New foodie discoveries (August)

The summer is officially over today. The school is looming, and we look back at the summer with nostalgia and fond memories.
Last month we also tried a variety of new foods and drinks
New food products appear on the shelves of supermarkets on a daily basis. It's impossible to try them all. Some are limited editions and are available only for a short time, some come to stay, some get discontinued after a while, perhaps due to a lack of demand.

Here are some of our food discoveries that merit a mention this month.

Palacio de Oriente Squid Pieces in olive oil octopus style was one of the foods which appeared in the Mediterranean food promotion in Waitrose recently.
These specially selected large premium quality squid with tentacles are cut in the traditional "Octopus" style. Can be enjoyed either hot or cold in any dish which uses Octopus or Squid as an ingredient.
Surprisingly low calorie - 120kcal per 72g (drained weight of the tinned squid)
Produced in Spain.

Very handy to have in the pantry for quick salads and pasta.

Another product which I have spotted and bought in the same Waitrose Mediterranean promotion was Merchant Gourmet Smoky Spanish-style grains & rice. It is a combination of wholegrain rice, wheatberries and black barley, cooked with red peppers and a good pinch of smoked paprika.
This is one of my new favourites. I have already bought several packs to have in the kitchen as a base for quick meals.

I have tried it with chilli prawns, and it was delicious. Use it as a base for either vegetarian or meaty/flexitarian meals.
It has low saturated fat, it's a good source of fibre and is suitable for vegans.
Allergens alert: it contains gluten (wheatberries and barley).

Recipe suggestion: heat up the rice with a dash of water, mix with tinned (drained) octopus, slice hard boiled eggs and avocado and arrange on top of the meal. Serves 2.

Most Sundays I go to Waitrose an hour before closing time. There are rarely big savings to be had, nothing like I see on Instagram of one blogger who buys a whole trolleyfull of food for a couple of quid in Tesco before closing time. Our Waitrose is rather stingy at giving good discounts.
But whenever they have sushi at reduced price, I buy it. I love sushi. A couple of weeks ago I have found an Aloha Poké next to the sushi.
I have never heard of the Aloha Poké, but as it had sushi rice and seaweed, I couldn't resist buying it.

This is a Hawaiian salad/Salmon Poké - a poke bowl with sushi rice, raw salmon, wakame seaweed salad, edamame beans, rocket & spring onion with soy sesame dressing & avocado mousse.
It's a delicious flavourful salad.
Don't think I'll be buying it often, but if it comes at a reduced price, I'll gladly buy it again.

Skyr yogurt has been around for a while, but there are so many good yogurts in the shops that I haven't had a chance to try it until recently.
This Icelandic-style yogurt is a source of high protein, it's fat free and has reduced sugar.
The tubs promise -  "It's a delicious way to stay healthy"
Smooth and not sweet at all, even with a layer of berries.

Yollies have recently added a new flavour - chocolate - to their range of yogurt lollies. When Eddie and I spotted them in Sainsbury's, he was very excited to try them. However, after eating just one he mentioned that he prefers the strawberry flavour.

Yollies are a good source of calcium and vitamin D. They contain no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. Suitable for vegetarians. A lovely snack to add to a school lunchbox. There are 200kcal per 100g pack, which makes it 50kcal per yogurt lolly.

This summer we have been enjoying Paul Hollywood Ready To Bake Crusty Rolls a lot.
These part baked flour dusted white rolls with added rye flour are very handy to have in the pantry.

We don't have access to fresh bread in the village where we stay in Cornwall, and cannot have grocery deliveries on a daily basis. These delicious rolls, made with a slow fermented starter, are easy to bake, it takes about 8-10 minutes in the oven. They have a crispy crust and soft inside, which is just perfect for a butter and jam sandwich.

We ate them hot, straight from the oven, with a warning "Very hot, eat carefully or you'll burn your tongue!"
Each roll is 120kcal. The packs are suitable for home freezing
Though pre-baked, these rolls contain no preservatives.
A bit ironic that Mr Hollywood has a range of pre-made bread, when he's extolling virtues of bread made from scratch, but we are glad he did it. These rolls are fabulous. Big well done, Mr Hollywood!
There is also a seeded variety, which we haven't tried yet.

Talking of bread creations, if you are in Waitrose, pick a few of Waitrose 1 Seeded Cheese Straws, they are very moreish, though not cheap, at £1.35 for a small stick.

Another big favourite of the last summer is Hellman's Australian Sweet Grill sauce. We first sampled it on a Bank Holiday in May, when we had friends over for a BBQ.
It is an excellent sauce which can be used as a marinade, glaze or dip.
Made with honey, molasses, white wine vinegar, sugar, tomato paste, anchovies, spices and more, it has been inspired by Australian recipes.
It's great with sausages, grilled meat or even fish. I found it in Tesco, but it might be available in all major supermarkets.

Tesco Finest is a range, where we have quite a few family favourites.
Their recent addition to the range includes Tesco Finest Tri-colour Tomatoes on the Vine.
They look so pretty and taste sweet and tangy.

