coming to cook with us at The Avenue means you’ll never want to buy anything from your local shop again! Not even a chocolate bar! Seriously, it starts with Pasta, then Sushi and then HOMEMADE BOUNTY BARS!😶 

Tuesday was another 30 kids streaming through the front door and we really got us in the festive spirit and we decided to give all of our Avenue fans the chance to claim a free Avenue Cookbook! There are some delightful recipes in our wonderful little book (we say little, really we mean 250 pages of hand-crafted love), but anyone that purchased a £250 Avenue Gift Voucher, received a free one! We don’t give these special books out lightly so for those of you that received one, aren’t you lucky! We nibbled our way right through to the evening and hadn’t even realised the time! We took our bloated tummies home ready for another day of festive foods.

Wednesday meant a day of delicious Young Holiday recipes once again!  The students made one of our all-time favourites… Pigs and stuffing in blankets. Not just pigs, not just stuffing, but pigs AND stuffing in crispy bacon blankets. Corrrrrr. Well, if that doesn’t get you into the Christmas spirit then what else will?!
We’ve been extra busy in the office this week and this isn’t just due to our Christmas Countdown. We’ve been preparing our January Sales! You ‘erd… Now, we know you’ve been totally spoilt recently with all these festive freebies, but we just couldn’t resist a January Sale. Retail therapy on New Year’s day cures any hangover, am I right? You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled on the 1st of Jan for this one as we don’t want to spoil anything JUST yet… We rounded off Wednesday by munching on the leftover Christmas Meringues our lovely students had made. We almost turned into meringues ourselves!

We just about waddled our way in on Thursday morning. 21st of December already! Can’t believe it, Christmas was really starting to creep up on us! The Young Holiday crew whipped up some tantalising Pork Dim Sum and finished with a classic Sticky Toffee Pudding and Caramel Sauce. For anyone reading this week’s Shenanigans, I’m sorry if this has caused severe drolling and hunger pains… after all, we are known for this. The evening came to an end and the office prepared for it’s final Friday pre-Christmas! The Horsford team were packing up and jetting off to Berlin today so it was time to get home and pack pack pack! Would a turkey fit through customs? Prehaps our Santa cake? Maybe not…

Today we pack up our things and said our farewells! Boooo! It’s the last of our Young Holiday classes and what a week it has been! You guys have really made it special. Today we finished off with one of our favourite menus. Sushi starter, Katsu main and a gorgeous little Lemon Possets to finish. After last weeks sushi demo, you would have thought we’d had enough… never. Rich’s sushi is seriously to die for and us lot can’t get enough… I’m sure I’ve mentioned before… Sushi for Christmas day anyone?
After a busy year in the kitchen and of course the office, Soph and the team are off! We’ve said our sad goodbyes and left The Avenue for a few days. The kitchen still looks gorgeous of course. We’ll be back in the New Year for another Shenanigan’s but for now, it’s time to recharge and begin the family festive celebrations! The Avenue family crew arrive in Berlin (via Belgium) on Saturday so we’ll be posting some festive fam pics next week. OH! and don’t forget to head over to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where we’ll be posting the rest of our prizes all the way up until Christmas day! That’s dedication…

Have an AMAZING Christmas guys and thanks for making this year so extra special! Look how far we have come! Catch up in 2018…

PEACE AND LOTS OF AVENUE LOVE!!!!

The Avenue x