Come to a Barbeque at my Kitchen Table

It's Barbeque season and, although the weather has been rather variable, when the sun shines we love to cook and eat outside.  Some hardy souls even brave the rain and wind and carry on regardless.  Here are a few of the products that have arrived on my kitchen table for review and how I think they can be served as part of al fresco eating.


Let's start with some soup!  "Soup at a Barbeque!" I hear you cry, well yes... ideal for those days that are not quite warm enough and also perfect to keep hunger pangs at bay while the barbie is heating up and the main event is cooking.  This healthy Glorious Skinnylicious Soup is perfect to start your party.  The San Antonio Fiesta is a  hearty chilli sin carne with Black eye beans, Haricot beans, Black Turtle beans, and Red kidney beans. Also carrot, red pepper, basmati rice, a smoky Chipotle chilli paste, a pinch of peering at colourful floats parading past and ending the night shamelessly line-dancing in an old dancehall.

For those who prefer something a little smoother and sweeter there is New England in Autumn and it certainly doesn't taste like it has less than 1% fat. Made from roasted butternut squash with a hint of warming cumin, this soup reminds us of happening upon honesty stalls full of autumn harvests and strolling under colourful tree canopies.  Kids will love this too.


Now, you can't have a barbeque without burgers.  These are a little different, they are haggis burgers which I made by combining 500g of beef mince and 450g Macsween Haggis, then forming into patties. Chill and then cook in the usual way on the barbeque or fry them, cook under the grill or bake in the oven. Serve with salad, homemade coleslaw and homemade potato wedges.



To dress up your burgers, sausages or steaks you need some spicy sauce or a tasty marinade.  Encona Taste Explorers have a great range of sauces and marinades provide something a little different,  how often do you taste Jamaica, Korea or Morocco on the grill?

With Encona’s new marinade range, you can spice up your barbeque and bring flavour to the fire. You have a choice immersing your food in Jamaican Jerk, Korean BBQ or Moroccan Harissa.

Each marinade has been inspired by its origin, combining authentic ingredients to create three mouth-watering marinades that will make you feel like you are sunning in the Caribbean, riding a camel in North Africa or wandering through Gwangjang market.

A spicy and fragrant Moroccan paste made with a blend of chilli puree, herbs and spices; the harissa marinade adds the perfect kick to a lamb skewer.

For those who feel taste travelling to Morocco isn’t far enough, you can take your taste buds all the way to Korea. The BBQ marinade is made with a blend of gochujang spices, which can be enjoyed on beef, chicken, pork or grilled vegetables.

Alternatively, you could virtually hop across the pond to the sandy beaches of Jamaica, and enjoy a beach BBQ with a mild jerk marinade blended with scallions, hot pepper and pimento spices.

Each marinade is suitable for vegetarians and  two are gluten free.
Time to get saucy with Encona Peruvian Amarillo Sauce, a blend of authentic Peruvian Amarillo chillies, roasted onion, spices and herbs creating a sweet, subtle chilli flavour with a hint of garlic – the perfect way for eager taste explorers to get their taste buds tingling without the cost of a plane ticket.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was provided with samples to review, all opinions are my own. 

Labels: barbecue, barbeque, burger, Elizabeth Shaw, Encona, Glorious Skinnylicious, haggis, halloumi, Macsween, marinade, mints, Moose Maple Butter, rice and grains, sauce, Soup, Uncle Ben's

posted by Janice @ 00:00 149 Comments

Chocolate Cocktails, Popcorn, Sauce and Business Cards on my Kitchen Table

On my Kitchen Table is a post to share with you some of the products I've been sent to review over the last month, it's a rather eclectic mix this month so let's get stuck in!

First up are some summery chocolates from Hotel Chocolat.  The Tropical Cocktails are sweet and fresh with a little kick of alcohol.  There are four different 'cocktails' : Peach Bellini, Pina Colado, Hurricane and Caipirnha.  We both really liked the Hurricane with dark Jamaican rum truffle blended with zippy Valencian orange and passion fruit, they were all very tasty but the others were a little sweet for our taste.  I was a pack of Choc Fudge Sundae chocs, little chocolate pots filled with a sticky toffee and fudge sauce with intense praline and a sprinkle of crunchy cereal, absolutely delicious and a nice treat at at reasonable price.