These tomatoes are great in salads, but also tasty just on their own, as an accompaniment to fried potatoes.

Since our Italian from bean to coffee machine has died over a year ago, we acquired a small Nespresso, and I have been buying different brand varieties to find the one we love the best.
I'm not a big fan of Starbuck's, but I was curious to test its nespresso capsules.
Starbucks Guatemala Antigua Espresso (Nespresso compatible capsules), with cocoa & subtle spice, medium roast was not too bad, but not my favourite either.

And I'm finishing my eclectic round-up of the latest foodie discoveries with a delightful Cornish chocolate. I love dark chocolate, ginger and Cornwall, so for me it was a win-win purchase. We bought a few bars on our trip to Penzance, to take home as souvenirs. But one of the bars has conveniently got broken in the suitcase, so we ate it.
I also adore the design on this chocolate bar, it's so cute and makes me smile.

Did you discover a food product recently which made you smile?

Vibrant figs and autumn feasts

Pork leg paupiettes with figs

A disadvantage of being married to an Italian is that you tend to eat lots of pasta. While my husband doesn't get bored with pasta, I cannot possibly eat it for several days in a row without an inner protest. Even if every day it is a different pasta dish. I was wandering around our local Waitrose, thinking what to cook for dinner that would not invlove pasta, when I've noticed that Pork leg paupiettes were on offer. I haven't cooked pork for ages, and decided it might do for dinner.
The paupiettes came stuffed with shallot and herbs.

Ingredients:
2 pork leg paupiettes
2 fresh figs
1 apple
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
a small glass of marsala

Place two paupiettes in a frying pan with the olive oil and brown the sides. It takes about 3 minutes per side. Put the browned pieces in a small ceramic dish, add sliced apples and figs, salt and pepper, pour the marsala over and place the dish in the oven preheated to 200C. Lower the heat to 180C and roast for half an hour. Serve with the roast potatoes and grilled mushrooms.
As the paupiettes came with two small pieces of herby butter, I removed them and used on top of the grilled mushrooms.

Roast butternut squash with figs (side dish)

It's a season for figs.
We have a beautiful fig tree in the garden, but in five years since we moved to our current address, we had ripe figs only once, in summer of 2011. This year the tree stood naked for a very long time, and I was worried that the spring frosts have damaged it. Slowly the leaves appeared and even the green figs, but they are as hard as rocks. I picked one ripe fig this month, and it almost felt like a victory.

I spoke too soon, after writing this post, I went to the garden to water the tomatoes in the greenhouse and found another ripe fig.

Having no home-grown figs doesn't stop me from buying them, they are sold at reasonable prices at this time of the year.
Last evening, when we had dinner with our guests, I served this side dish of roast butternut squash with figs (to go with the roast duck).

Ingredients:
1 medium butternut squash
1 sweet onion
3 figs
1 fennel bulb
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp orange saffron oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp honey
(serves 4 as a side dish)

Cut the butternut squash lengthwise, leave the skin on, wrap in the foil and place in the oven preheated to 180C. Do the same with the sweet onion and fennel. In half an hour, take them out of the oven, remove the skin from the butternut squash pieces with a knife, place them in a deep tray with the onion, fennel and sliced figs.
Mix the olive oil, orange saffron oil, balsamic vinegar and honey in a small container and pour the contents over the vegetables and fruit, mix well, using your hands. Place the tray back in the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes. Serve hot.

 

 

Figs feature as this month's ingredient in One Ingredient Challenge for September. This challenge it is hosted by Working London Mummy and How to Cook Good Food blogs.

 

 

Best ever pickled baby cucumbers

We are not talking here the little vinegary monsters that you usually buy in the shops which taste of nothing but vinegar. Today I am inviting you to try a very easy recipe for the mildly pickled cucumbers.

I was delighted to discover that Waitrose started selling baby cucumbers recently, yes, they are pricier than the big sized comrades, but perfect for my recipe. In fact, I haven't tried it with the huge cucumbers. I don't know why with such a huge variety of tomatoes of all sizes in the shops you almost never see any variety in the cucumbers. They are all a standard size of a small weapon.
I tried growing my own a couple of years ago, but lost the crop, and switched to growing tomatoes.

This recipe is called Malosol'nye ogurtsy in Russian (lit. little-salted cucumbers) and they are ready to eat the next day. I've been consulting my Mum over the phone, as she often makes this dish for my nieces.

For 1 jar of pickled cucmbers I used

2 and a half packs of Waitrose baby cucumbers (150g each)
20g dill
peppercorns (about a dozen of different sizes)
1 clove of garlic
a couple of black currant leaves

For the salty solution you will need
for 1.5 litre of water
3 heaped tbsp of salt
1 tbsp of sugar
Please note that I did several jars of pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, so if you are making just one jar of pickles you will be left with lots of the salted water.

