Primrose's Kitchen

Primrose extends a warm welcome to everyone who is interested in eating well and eating properly.

It's the proud claim of Primrose that everything she and her company creates, every recipe, are made from 100% natural raw vegetable ingredients deep in the heart of Dorset.

Primrose crafts some very delicious breakfast muselis and she has taken the decision to grow their range so there are now even more tasty recipes for you to enjoy.

The purpose is to ensure that their range will be able to help you feel nourished throughout the day as simply as possible.

All of their recipes are gluten free and are suitable for everyone to eat and enjoy, including vegans.

Flavours (all are gluten free and nut free, unless stated otherwise) that were trialled were as follows:

Courgette and Cacao Granola.
This was an example of a chunky type of breakfast cereal. It is made up of sunflower seeds, coconut pieces, sultanas, sprouted buckwheat, dates, courgettes, shelled hemp, cacao, lucuma, cacao butter, ground flaxseed, vanilla, turmeric and kelp powder.

The predominant taste that came through was that of the chocolate flavour from the cacao. (Raw cacao is made by cold-pressing unroasted cocoa beans)

Orange and Cashew Granola
Made from sunflower seeds, orange, sultanas, cashew nuts and coconut pieces
Unsurprisingly the predominant flavour with this particular granola recipe is orange, though as you would expect, it is the flavour of real oranges.

Porridge Oats
This is made with Gluten free oats and nothing else.
It is great made up as a traditional porridge (with only salt, not sugar as my grandfather insisted!) but it is also perfect with cold milk. (Cow, rice, soya, or almond milk, whatever your preference.)

Raw Beetroot and Ginger Muesli
I have to confess that this was my personal favourite. It is made with Gluten free oats, raw beetroot, raw blue agave nectar, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raw virgin coconut oil, almonds, linseeds, coconut pieces, ground ginger, psyllium husk seeds and hemp seeds.

The ginger makes this breakfast cereal a real tongue tingler and the raw beetroot makes the milk turn a delightful shade of pink. You can taste the ginger and also detect the good, honest earthy taste of the raw beetroot working in the background.

Oatmeal and Chia
The same delicious gluten free oatmeal as used in the porridge oats, but with the addition of chia seeds.

The chia seeds add an interesting and subtle taste to the oats. It's almost the same as poppy seeds in flavour, but not quite.

To learn more about the range of breakfast foods and other items that Primrose makes -and to keep your eye open for fresh, new recipes- please drop in to see them at www.primroseskitchen.com 

400 grammes will cost £5.95.

You can purchase Primrose's Kitchen products at the following link http://goo.gl/GjK2SB. Just enter the shop and click on the Grocery section once you are there.

Jimmy's Iced Coffee. Iced coffee like it should be.

Jimmy's Iced Coffee is like iced coffee should be.

There are many types of iced coffee that you can buy in convenience stores, grocers, sandwich shops, supermarkets and the like. But please do mark my words, there is only one Jimmy's Iced Coffee.

Some iced coffees (even those made by some so-called leading brands)  just don't taste right. They are either too weak, or sometimes taste a little bit burnt.

But that's definitely not the case with Jimmy's Iced coffee.

There's no cream in Jimmy's Iced Coffee (well, that is to say unless you choose to add some!) but it does have a deliciously creamy taste and texture to it.

Is it the fact that when you buy Jimmy's Iced coffee you actually get real British milk? Could be!

Let's take a look -and a taste- of Jimmy's Iced Coffee Skinny.

It's deliciously refreshing. You can definitely taste the Arabica coffee (well, with 36% of this making up the coffee part of the taste, that's a certainty!) and the fact that this blend uses British skimmed milk, which makes up 61% of the total content, plus there's the great taste of demerara sugar to add just the right amount of the subtle brown sugar taste that's so often sadly lacking with other types of iced coffee.

The carton tells us that there is 24.9mg of caffeine in every 100ml of coffee.

There's Original, Skinny and Mocha.

It's a family owned business and is made in Britain. In Dorset to be more precise.

It costs £1.59 and bears the legend: "Keep Your Chin Up!" (KYCU)

To learn more visit http://jimmysicedcoffee.com/

Great Uncle Cornelius' range of real non-alcoholic drinks

From the James White company, the Cornelius range is described by the company as: "The 'Great Uncle' to all their brands."

