Food Club
This is the Spence&Co Food Club, a club for likeminded individuals that all share a passion for good, quality local produce.
Here you will find our recipes, updates from our suppliers and their products as well as interesting and exciting ways to use some of the products we sell. We'll also keep you updated on new lines in store, taster days and general chit chat about all that is good with food. Scroll down to have a read of some of meals we like to cook at home. All simple to prepare and perfect family food or to share with friends.
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Rosemary and
Garlic Roasted
Camembert with
posh toast
Grab yourself a camembert and score around the edges and stud it with some rosemary twigs and garlic slivers drizzle with a bit of olive oil and roast in the oven at 180c for about 15/20mins until the cheese is gorgeously gooey.
Any bread is awesome with Camembert but try our red onion and parmesan, lightly toasted, generously buttered, cut into fingers and dipped in for lovely cheesy yumminess.
I particularly like this on a Sunday afternoon after a lovely trail run served with a glass of red.
Roasted
Sausages
with Balsamic
Chuck some nice thick sausages in a baking tray, add in some chunky chopped peppers (3 is usually good), red onion wedges, drizzle with honey, olive oil season and thyme (dried is fine).
Preheat the oven to 200c roast for 10mins then scatter in a handful of vine cherry tomatoes. Shake the tin a few times during cooking and serve with creamy mustard mash.
Once you’ve served the sausages and so not to waste anything put the roasting on the hob over a high heat add in a dash of hot water or stock to de-glaze the baking tray and stir so it lifts up all the cooking sediment, add a dash of olive oil or butter to add some shine and drizzle over the sausages. Comfort food which seems to give you a hug.
Roasted Chicken
and Root Veg with
Tarragon Butter
This is an easy one tray meal and a funky alternative to a traditional Sunday lunch.
Get yourself a nice fat free range chicken and a good third of a block of butter. I know this sounds a lot and it probably is, but it tastes delish! Soften the butter slightly and season and add some tarragon, dried works well. Tarragon is quite subtle so you can be generous, have a little taste but a rough estimate is 1-2 level teaspoons.
Cut some slits in the chicken skin and push generous moulds of the butter in and work it around so it covers the meat, rub any remaining butter on the skin, reserving some to dot around on the veg. Season well and put in a baking tray. Add in new potatoes and half larger ones and some baby chantey carrots and roast at 180c for 45mins, checking regularly, basting the chicken and veg with the tarragon butter. After 45mins add in 2/3 chunky chopped leeks and continue to roast and baste until cooked, approx. 1hr 30/45min depending on your chicken size.
Take the chicken out and cover with foil to allow it to rest, remove the veg and place in an oven proof bowl in a low oven to keep warm. Put the roasting tray back on the hob, add a tub of crème fraiche, low fat is fine as the butter is rich, but I wouldn’t use cream as it can make it too rich. If the sauce is a little thick take it down with a bit of chicken stock, add some Dijon mustard to taste and season.
Pile the buttery roasted veg into warmed bowls, pile slices of chicken on top and drizzle with the tarragon butter sauce. Yum!
Spinach Soup
I adore this soup and what’s better is it is super easy to make and its so good for you, I feel healthier with every spoonful.
Melt some butter in a pan with a couple of chopped garlic cloves and 1 finely chopped onion. Let this cook slowly, you want the onion to become translucent and soft not brown. Then add in a medium chopped potato cook for a minute then pour in 450ml of vegetable or chicken stock and simmer for 8-10minutes.
Then pour in 600ml of milk half a 450grm bag of spinach and half lemon zested, cover and simmer for 15mins then add in the rest of the spinach and allow to wilt down in the heat and then blitz to a smooth consistency. By adding the rest of the spinach at the end it keeps the colour vibrant and green. Finish with a cheffy drizzle of cream and black pepper and serve with chunks of lovely bread to dip in.
I often double or triple this recipe and take for lunch.
