Summery Sausage Salad

We heard from Sainsbury's that their Taste the Difference sausages are now all gluten free and were asked if we'd like to try some.  Of course, we said YES, please!  

Having gone into store, it was easy to see the great new packaging for the TTD sausages and made a selection of the ones Sous Chef J will eat (thin ones... aka chipolatas or cocktail sausages).

As it was a sunny weekend, we decided an 'all-in-one' sausage salad dish would be a good meal to create. Pairing the sausages with some freshly cooked charlotte potatoes, a few salad onions and a homemade dressing/sauce, we thought we'd have a simple and tasty meal for eating outdoors.

The dressing was made using store cupboard standbys -

2 Tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 Tablespoons cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon grainy mustard
1 Tablespoon honey

All this was mixed together and half of the sliced salad onions were added.

The sausages were separated and added to a hot frying pan to cook through.

Adding half of the sauce to the sausages and cooking to make it sticky...

.... whilst the sausages were cooking, the charlotte potatoes were boiled.  Once cooked and drained, the potatoes were put in a bowl and the remainder of the sauce was poured over and stirred through.

Finally, the sausage and sauce mix was added to the potatoes, stirred and the remaining onions were sprinkled over.

The sausage salad was delicious!

We'll definitely be adding TTD Sausages to our shopping list... and particularly liked the "snap and keep" packaging - allowing half the sausages to be saved for another day/frozen.

DISCLOSURE - we were sent a gift card by Sainsbury's to be used for buying sausages and ingredients for this recipe.  The recipe and opinions in this post are our own.

Pizza Express Cook at Home Margherita Pizza

We were very excited when we learnt that Pizza Express were finally bringing out a Gluten Free pizza to be sold alongside their other chiller cabinet offering... admittedly, only being stocked in Sainsbury's at the moment. 

The pizzas were launched in certain stores last week and our Saturday supermarket shop revealed a disappointingly empty 'slot' for the product.  Not to be dissuaded, we went to another store on Monday and were successful in locating stock... trying to be reasonable,  and leave some for others, we bought three pizzas (selling at £4 each).

Sous Chef J was delighted when he was shown the packs... and requested a 'speedy taste test'... which was easy to deliver!

We checked the cooking instructions, pre-heated the oven to 200ºC, unpackaged the pizzas and cooked them for 7 minutes.  Checking them we decided they needed a little longer to brown and set the timer for a further 2 minutes.

Removing them from the oven there was the 'classic' Pizza Express aroma and it wasn't long before SCJ was happily diving in and getting his hands dirty....

The pizza is about 10" in diameter.

VERDICT: Just like in the restaurant, the topping is tasty, the base is thin and crispy and the pizza didn't last long!  Perfect for a quick and easy teatime.

We sincerely hope Sainsbury's are able to keep the pizzas in stock in the chillers... and that we aren't disappointed by poor reliability of availability.  We'll definitely buy again and will stock our freezer next time.

Crème Brûlée Kit

Sous Chef J adores crème brûlée... he also likes 'easy to make' dishes.  Being sent a packet of Sainsbury's make it yourself creme brulee was, therefore, something he was happy to have a go making.

Here's how he got on.

As usual, the first thing was to gather the ingredients so SCJ checked the packet to see what he'd need to use.












After measuring the ingredients and putting them with the kit, SCJ was ready to start with the simple 5 step instructions.




Having emptied the contents of the mix sachet into a pan, the cream and milk (250ml of each) was added.

After placing the pan on the hob, the cream/milk mix was brought to the boil whilst being stirred continuously.  As soon as it began to boil, SCJ set the timer for 2 minutes and reduced the heat to simmer the mix (again stirring all the time - we used a silicone whisk).

Once the mix had thickened, it was carefully shared between three dishes (and, yes, it was a little lumpy but we found that didn't matter later!)

The dishes were put in the fridge and chilled for a couple of hours before SCJ poured the contents of the sugar pack over the top (we'd decanted the sugar into a pot to make shaking/spreading easier).

When SCJ was happy with the sugar distribution, a blowtorch was used to caramlise (and not burn - too much!), or brûlée, the top.  If you don't have a blowtorch, then putting the dishes (make sure they're heat proof) under a hot grill for a couple of minutes will also work well.

Returning the dishes to the fridge until it was time to eat dessert meant the caramel became lovely and crisp.  SCJ enjoyed the dessert and was happy with the sharp crack/snap the caramelised sugar topping delivered.

Disclosure - SCJ was sent a packet of Crème Brûlée Dessert Kit by Sainsbury's to try but was not required to write a post or paid for this blog. 

Black Garlic and Chilli Butter

We like to get Sous Chef J to try new foods, so when we were sent a bulb of Black Garlic by Sainsbury's we started to think about how to use it in a way he'd like to eat it.  Hitting on the idea of a spicy butter to go with a beef steak, we took a closer look at the garlic.