Take a stroll back through time. Not to yesterday, when soft drinks had become chemical concoctions that gave children garishly coloured lips and tongues and hyper-active mad-ups due to the propensity of soft drink makers to shove dubious chemicals into their soft drinks.

We would rather you step back a good deal further, back to a time when soft drinks were made using real fruits, real sugar, some water and nothing else.

Take that step back and you will find yourself in the time of The Great Uncle Cornelius range of James White.

You'll be able to try their Lemon Refresher, which is cloudy because of the fruit juices contained therein, not due to any nasty E number nonsense!

Or try the new Rhubarb Refresher!

Rhubarb is known for its exceptionally tart taste, but combined with just the right amount of apple juice, it makes for a lovely and utterly refreshing drink.

But for those of you who like their drinks a little hotter, why not try Uncle Cornelius' Famous Spiced Ginger?

Enjoy it cold over ice (if you want to add ice, that is?) or why not try it warm?

It makes a perfect Whisky Mac, so add the Scotch (or Irish Whiskey or Welsh whisky) of your choice and you'll soon be in a Celtic heaven!

Or if you are feeling under the weather, add honey to it to make a perfect hot toddy.

Or why not try the James White Organic Ginger Zinger Shot?

It will give you a really good boost, just when you need it and it's free from any horrible additives!

You can buy the James White range of drinks at https://goo.gl/ipT2id

Primula Cheeses. First class, as always

Primula cream cheeses are first class, as they always have been.

When we first tried Primula cheeses back when I was a small child, my favourite was -as it still is- Primula cream cheese with ham.

It actually made perfect party food, with a carefully squeezed amount on Ritz crackers or other similar biscuits, they always looked about as good as they tasted.

And if you wanted to be a little more posh than usual, making Primula Cheese sandwiches (crusts removed and then cut into shapes using small pasty shapes) and your party was the talk of the town. Well, at least the talk of the neighbourhood!

But there's so much more to Primula Cream Cheese than as a nifty and quick party food.

You can use them with jacket potatoes, with new potatoes, as part of an innovative salad dressing, on sandwiches, with pork pies, mixed into mashed potatoes, combined with corned beef hash, or used ot liven up some bubble and squeak, used with with meat pies and even employed to enliven a cheesecake. (Obviously not the savoury flavours, though!)

There's so much that you can do with Primula, that the clever folk at Primula have created a large fund of tasty and innovative recipes for you to make something just that little bit different with your Primula. Well, that's supposing that your family will leave your Primula alone for long enough so that you can have any left to use in your cooking!

You can find the recipes at www.primula.co.uk/recipes.html

Primula is available in the following flavours: Original Cheese, Cheese With Chives, Light Cheese, Cheese With Prawns and Cheese With Ham.

As well as coming in tubes you can also get them in spreadable tubs and there's a range of dips, too.

Weetabix promoting new Weetabix Protein cereal

The most popular British breakfast cereal, Weetabix, is ensuring that it continues to be at the top of it's game, with a massive £2.2 million investment in its new product, Weetabix Protein.

It's running a major TV campaign to promote Weetabix Protein, over the next couple of months.

Global advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty is behind the TV commercial aimed at maximising reach to a mass audience over a period of eight weeks and driving awareness to the latest Weetabix product innovation – Weetabix Protein.

Weetabix Brand Manager Caroline La Niece, said: “New and popular trends are driving the cereal category into fresh avenues and protein is just one of the trends that Weetabix have launched in to.

"The advertising campaign is just another part of our commitment to the new product and a way of telling consumers we've made it simpler to get a high protein, tasty and nutritious breakfast that helps keep them powered throughout the morning."

There are also money off promotions in some retailers.

So, what, exactly, is Weetabix Protein like?

The smart chefs and food researchers employed by Weetabix have made certain that it's pretty much exactly like ordinary Weetabix biscuits (which for us Weetabix fans is a good thing, obviously!) but you can identify that there are rather nice crunchy segments of extra wheat protein within the Weetabix breakfast biscuits.

Can we recommend new Weetabix Protein to our readers? Yes, we can.

It's actually another neat product from Weetabix, which That's Food and Drink is pretty confident you'll enjoy.

And we felt a little bit of a tug at the heartstrings when we watched the video advert, as it's very well done.

