Sharwood - Easy as 1, 2, 3

Food 24 used to have forums, maybe they still do but I haven't been to them in years. Most often than not,. they were filled with Vegan v.s. anti-vegan debate (read: flame wars) but soon it as obvious that there had to be a different platform for people to share recipes. So the food blogs were born and I took to blogging like a duck to water. 

Some light entertainment from a talented dancer before the cooking started

My first post was by no means brilliant, and many to follow were not much better but it was really only a place for me to keep my kitchen wizadry in a place I could find it again. Online I could access it anywhere, it wasn't going to get lost under a pile of laundry, or get stuck to the back of another book only to be found years from now. 

Then something strange happened, people started commenting. That meant people were reading it and I had to start making more of an effort. I didn't mind since it meant making people happy with food and I love doing that. From then I worked hard to produce what I felt at the time were quality posts (looking back I cringe though) and at a point I was posting almost every day.

One of our beautiful host having fun with the fish

As the blogs got more popular, more people posted and I developed a pet peeve. There I was, slaving away in the kitchen coming up with unique, delicious and easy to make recipes and people are posting about a pasta sauce they made with ready-made ingredients. I would see beautiful titles for "perfect, home made mushroom lasagne" and they had used packet mushroom sauce (just add water for that over salted fake taste) and a jar of pre-made pasta sauce. 

This developed into a dislike for all things pre-made and soon I was knocking out things I would normally just buy, like Sweet Chilli sauce. I had a sense of righteousness that rivalled the snottiest heiress and I became a total snob. Until I had a baby.

Stir frying the prawns

So now, here I sit. Not only do I use some pre-prepared ingredients in my cooking but I am even going to blog about one. Please be fair in your judgement of me, when I do commit the sin of lazy cook I try and do so with high quality ingredients. Ones that contain as few preservatives as possible, but still make it easy for me to feed my family before 10 o'clock at night. So when I was invited to cook with Sharwood (see my previous post about freebies and cooking events) I was keen to see what they had to offer.

Just add sauce.

Their product range is extensive. From the Southern most tip of India, to the cities of China, you can choose which part of Asia you would like your taste buds to explore. We were split into groups and each one did one Indian meal and one Chinese meal which we combined in a delicious buffet for all to enjoy and enjoy we did. I expected what you always get from bottled goods, over salted with that weird mouth-feel preservatives give you. What I got was spicy and flavourful with more than enough room to season to your taste. 

They really are as easy as 1-2-3. Cook protein and veg, add sauce, serve. Each dish is quick to prepare as all the lovely flavours have been developed in the sauce already but you can also leave your proteins or veg to cook for longer if you have the time and the want. Thank you Sharwood for a fun a delicious morning and to those of you with a love of good food and little time to make it I urge you to give them a try.

So many dishes to try