Well, it’s now the start of July so time for another Kitchen Bites! This last month has been a great month in the Foodie Couple Kitchen. The start of the month saw our lovely holiday to Ibiza, which I’ll be telling you more about in some posts soon, which was swiftly followed by the BBC Good Food Show and with this we were happy to try a variety of samples from some of the exhibitors there before the show. We’ve also had and some sweetie treats too and some lovely new books to take a look through. And after we’d tried out some of the recipes, a new cleaning product to help us clean up a bit!!
First up Bluebird Tea Co. I’ve been a fan of theirs for a couple of years now – the Earl Grey Creme is gorgeous, so trying out some new flavours was great. The Ice Cream Float was really good. I wasn’t such a fan of the Chinese Treasure, but then green teas aren’t really my thing.
Joe & Sephs Popcorn was a new brand to me – one I’d heard of but never tried. They do so many flavours that there’s sure to be one for everyone, but my winner so far is the peanut butter and caramel.
We also enjoyed reading through this new Daily Greens 4-Day Cleanse book by Shauna Martin. A juice cleanse is something I’ve often considered but never gone through with so this book may well be the place to start. It also has a few ‘raw’ recipes that look really tasty to ease you back into eating or just if you want a super healthy meal or snack.
I’m also really excited about reading The Foodie, by James Steen – published on the 2nd July it compiles stories, anecdotes and expert tips from the culinary world. Described as ‘making a comedy of gastronomy’ by Marco Pierre White, I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it.
We also tried out the new range of retail Gravy from Essential Cuisine. We have tried Essential Cuisines stock powders before and found them really good, so I’m pleased to see their gravy powders on the retail market. So far we’ve tried out the Chicken and the Beef and am pleased to report they are both very good. Both have a really rich deep flavour, perfect for a roast dinner. I’m planning on using the Savoury one for a Toad in the Hole this week too, with some added caramelised onions.
The Treat Kitchen based in Nottingham sells a great selection of retro sweets featuring all the favourites from rock to jelly beans to cola bottles and foam bananas. We tried out a selection and really enjoyed them.
The Radioactive Sour Strawberry Bon Bons absolutely knocked our socks off – I’ve never tasted anything so sour! The first 30 seconds or so of eating one is the absolute definition of the pleasure/pain conundrum! I adored the peach flavor jelly beans and there is a whole range of flavours including coffee, marshmallow, candy floss & pomegranate!
The packaging and branding work really well for me – bold and just a little bit quirky. They would make a great present or even work well as wedding favours!
Find them on twitter @treatkitchen. Plus exclusively for readers there is 10% off in their online shop using the code MFB10
Finally we tried out these new Grease Lifter Tablets – the latest from the Astonish Pro range. Simply pop the grease laden pot or pan in a sink of boiling water and add one of these tablets, come back 30mins later and you have sparking clean results. Now our results were’t quite as amazing as the front of the packet ( we try a particular dirty pan for the first go), but it was pretty good and a lot less effort than scrubbing!!
That’s it for this month! Thanks to the producers and publishers for the above items. We were not required to write positively about any of the items.
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