Jack Daniel's BBQ marinades

I'll level with you, my wife is not a natural Bourbon drinker (her spirit of choice is Ardbeg Scotch or Bombay Sapphire Gin and that's about it, for her, as far as spirits are concerned!) so she was a little unsure about the Jack Daniels marinades that we were due to review.

But she gamely stepped up to the plate (see what I did, there?) and decided to check them out in our (I beg her pardon, her) kitchen and introduce them to some steaks, some chicken breasts and some pork over a period of several days.

What happened was that my wife is now a compete convert to the Jack Daniels marinades!

And I think they'll be the flavour to make our meats savour throughout this BBQ season and well beyond, too. Will we have Jack Daniels marinades with our turkey next Christmas? Well, let's just say if that happened, I would not be all that surprised!

What really excited my wife was the new Jack Daniel’s® Tennessee Honey™ Barbecue Glaze.

According to the chefs who created this epic product: "It combines with the soft flavours of the popular Jack Daniel’s® Tennessee Honey™ Liqueur, the Tennessee Honey™ Barbecue Glaze has a delicious hint of honey and a smooth flavour, perfect for luxuriously sticky, sweet ribs and glistening chicken wings or simply to use as a dip with a difference for wedges or veggies."

My wife was not too keen on the Extra Hot Habanero Barbecue Sauce, but as I liked that, I guess that's going to be my bottle of choice this BBQ season!

The new Jack Daniel’s® Tennessee Honey™ Barbecue Glaze joins the existing range that includes the Jack Daniel’s® Hot Pepper Steak Sauce, Extra Hot Habanero Barbecue Sauce, Smokey Sweet Barbecue Glaze, Smooth Original Barbecue Sauce and Full Flavor Smokey Barbecue Sauce.

The Jack Daniel’s® Tennessee Honey™ Barbecue Glaze is available now in Tesco stores at a nifty £1.99. The Jack Daniel’s® Extra Hot Habanero is available in Nisa Stores; the Hot Pepper Steak Sauce is available in Tesco, Booths and Nisa stores; the Smokey Sweet Barbecue Glaze is available in Tesco and Nisa stores and the Jack Daniel’s® Smooth Original and Full Flavor Smokey Barbecue Sauces can be found in most major supermarkets across the UK, RRP £2.19.

To learn more just visit http://jackdanielsbbqsauces.com.

Walter and Monty a new charcoal grilling experience in London

There's an absolutely stunning new charcoal restaurant that has opened in the heart of  the City of London.

Walter and Monty is its name, and it is a joint enterprise between Alex Kaye and Nick Ross.

It has its origins and roots in the highly acclaimed Night Tales and Summer Tales in East London, with Alex Kaye's highly acclaimed street food.

This is a perfect way for people to get into the BBQ season, even in the heart of London!

It's open from Monday to Friday 11.30am — 2.30pm, though you should keep an eye open for their great plans to include breakfast and dinner opening times, too!

Look out for the justifiably famed BBQ boneless butterflied leg of lamb, which is one of Alex's best known dishes.

To learn more visit http://www.walterandmonty.com/

You'll find them (next to the Gherkin) in the City of London, in Bury Court, EC3A 7BA, call 020 7283 6666 for details.

You should eat In the Nood!

Yes, you really should eat In The Nood!

Because In the Nood is an absolutely fantastic and incredibly innovative food for those of us who care about what we are consuming.

What is In the Nood? It's a special pouch of absolutely delicious goodness.

The pouch is filled with highly tasty raw ingredients that together combine to create something that's good for everyone, but especially for those who have dietary restrictions.

You can take the mix out and roll it into balls which you can chill, and then eat at your leisure.

These are new products and That's Food and Drink are proud to be amongst the first people to taste test them.

They are created by two incredibly clever people, Alex and Sam Lai.

They are designed to allow you to roll your own energy ball food snack.

The idea is to enable people who need an energy boost, especially if you have an energy deficiency in the mid-afternoon period.

They are also ideal for breakfast, for a picnic snack or for a tasty desert after a BBQ. And kids and adults just love them.

I am a Type 2 Diabetic and rather than gulping down sugar I much prefer to be able to use something like In the Nood, which, although it can give me a carb boost, has no added sugar.

They are also pretty keen as snacks before or after a good work out session.

 ihave created a 'roll your own energy ball' (yes, there's the USP!) to stop those mid-week, mid-afternoon cravings and add a healthy dose of the good stuff, instead of the usual sweet treats - great for summer picnics, BBS, to keep the kids and adults happy!