Tropical Cocktails £10.00 for 115g 7/10
Choc Fudge Sundae £3.85 for 75g 9/10


Julian Metcalfe is obsessed with delicious and healthy food. Back in 2009 he was fed up of stodgy snacks that weighed him down and he wanted to create something that was light yet tasty to replace the bog standard crisp. Popcorn was the perfect fit and Metcalfe’s skinny Topcorn was born.  There's a new flavour of Metcalfe's skinny topcorn  it's white cheese and it's really really addictive! There are lots of other cool flavours too, from the simple salted popcorn to spicy and sweet flavoured popcorns. 8/10

75g Metcalfe's Skinny Topcorn - White Cheese £1.00 - £1.49

I remember my Mum had a little bottle of Tabasco Pepper sauce which she would use to add chilli heat to her cooking, fresh chillies were not easily available in my childhood and there was only one kind of Tabasco. Now Tabasco have launched a range of sauces to Transport Your Tastebuds, Louisiana Style



Vistaprint have a range of great products at reasonable prices which transform your photographs into books, calendars, mugs, t-shirts, phone cases.... in fact just about anything that will hold an image!  I was going to make a photo book as I have done previously and found them to be excellent, but I simply ran out of time. As  I needed some new business cards, I used the simple step by step instructions to create these cards featuring a recipe I made last summer.
250 Premium Glossy Business Cards : £26.81 including VAT 9/10

Many thanks to the PRs and companies for the samples to review, I was not paid for these reviews and all opinions are my own. 

Labels: Business Cards, cocktails, dipping, Hotel Chocolat, marinade, Metcalfe's Skinny, Popcorn, sauce, Tabasco, Topcorn, Vistaprint

posted by Janice @ 20:51 15 Comments

BBQ Pork Tenderloin and the March Slow Cooker Challenge

Thanks to everyone who took part in the February Slow Cooker Challenge.  The theme was open so we had a real variety of dishes, see them all in the Feburary Slow Cooker Challenge Round Up.

This month we do have a theme and it is: BARBEQUE you don't have to get the barbie out to have BBQ flavours, you can make them in your slow cooker.  I also have another GIVEAWAY for entrants to the March Slow Cooker Challenge, a copy of  
Slow Cooking for Two by Cynthia Graubart


Photographs by Christopher Hornaday
Published by Gibbs Smith
Distributed in the UK by PGUK 
RRP  £12.07

This is the book for those who cook for two and prefer not to eat leftovers for days, however the recipes can be doubled up if you are feeding a family.

About the Author:  Cynthia Stevens Graubart is an author and former television producer who began her culinary television production career with New Southern Cooking with Nathalie Dupree in 1985. She is the author of The One-Armed Cook, called the culinary version of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Cynthia and her husband, Cliff, live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Here is my review of Slow Cooking for Two:
 
The Introduction covers the basics such as selecting a slow cooker, there is also a really useful section on all the additional equipment, mostly dishes and baking tins, that you can use inside your slow cooker eg mini loaf pan, ramekins etc.
I liked the little table of Conventional to Slow cooker timings which allow you to convert your own favourite recipes either from oven method to slow cooker or vice versa, and the requently asked questions section was full of useful answers. There is also a section with pantry ingredient suggestions.

Moving on to the recipes there is a selection of Soups from classic leek and potato to Kale and Kielbasa Soup.

In the Poultry chapter,  I was particularly taken with Lemon Chicken, Cacciatore - Style Chicken Thighs, Honey Ginger Chicken Thighs and Turkey Meatloaf with Basil and Mozzarella.

There are eight Beef and Lamb dishes including Braised Short Ribs, Stuffed Peppers with Mozzarella and Rosemary Lamb with Tomatoes.

Now we come to the chapter of genius: Double Dinners!  Cynthia uses Slow Cooker liners for this technique,  you can get them online, but I had some roasting bags and decided to see if they would work and they did.

The principle is to create two different meals using the same main ingredient and cook them in the bags side by side in the slow cooker.  One to eat straight away, the other decanted into a dish and chilled or frozen for later consumption.

Recipes Double Dinners include: Beef Bottom Round, this cut of meat we would call silverside, but Peppery Silverside really isn't as much fun as #1 Peppery Bottom Round #2 Fall flavoured Bottom Round;  Pot Roast, #1 Lime Pot Roast with Tomato Sauce #2 Vinegar Braised Pot Roast and the recipe I made:  Pork Tenderloin #1 Parmesan Crusted Pork Tenderloin #2 BBQ Pork Tenderloin

The chapter on Seafood has a limited number of recipes but includes a clever foil pouch Lemon Dill Salmon which takes just two hours on low in the Slow Cooker and a Shrimp in Herb Butter Sauce dish.

There are over 20 recipes for Side Dishes, who knew you could bake potatoes in your slow cooker? You probably did,  but I had no idea. Even mash can be made in the slow cooker, glazed carrots, roasted root vegetables, Polenta and Mushroom Risotto.  This is a really useful chapter with a lot of side dishesI wouldn't have thought of making in the slow cooker.

And so to Desserts, I have still to try making dessert in my slow cooker, it is always occupied with cooking my main meal!  However I am itching to have a go at Lemon Cake, Lemon Curd, Apple Crisp and Poached Pears.

For those who like to entertain there are some Dips and Appetisers that look simple to make and packed with flavour, including  Hot Cheese Dip, Kale and Artichoke Dip, Spicy Mixed Nuts and White Bean Spread.