1. Bring the water to boil, add to a biggish container and disslove sugar and salt. Let it cool, it might be tepid, but not hot.
2. Prepare a big jar for pickles by putting it in the oven preheated to 180C for 10 minutes, take it out and let it cool.
3. Start the assembling process by adding a few leaves of the blackcurrants at the bottom, one clove of garlic and peppercorns. Chop off the "bums" of cucumbers to speed up the pickling process. Add several cucumbers, then a layer of dill, don't chop it, just tear in half. More cucumbers and more dill until the whole jar is filled in. Add the pickling liquid - it should cover the cucumbers, put the lid on top and place the jar in the fridge.
4. You can eat the cucumbers the next day.

They are deliciously crunchy and have a lovely mild pickled taste. They are best served with the boiled baby potatoes. They keep well for several days, but the longer they stay in the salted liquid, the saltier they become, so I suggest doing a small amount of pickles at a time.

Piadina with goat's cheese

"Nothing speaks more of Romagna than this bread of ours - it is a symbol that speaks of devotion to our land" (Giovanni Pascoli)

Piada or piadina is a traditional soft flatbread from Emilia Romagna. It is sold in specialised kiosks called Piadinerie and is filled with cured meats, cheese and vegetables.

You can make your own Piada (Two Greedy Italians book have a lovely recipe for a Parma ham and stracchino cheese filled piadina).
However, if you don't fancy baking your own flatbread, you can buy Crosta & Mollica's piada in Waitrose now.
These thick soft flatbreads have a pronounced olive oil aroma and taste.

"Traditionally they would have been made with lard but these ones are made with extra virgin olive oil which are becoming more popular as they are lighter and healthier."
I love Crosta & Mollica range of breads and biscuits, and as soon as I found the pack of the flatbreads in Waitrose, I wanted to try it. I also wanted to surprise my husband who comes from Emilia Romagna.

For the recipe you will need

1 pack of Crosta & Mollica Piada (there are 3 flatbreads in a pack)
1 Capricorn goat's cheese
1 Galbani mozzarella cucina (a vacuum packed mozzarella in a smaller size of 125g)
a handful of rocket
3 slices of prosciutto
olive oil

It's very simple. Just add a slice of prosciutto on top of the piadina, sliced goat's cheese and mozzarella, drizzle with the olive oil and add a few sprigs of rocket. Fold in two, place in the oven preheated to 180C and leave in the oven for about 5-8 minutes, until the cheese has melted.
You could also put it under the grill if you prefer (our grill is ancient and I prefer to use the oven).

Eat hot. For a vegetarian version, skip the prosciutto, use the vegetraian mozzarella and add some grilled vegetables and chopped herbs.

I am glad that Waitrose is expanding its range of Crosta & Mollica products, have a look in the international breads section. Temptation, temptation!

Is it worth paying more for products endorsed by celebrities?

Curiosity killed the cat. I am often doing impulse purchases when I see a new product. Waitrose has teamed up with Heston and Delia, arguably two of the biggest names in the British cooking market.

Heston Blumenthal has created a range of seasonal and around-the-year products for Waitrose. And I have been slowly testing the range.

I have already written about Heston Olive Oil and Vanilla Biscuits, Heston Mince Pies and Heston stuffing.
Heston for Waitrose Lapsang Souchon tea smoked salmon was on offer last week (for £2.99 instead of the usual £4.49), so I decided to try it. The idea of Scottish Salmon Smoked over a blend of Oak and Lapsang Souchong Tea sounds good.

 Did it meet my expectations?  Lapsang has a very distinctive smokey flavour, and I anticipated a deeper and  more pronounced smokiness from Heston's take on the smoked salmon, but it was pretty mild and lacking in the intensity of the expected flavour.

Sadly the unique aroma of lapsang has gone with the wind (or smoke, lol). It is just not there. While it was interesting to try it, I don't think paying £4.49 for a small packet makes any sense.

If you were shopping in Waitrose before Christmas, you couldn't fail to notice Delia's Classic Christmas Cake mix and Delia's Cranberry and Orange relish boxed ingredients.

Christmas Cake didn't hold much attraction to me, and also my kitchen was groaning under the weight of panettones and pandoros that I bought for gifts and for our Christmas meal.
The relish mix was something I considered buying but wasn't too sure if buying the ingredients separately would be a better choice.

The recipe was printed on the box and was very easy to follow. The box included a very small orange, a bag of cranberries and a mini bag of sugar with spices including a cinnamon stick. All you had to do is add a spoonful or two of port and cook it for 5 minutes. As the orange was very small, there wasn't enough orange juice and I added more, thankfully I had some oranges at home.
The result was a sharpish refreshing relish, which worked really well with the meat. It was sold in Waitrose at £2.99. Was it worth it? You could probably save a bit by buying all the ingredients separately, as most of the people who consider making their own relish would probably have sugar and spices at home. I would also buy a bigger orange for this recipe.

In the future I will follow the recipe but buy my own ingredients.

From my own experience buying the products endorsed by the celebrities is a hit and miss, some products are good enough to pay more, some are disappointing and are definitely overpriced. Basically you pay for the name on the box rather than for the actual product.

So, is it worth paying more for products endorsed by the celebrities?
And the answer is don't be swayed by the famous names and use your common sense.