The Black Garlic bulb is a light rust colour and its outer skin texture resembles tissue paper.  We carefully peeled away part of the outer layer of cloves.  Having taken the cloves off the bulb, some were then peeled (we found starting at the root end resulted in the 'cleanest' way to do this) and that's when the blackness of the garlic was revealed.

The cloves are soft and squidgy feeling...we were careful not to squash them but I did try one.  It reminded me of the cloves of garlic we'd all wait for when my late father used to make a slow cooked one-pot dish called "Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic".  As the name suggests, a chicken was cooked in a lidded casserole with 40 cloves of garlic (unpeeled) and the resulting melt-in-the-mouth middle of the cloves that were squeezed out to be eaten with the chicken were amazing.  The slow cooking had mellowed the garlicky taste and this Black Garlic clove has a similar, less aggressive, taste.


Gathering the very few items needed to make our Black Garlic and Chilli Butter...

4 cloves Black Garlic (peeled)
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
50g unsalted butter (softened)

... they were put in a bowl where they were mashed together (our butter had part-melted in the warm Easter sunshine so it looks a bit messy).  The butter was then seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

By this point the butter was looking quite liquid and needed chilling.  With this in mind we wrapped the butter in clingfilm and made a sausage shape. It was then put it in the freezer to chill.  If we'd had more time, we'd have put it in the fridge to use later.

Having fried our steaks, a ring of butter was cut from the roll, placed on the steak and allowed to melt into a delicious garlicky, buttery, spicy mix.  YUM!   Great to use for speedy BBQ seasoning too.

Rainbow Fruit Kebabs

It's been a sunny weekend here and we have started thinking about Easter food; something that will be good for a barbecue if the weather's sunny over the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend.  Talking ideas through with Sous Chef J we decided that a fruit kebab, to balance out any chocolate egg-eating overload, would be a tempting and simple end to an Easter-time meal al fresco.

With sunny days in mind, we bought a selection of fruits which would look appealing and taste great. We also spotted some Easter Floral crockery in Sainsbury's that was decorated with bright, springlike flowers and decided a couple of pieces would be just the way to serve our kebabs.

Having bought pineapple, bananas, kiwi fruit, nectarines, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, mangoes and plums we started preparing the fruit for 'spearing' on bamboo skewers.

It was a lovely sunny day, so we decided to make the most of the weather and took everything we needed into the garden and began preparing the fruit...  this was a simple task of peeling (where necessary) and chopping into suitably sized pieces. 

Once the fruit was prepared and laid out in colour order, threading onto the bamboo skewers began. 

Choosing the order of strawberries, mango, nectarine, kiwi fruit or green grape, plums and blueberries... Sous Chef J worked through all the prepared fruit to get the Rainbow Fruit Kebabs ready.

Our Rainbow Fruit Kebabs were served just as prepared but they could be eaten with a melted chocolate (perhaps made from excess Easter eggs?) dip or, if barbecuing, a melted marshmallow drizzle.  YUM!

Panna Cotta and Coulis

Following the great success of the Sainsbury's Marshmallow Kit, we were asked if we'd like to try out their Panna Cotta Dessert Mix.

As always, we checked the ingredients were gluten free (they are) and decided to give it a go.  Since Sous Chef J is a big fan of Panna Cotta (as well as Creme Brulee and Creme Caramel) this was a good way to see if we could make a suitably 'wobbly' dessert as he's seen made many times on TV cooking shows.

The kit tells you the ingredients required to make the dessert are 250ml each of semi-skimmed milk and double cream



We gathered all of the ingredients and equipment ready to start.


Taking each step at a time, the dessert was made - here's what we did....

SCJ poured the contents of the bag into a pan.

The milk and then the cream were also added to the pan.,

Making sure the milk/cream mix was whisked whilst it was brought up to simmer.

The heated milk/cream mix was ladled into ramekins (we used 8 small ones)

Having filled the ramekins, we put them on a tray to cool slightly before chilling fuly in the fridge for 3 hours.

To accompany the Panna Cotta, we decided to make some 'coulis'... and, having been impressed with the range of frozen fruits on sale in Sainsbury's, Sous Chef J chose a 'smoothie mix' of strawberries and bananas to make ours (he's saving the mango for another day/dish).

As usual, we didn't want to make anything complicated.  Taking a handful of the frozen fruit mix (actually, SCJ only chose to use the strawberries) we left them to defrost as the panna cotta was cooling in the fridge. 



The strawberries were put it in a dish, with a squirt of rice syrup, and pushed through a small seive (we were only making a small amount - suggest using a hand blender if you're making more) 


The finished 'coulis' was looking good.

Turning out the panna cottas, Sous Chef J was delighted to find they had a very satisfying 'wobble' so we topped them with the strawberry coulis ready to serve.

The Panna Cotta desserts were very tasty and Sous Chef J is happy to think he can make them again another day... and is already thinking he'd like to make "one big one".  Another successful make it yourself trial.

Disclosure - we were sent a pack of Panna Cotta mix by Sainsbury's. We did not have to write a positive blog post. All opinions are our own.