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.

Marks and Spencer's Made Without Wheat 2016

Marks and Spencer have a much larger range of "Made Without" products... and many of them are Made Without Wheat (MWW).  The aim of this blogpose is to provide details about a few that have made Sous Chef J ask for "more, please!", as well as others.

There are NEW chiller cabinet items - including pasta ready meals - supplementing the range. We have now tried the Macaroni Cheese, Spaghetti Bolgnese and Lasagne.   They are all tasty and we choose to oven cook our ready meals (SCJ asked what a ready meal was - which indicates how rare such an item is in this household)

Sous Chef J particularly "LOVED" the Rhubarb Crumble and also the Strawberry Trifle (which he will devour at one sitting, given the chance).

Servings of crumble and trifle tend not to last long... 

Also in the MWW range, there is a lovely Apple Pie and a New York Cheesecake... don't be fooled by the size of the cheesecake - each morsel is packed with calories and we struggled to eat the (small sized) cake between three of us.


Picnic items are also in evidence - with a Quiche Lorraine and a Cheese and Onion Quiche.  Sous Chef J doesn't like the Scotch Eggs but we do... and we've tried the Sausage Rolls too.
 

Always a favourite are the Salmon Fishcakes and the Chicken (and mushroom - don't tell SCJ) crispbakes.  These are often on offer at two packs (of 2) for £3.

In the ambient section, there's a good offering of cakes and bread (mostly).  Crumpets and cake mixes, plus pasta are also stocked.





SCJ favours the MWW White Boule and will eat the lot... we had to try the MWW Brown Bloomer (£3 for 6 slices - eye watering!) but he wasn't keen... even dressed up with cheese and chutney as sarnies.

Overall, we appreciate the increased range very much but still make a plea for "RELIABILITY OF AVAILABILITY"... without this it's difficult to rely on being able to buy products (in ALL M&S food halls)... after all, we can't spend our money on items if the goods aren't on the shelves!

PS In addition to the MWW range, there are still plenty of 'mainstream' products marked with a glutenfree symbol - the grill range and tortilla chips are go-to items for us too.  We love M&S for this!

Asparagus and Pancetta pastryless Tarts

This recipe was developed to make use of some of the delicious, seasonal products on sale at The Shop in The Shed.  Grown on the farm, asparagus is being picked right now (May) and, paired with bantam eggs and pancetta, makes a lovely addition to our bake - a pastryless tart.

We used -

200g natural yogurt (we used full fat)
125g shallots, sliced
6 bantam eggs
100g pancetta slices
8 spears of asparagus, washed
20g cheddar cheese, finely grated
1 Tablespoon oil
Freshly ground black pepper

These ingredients made 4 larger tarts (made in Yorkshire pudding tins) and 4 smaller, deeper tarts (made in muffin tins).

Preparing the shallots, they were peeled and thinly slicedand then fried in a tablespoon of oil (we used sunflower) over a low heat for about 15 minutes until they started to caramelise.  At this point, they were placed to one side to cool slightly until needed.

Taking the baking tins, they were lightly greased used an old butter wrapper before being lined with slices of the pancetta.

The pancetta we used was smoked and air dried.  Cutting slices to size, the tins were carefully covered (without too much overlap) to form an outer case when cooked.

Next the asparagus was washed and the lower portion (which can
be woody) was snapped off... to do this we held the towards the top and at the bottom then bent each one until the spear snapped.  You can chop the ends off if you prefer.

The spears were then cut so that they were the right length to fit diagonally across the tart, the remaining stems were chopped into small pieces.  The woody ends were not used in this recipe but can be used in soup or to make a 'pesto'.

To prepare the filling, we mixed yogurt with the bantam eggs, freshly ground black pepper and whisked to combine.

Using a dessert spoon, a small amount of the filling mix was added on top of the pancetta lining, before a little of the caramelised onion was also added.


This was then topped with some more of the filling before having the chopped asparagus stalks added, sprinkling a small amount of the grated cheese on top (being careful not to get it on the baking trays) and....

... finally the reserved asparagus spear was added to each tart.

The tarts were then placed in a 170ºC oven for about 20 minutes when they were checked to see if they were browning (at this point ours had risen souffle-like but, luckily, hadn't overflowed).  We left them in the oven for a further 5 minutes.

Having taken the tarts out of the oven, we allowed them to cool for about 15 minutes and then carefully removed them from the tins.

We served our tarts warm with green salad and chilli potatoes....

... or they'd be great on a picnic or as a lunch box item... no soggy bottoms to deal with!







Disclosure - we were given the asparagus, pancetta, eggs and cheese by The Shop in the Shed to develop a recipe.  This is the result and all other ingredients were our own.

Latest Gluten Free finds at Marks and Spencer

Finally, at Marks and Spencer, we found an almost full display of Gluten Free (or Made without Wheat) products.  The empty spaces should have contained baguette and fruit scones.  We would have liked to try the baguette very much as we don't make bread. Ever.  Scones we makes lots so that's not such a missed item in our grocery shop. 

It was GREAT to see that someone has listened and realised those on restricted diets also have birthdays!  A Celebration Cake - Extremely Chocolatey - covered in chocolate curls and decorated with a starburst.  Pricey at £10 but nice if the Birthday girl is the main cook (hint, hint Sous Chef J)...

Other cakes on offer were Coffee and Walnut (new), Carrot and Walnut (new), Victoria Sponge, Chocolate Loaf and Rich Fruit Loaf.

Having looked at the 'ambient' food offerings, we went on the hunt for other Gluten Free items... and spotted this three pack of mini meringues - not labelled with the gluten free symbol but the allergy advice does not highlight gluten in the ingredients.  Also, having checked online here, the item is listed in the Marks and Spencer 'do not contain gluten' listing... of course, you still need to check ingredients on the product as 'recipes change'... but it's a good starting point.

The meat section revealed a couple of 'The Grill' range marked with the Gluten Free symbol. 

Sausages are a usual 'staple' purchase for us as many (perhaps all?) uncooked are Gluten Free... but beware, the cooked, lunch/snack ones are NOT?  How? Why? Daft, if you ask us.... there are few enough items to choose from in the takeaway/food to go/lunch snacks that are Gluten Free that it seems odd not to sell the cooked version of the Gluten Free sausages.  There is more good news though - we did find Gluten Free Scotch Eggs ... in the picnic section.


The other day we tweeted about the numerous Gluten Free finds in the Food to Order catalogue - even containing a dessert (large portion sized version of their hot chocolate fudge pudding).  Here's a link to the online offering of Gluten Free items it contains.  There are Celebration Cakes and Wedding Cakes as well as crumpets and meats... but, oddly, NOT the Gluten Free Mini Chicken Kievs Sous Chef J had been so pleased to find in the paper catalogue.  Similarly, the belly pork I so liked at Christmas is not showing up online - I do hope that, if we place an order from the catalogue, these are still available...

... as ever, it seems to be that Reliability of Availability is key.  It is really frustrating to know products DO exist (in some stores) but they are difficult to purchase... and, PLEASE, Marks and Spencer, IMPROVE your offerings at roadside Simply Food stores!  We find the Gluten Free range in railway stations is, usually, pretty reliable but you seem to think we don't go by road... we need to know if we see your store we can buy food we can eat.  Like these Caramel Pecan Crunch Bars which Sous Chef J loves.