Barbeque Sauce
Okay so BBQ sauce may not seem very grown up and its what you normally associate with children and chicken nuggets but please try this. I am not normally a fan of BBQ sauce, I find it too sweet and sickly but the aniseed flavours from the fennel seeds really come through and add another dimension to it and somehow make it acceptable for a 40 something adult to eat it.
Finely chop 4 garlic cloves and 2 onions and add to a frying pan with oil and cook gently to soften, don’t have the heat too high as you don’t want them to brown. Add dried or fresh red chilli to taste, 2tsp of crushed fennel seeds and 115grm of brown sugar. Cook until the sugar has melted and add 100ml of dark soy and 600ml of ketchup and black pepper. Don’t add any salt as the soy is salty so you won’t need it. Allow it cook and the flavours come together. Can be easily doubled or tripled and keep in a glass jar in the fridge until needed.
Go to your local butchers, get a rack of ribs (very inexpensive), ask your butcher to remove the membrane off the underside of the ribs as it can be a little chewy. Preheat oven to 130c and place the rack of ribs in a baking tray, keeping whole or chop in half if required to fit it in the tray. Season well and cover with foil for 3-4 hours.
Check in on the ribs to see how they are cooking, when the meat is soft pour over the BBQ sauce and uncover and turn up the heat to 200c to get a bit of colour and caramelisation on the sauce, this shouldn’t take long, around 10minutes. Cut up the ribs and place on a warmed serving plate. Serve with chunky chips, creamy coleslaw and buttered corn cobs.
Don’t forget the napkins, this is messy finger food, not a first date meal!
Turkish
Menemen
(Eggs and Peppers)
I discovered this recipe after a tough bike training session with my brother. We were starving and came back to my house and needed something to eat pronto however the fridge was bare apart from a few peppers and half pack of eggs. I’d just come back from Majorca cycling and remembered a recipe in a magazine that I bought for the plane journey and knew I could cobble this together with other store cupboard ingredients.
Add a finely chopped onion, some garlic, 2/3 chopped green peppers and half teaspoon of crushed cumin seeds to a wide flat pan and cook gently. The peppers don’t need to be too finely chopped but not chunky, somewhere in between. Cook until tender, add a can of tomatoes, at the time I had a tin of tinned cherry tomatoes and these worked very well, or you could use tinned plum tomatoes or fresh, but either way don’t skimp they must be good quality. Season well, especially salt as tomatoes need salt to enhance the flavour. Let it simmer for 10-15minutes until it thickens and taste to check the seasoning. Make four hollows with a spoon and crack an egg into each one and allow to simmer until the whites are cooked and the yolks are runny, finish with black pepper.
When I first made it, I had some stale bread which I toasted and buttered and dipped in. No need for plates as well, we put the pan on the table, two spoons and just dug in.
If you have them and want to make this look a bit special, top with finely chopped spring onion and fresh coriander, warm crusty bread or flat breads. To add a bit of extra zing you can make some tahini yogurt to serve on the side. Mix 200ml of natural yogurt with 1 garlic clove minced, 2tbsp of tahini, 1tbsp lemon juice, ½ teaspoon ground cumin, pinch of salt, mix together and drizzle with olive oil
Cointreau
Mango’s
I love all tropical fruit but my favourite of all is Mango. There really isn’t any cooking to this but it does turn a simple mango into super tasty and very impressive dessert and even better takes barely any time to prepare
Chop up 3 ripe mango’s (hard mango’s don’t work as well) into nice bitesize pieces, place in a bowl with 3tbsp of Cointreau, cover and chill for a few hours or overnight. Finely shred a small handful of fresh mint leaves and stir in.
Place into pretty glass dishes and serve as it is or with a scoop of good quality vanilla ice-cream.
Do you have a favourite recipe that you’d like to share with us? If so, we’d love to hear from fellow foodies, please email it over to us via the button below and we’ll look at publishing it on our website.