The final chapter is all about The Basics and includes recipes for stocks, roasted garlic heads, Marinara Sauce and Cinnamon-Ginger Apple Sauce.


Pros: A good variety of innovative recipes which are clearly laid out and easy to follow.  Clever techniques like the double dinners make this a stand out recipe book. Most recipes have short ingredient lists and there's an excellent index and a metric conversion chart.  A few Notes pages are also included so you can write up your own recipes and variations.

Cons: no picture for every recipe, high predominance of meat based main dishes, not much for the vegetarian or vegan.

Pork Tenderloin (Double Dinners)

Liner #1 
Parmesan-Crusted Pork Tenderloin (serves 2)


Ingredients
1/2 of a 1 pound (450g) pork tenderloin or fillet
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dried basil or chives (I used a couple of finely chopped spring onions)
1 clove garlic minced, or 1/2 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup grated or shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Place pork tenderloin in the bottom of a slow cooker liner bag (or roasting bag)
2. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper
3. Stir together the honey, soy sauce basil, garlic and olive oil in a small bowl. Pour over the pork, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and set aside.

Liner #2
BBQ Pork Tenderloin (serves 2)


Ingredients
1/2 of a 1 pound (450g) pork tenderloin (fillet)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
2 tbsp light or dark brown sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 clove garlic minced or 1/2 tsp bottled minced garlic
1/2 tsp onion powder (I didn't have any of this and left it out)

1. Place pork tenderloin in bottom of slow cooker liner or roasting bag.
2. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.
3. Stir together the ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, chilli powder, garlic and onion powder in a small bowl/  Pour over tenderloin.  Set aside.

To complete the recipe
1. Place both liner bags, side by side, into the slow cooker.  Drape each liner (closed) away from the other extending over the sides of the slow cooker.  I sealed the roasting bags with their closures and placed side by side in the slow cooker. 
2. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
3. Move two large, shallow serving dishes or bowls next to the slow cooker.  Remove cover and using pot holders or oven mitts, carefully remove each liner and its contents to its own serving bowl  Let the liner rest open and allow contents to cool slightly.  Remove the tenderloin from the liner using tongs and transfer to the serving bowl  Then grasp the bag, holding the top and cut a corner off the bottom of the bag, large enough to allow the remaining contents of the bag to be released over the pork and into the bowl.  Discard the liner.  Repeat with the other dinner.
4. Allow the dinner, not being served, to cool, and package in a resealable plastic freezer bag or container (remember to label it).
5. Before serving, taste and season again if required.

We ate the BBQ Pork Tenderloin, the meat was very tender and the sauce was delicious, feedback from himself was very positive.   I have put the Parmesan Crusted Pork Tenderloin away for another meal.  

If you would like to join the Slow Cooker Challenge and win a copy of Slow Cooking for Two by Cynthia Graubart then simply cook a BBQ style meal in your slow cooker, then please follow the challenge rules below and link up to the linky.

• Make your recipe in your Slow Cooker and post a photograph and the recipe, or a link to a recipe, on your blog
• Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen
• Use the Slow Cooker Challenge logo in your post
• If you use twitter, tweet your post with @FarmersgirlCook and #SlowCookerChallenge and I will re-tweet it to my followers AND post your post your pictures on a decicated Pinterest board.

Rules:

• Please do not publish recipes from cookbooks on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
• If you are using recipes from another website, please link to the recipe on the website rather than publishing the recipe.
• One entry per blog.
• Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

The winner will be chosen by Random Number Generator

 Natalie @StarCatch3r doesn't have a blog but wanted to join in The Slow Cooker Challenge with this delicious BBQ Shredded Chicken inspired by a recipe at Sugarlaws



And the winner is...No.4 Corina - Searching for Spice with Slow Cooked Pork in Tonkatsu

Labels: barbeque, BBQ, Double Dinners, giveaway, Pork, roasting bags, sauce, slow cooker, Slow Cooker Challenge, win

posted by Janice @ 06:30 25 Comments

Easy Barbeque Pork Chops without a BBQ!

If you look carefully, you will see that it is a Mary Berry recipe, but unfortunately I haven't said which book it is from and as I probably wrote this out in about 1981 I certainly can't remember.  You can always tell a good recipe from the splatters on the page and of course my own 'star' system where I award recipes up to five stars and this is definitely a Five Star Recipe.

Labels: barbeque, BBQ, ketchup, mustard, peppers, Pork chops, sauce, soy sauce, tomato

posted by Janice @ 21:40 6 Comments

Fruity Pork Steaks

I made this Fruity Pork Steak recipe from BBC Good Food for supper tonight.  It was very tasty, but I was really disappointed in the pork steak itself, it was seriously tough, which rather spoiled the delicious sauce. 

Making the sauce

 I think I would use pork fillet next time and I'm not sure I would bother with the chicken stock, to intensify the flavours of the sauce.

Labels: pineapple, Pork, sauce

posted by Janice @ 22:01 1 Comments