A Splash of Purple on your Plate

I am a sauce kind of girl. I love sauces - tomato, mayo, mustard, tartar. BBQ whichever, whatever, I love a sauce! It's always a struggle on a Sunday morning when I have to think about what sauce to have in my sausage or bacon sandwich - should I go tomato or BBQ, red or brown. Well, Premier Inn have gone and thrown another colour into the mix - Purple Sauce! Yes, purple - my favourite colour when I was a teenager (yes I know, very unoriginal).  

 

 

Purple food stuff may not sound like the most attractive offering but when I received my bottle from the lovely people at Premier Inn I was very pleasantly surprised at how "naturally" purple it was - naturally purple, what a phrase!

 

 

It probably looks natural because it is made from natural ingredients, the main one being blackberries (yay for a sauce using such a traditional British fruit). It also contains spices such as black pepper, chillies and cumin. It is also pleasing to see that it contains no artificial colours or flavourings which makes me pretty happy!

 

 

 

I tried this sauce on my favourite breakfast treat - a sausage sandwich. And it was the perfect compliment to the juicy, fat Cumberland sausages I picked up from our local butcher. As a side note I like to griddle toast my bread for a sausage sandwich....so good.

 

 

 

Back to the sauce, I really enjoyed it. To me it was a really interesting mix of the smokiness of a BBQ, the fruitiness of brown sauce and the tangy-ness of a tomato sauce - it was like the perfect combination of all my favourite breakfast sauces. I usually like mustard on my sausage sandwich but the slight heat from all the spices meant I didn't need to add that either!

 

 

 

 

I'm very lucky that I was sent a bottle of the sauce so this can make a regular appearance at my breakfast (and lunch and dinner) and if you want to give this a try then you'll find sachets of Purple Sauce on the breakfast table in Premier Inn restaurants across the country from 20th July – get there quick, it’s only available for a limited time.  Although I personally think that they should be selling it on the supermarket shelves - a sauce this good needs to be available to all!

 

 

 

Disclaimer: The lovely people at Premier Inn sent me the sauce to try. All thoughts and ideas are my own

My Little Dream Box..... a review

Box subscriptions; a new(ish) concept for the UK, are something that I never really thought I'd buy into - a monthly box, full of things you have no control over?! How bizarre! However, My Little Box started popping up on my facebook and blog feed so I thought I'd bite the bullet and give it a go, after all you can cancel your subscription at any time no problem!

Every month there is a different theme, last month was superhero (wasn't that impressed) But this time it was my little dream box. And dreamy it was - I loved it. As you can see there were some great goodies, my favourite were the lip gloss and the cleanser which smells so gorgeous!


Its a great box subscription and this month's box has made me excited for the next one and I'm always impressed with how much you get for the money (£14.95).  Anyone else subscribe to a box? What's the best?

Just so you know this is just a review of something I subscribe too - I was in no way compensated for this post!Although if Little Box ever want to send me anything thats cool! 

Whitstable (again): The Sportsman

I don’t think I shared my list of things that I want to do in 2014. It’s not a really long list about 10 things that my love and I have decided that we want to tick off. One of my favourite ones was “Eat a tasting menu at a Michelin starred restaurant”. Last week I got to tick that one of the list at my favourite place – Whitstable, well its actually in Seasalter but that's just a stones throw away. It was my birthday meal and it was outstanding. SO good that at times I couldn’t talk. That actually happened.

The Sportsman looks like a slightly tired pub from the outside. Nothing to write home about, I actually thought we had the wrong place. You go in and the food is just on the chalkboard. We went for the tasting menu which had about five items on it. Turns out to be more like 10. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
 

How all good meals should begin

Let me take you on my culinary adventure...

Amazingly clever presentation

 Yes we started with an egg. But my goodness what was in that egg was pretty special. Smoked eel (no I didn’t think I would like it either) with this creamy foam and then the egg yolk with a parsley like sauce. It literally exploded in mouth and really got my taste buds going. Twas immense.

The most amazing scallop

 

Next up was a scallop with seaweed butter (they use the seaweed from the beach which is right outside the restaurant) I don’t usually like scallops but this was delicate and beautifully cooked.