They come in three delicious flavours: Orange and Cacao, Simpy Cacao, and Crunchy Cacao.

They say: "In the Nood are healthy snacks with nothing to hide. They come in a pack with fully mixed dates, coconut, cacao and other amazing ingredients so you can roll your own energy ball. With three flavours available we've created something that's nutritious and customisable for folks' own recipes, and with NO ADDED SUGAR, they are a great pre or post work out snack, or a snack on the run, or, if you fancy it you can eat it from the bag! Kids will love them too - a whole host of creativity at their fingertips with them making their own recipes and creating fun cookie cutter shapes!"

"The In the Nood energy ball mix is just full of good stuff such as antioxidants, fibre and minerals and no added nasties. It's all about being able to 'roll your own energy ball' to stop those cravings and add a healthy dose of what's great, instead of reaching for the usual naughty sweet treats."

To learn more please visit http://www.inthenood.com.

Each 175g pack costs £7.99.

Yushoi tastes great and is good for you, too

Yushoi tastes great and is good for you, too.

The That's Food and Drink testing team were introduced to the joys of a snack that, despite being one of the most tasty we have tried in a very long time, is actually rather good for you, too!

The recipe of Yushoi Snapea rice sticks calls for them to be made out of green peas and rice.

It's not fried, but rather it is properly baked to seal all those delicious flavours in.

Each 21g serving contains a very pleasing 96 calories and, if that weren't enough, it's high in fibre and is a good protein source, too.

Looking out for someone who has a nut or dairy allergy? Then this product is ideal for them as it is not only nut and dairy free, it is produced in a bakery where nut products are never used.

It's also great for vegans and vegetarians and it has no artificial nasties or MSG.

Flavours that are available are Soy and Balsamic Vinegar, Smoked Salt and Szechuan Pepper and Sweet Chilli and Lemon, plus Lightly Salted.

My wife's favourite is the Smoked Salt and Szechuan Pepper, whilst my favourite was the Soy and Balsamic Vinegar. Other testers preferred the Light Salted variety and the Sweet Chilli and Lemon which carries a heck of a potent punch!

They come in a variety of pack sizes, 21g single serving, 6 x 21g multipacks or a 105g re-sealable sharing bag, so they are idea for whatever you have in mind, be it as part of a healthy lunch, a mid-morning snack, or nibbles for a party.

You should be able to find them in The Cooperative, WH Smith, Whole Foods Market, Selfridge's and Morrisons. You can also buy them on line at either Amazon or Ocado.

The price of a 105g sharing pack is an amazingly low £1.99.

They are produced by Calbee UK, a subsidiary of Calbee Inc., the largest producer of savoury snack foods in Japan.

The product has been designed by top nutritionists working with health experts to make certain that these snacks comply with government criteria to encourage better eating habits and reduce obesity.

www.yushoi.co.uk

There's a new Sauvignon Blanc available. It's from Eisberg

Need to reduce your calorific intake or you can't or won't drink alcohol?

Miss your favourite white wine, miss the taste of Sauvignon Blanc wine?

You do not have to miss it any longer, as Eisberg has introduced a very taste-filled Sauvignon Blanc wine, which has no alcohol and reduced calories.

The alcohol content is never more than 0.05% and one 125ml serving contains only 28 calories. Whilst a standard glass of Sauvignon Blanc wine has something on the order of 104 calories. That's quite a saving.

But you might be thinking: "Well, that's all well and good. It does you good, but does it taste good, too?"

In this instance, it not only has the potential to do you good, it also tastes pretty good, too.

What, exactly, does it taste like?

It has the classic Sauvignon Blanc wine bouquet. Summer fruits and hedgerow fruits are definitely on the nose.

The taste is interesting. There's none of the bite you might expect -no alcohol- but this raises other points of interest. The nose of this wine also follows through to the taste.

This  Sauvignon Blanc wine has a taste of summer fruits, of preserves lovingly  made from wild hedgerow fruits, but with a more exotic undernote, too. What is it? Peaches? Perhaps a combination of peaches and apples?

It is also mouthwatering  and at only £3.50 from Waitrose or Co-op stores all over the country, this is a wine that you simply can't buy by the single bottle. I'd recommend buying them in multiples of three at the very least!