 

Oysters: My Favourite

 

I love Oysters they are one of my favourite things to eat.... This was a rock oyster which had been poached for just a couple of seconds in oyster milk with some caviar. I can’t even talk about how good this was. Usually I like raw oysters with shallot vinegar but this was just stunning – lush. The second was a native oyster with homemade chorizo – yup they make their own chorizo. Lovely it was too.

Who knew bread could be so wonderful

 Next up was my beloveds’ favourite. Three types of homemade bread with homemade butter. Yup they make their own bread and their own butter. And if I had to live of bread and butter ever, I’d hope it would be like this.

Vegetarian Loveliness

 
Next up was the dish that I wasn’t really looking forward too but that was a culinary delight. It was braised red cabbage with the most beautiful sauce and homemade cheese, YES THEY MAKE THEIR OWN CHEESE. It was beautiful and what I loved most about it is that it was unexpectedly beautiful. Being a fresh produce kind of girl, I loved the way that it was the main component of the dish – No meat, no fish just a really underrated vegetable cooked and served in a really exciting way. Kudos Sportsman, Kudos.

My absolute favourite

Our sixth dish was a simply cooked piece of sea bream, crab bisque and a crab croquette serves on a bed of samphire. My favourite. I loved this dish probably because I love seafood so much but it really was beautifully executed and the flavours were sublime.

 

Never thought I'd like pork belly so much

Pork Belly followed with some of the best mash potato I’ve ever had in my life. Mash potato is after all my favourite comfort food. The sauce was lovely and I’m not usually a fan of pork belly but this was good.

Hoe cute is that?

 

Next up was the funkiest palette cleanser– rhubarb ice lolly and cake milk. I love rhubarb and it’s really in season at the moment so the sharpness of the fruit with the creamy sauce just blew my mind and was so fun.

Then I failed as a blogger because I forgot to take a picture of the pudding which was a chocolate and salted caramel tart with blood orange ice cream which was every bit as good as it sounds.

 

I smiled my way through this lovely meal

Great staff, relaxed atmosphere, quirky, The Sportsman is a gem of a venue serving un-pretentious, brilliant food which showcases local produce at its optimum. Wheelers you’ve got a rival for my favourite restaurant ever. I can’t wait to return.....it’s our anniversary in July *HINT*

Go, you have to just go.

Sunday Walk #3 - Otford Circular Walk, with a new gadget!

Beautiful Kentish Countryside

Ah, a walk post. Its been a while. We have been walking, its just I always seem to forget to take my i-phone camera when we go on our walks. I remembered this time though which meant I take photos of my favourite new gadget, my trusty pedometer, my Ozeri 4x3motion Digital Pocket 3D Pedometer with Tri-Axis Technology to be completely exact (try saying that after a glass or two of wine).

 

Now before you raise a quizzical eyebrow I have had many pedometers in my time but this is by far the best one I have used. I choose the yellow colour as I find black a bit boring and its nice and bright. When you first get it, its really easy to set up so it is personal to you and means it is more accurate when it comes to your results. It doesn't need to be clipped to your belt, which can be annoying; you can either have it around your neck as it comes with a strap or put it in your pocket (as I tend to do)

 

Back to the walk,  with said pedometer in my pocket we set of on our Sunday walk, I thought it would be quite easy as it was only a six mile walk, but my goodness it was a tough six miles, with lots of steep hills. Steep hills are not my friend.

I found these steps a bit daunting (in my defence there were about 200 of them)

 

 

But getting to the top felt pretty good.....

 

There were lots of muddy fields to traipse through with lots of lovely views of the beautiful Kentish countryside which I am getting to love more and more as we have our Sunday walks.

We walked for around two and a half hours and my trusty pedometer told me lots of interesting facts like how many steps I had taken and how many calories I had burned.... it was a little off on the distance we had walked but that's not the main reason I have this. I love the design and the way the data is so easy to read and how it is displayed which even a novice like me can understand.

**While I was sent the pedometer to review by the lovely people at Ozeri, all opinions expressed are of course my own.**