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Welcome back to Spotlight Sunday! This week we’re shining the light on Mallons, a fantastic Irish Company based in Monaghan.

A little background on the company, their company dates back to the 1940’s when Arthur Mallon opened a butcher shop in Monaghan town. From then the Mallon brand has gone from strength to strength, creating new innovative products that are of top quality.

Their own range has over 14 different products, today we’re testing one of their newer products, the Straight To Oven Pork Sausages with Carmelised Onion Gravy! Here’s how we got on…

As per the instructions, we pre-heated the oven to 190 degrees, we removed the sleeve, film and sachet of gravy. We placed the foil tray onto a baking tray and placed it onto the middle shelf in the oven. We let them cook for 15 minutes, turning them half way through. When the 15 minutes were up were removed the foil tray from the oven, open the sachet of gravy and poured it evenly onto the sausages. We then returned the foil tray back into the oven for a final five minutes.

Below are the cooking instructions, ingredients, storage instructions and allergens!

Rating – The DEMC Food Scale!

Appearance – the sausages were very uniform in appearance, but a little pale after cooking. Good helping of caramelised onion gravy to pour over the top of the sausages just before the end of cooking time. 4/5

Taste – the sausages were firm, meaty and tasty. The caramelised onion gravy added to the overall flavour and would be great served as a family dinner with some mash or Colcannon. 3/5

Smell – Good savoury aroma around the kitchen as the sausages cook, with notes of onion once the glaze / gravy has been poured on! 3/5

Easy to Use – Virtually no mess, cook the sausages, pour on the gravy and get ready to see the kids smiling ! Just be careful when you are taking the tray out of the oven to add the gravy, the tray was hot and there was a little oil in the bottom of the tray. Took a little longer to cook in our oven. 4/5

Overall DEMC Food Rating is….3.5!!!

Have you tried the Mallons straight to oven sausages?

Thanks for reading!

The DEMC FoodTeam

Welcome to our first Spotlight Sunday. Every Sunday we will be choosing an Irish food producer, trying out one of their products and letting you know what they are like. First up is Bake It Easy! A family owned business based in Kerry, here in Ireland. Maria (the brains behind the business,according to their website, see below for details) is really passionate about homemade food so she created the mixes as a way to make good quality, delicious home baking easy, convenient and fun!

As you can tell from the simple but fun packaging, what you see is what you get! All of the ingredients are layered  and clearly visible which gives the impression that there are no hidden ingredients. All you need to do is add some butter and an egg. Sounds pretty simple right? Let’s see how we got on…

 

Directions on the Label:

1. Preheat Oven to 180 degrees
2. In a bowl mix 115g of cooled, melted butter & one egg until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, empty the contents of the Bake It Easy jar and mix thoroughly.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and blend with a wooden spoon until fully combined.
5. Drop heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased baking tray and shape.
6. Bake for about 12 minutes. Let cool for 5.

 

So we did as the label instructed us to, we mixed the butter & egg until smooth.

We then emptied our Bake It Easy jar into a separate bowl and mixed thoroughly.

Next up, we mixed the wet & dry ingredients!

Then we blended it with a wooden spoon, it came together really quickly!

Next we heaped some teaspoons of dough, rolled them up and laid them out on ungreased trays. We easily fit 6 cookies on two trays!

After about 12/13 minutes in the oven, our cookies were done. Smelt incredible too!

And voila! Very easy, very simple and VERY delicious! This would be such an easy thing for children to do, without creating a big mess in the kitchen! Also it’s quick and easy for any adults who like cookies too!

We would definitely recommend picking up a jar of Bake It Easy. As you can see, it’s very simple, little to no mess involved and a hell of a lot of fun! There are 4 different options to choose from, the Choca Block, Choco Berry, Oately Dotely and Smart Cookie. They are reasonably priced at €5 and absolutely delicious. You can pick up a jar on their website or in select stores listed on their website! http://www.bakeiteasy.ie/

Rating – The DEMC Food Scale!

Appearance: Clear fun packaging which could be used again,  the cookies were golden brown with great contrasting colour from the sugar coated chocolate candy. 4/5

Taste: Sweet,soft biscuit with a slight bite. 4/5

Smell: Mouth watering aroma that filled the kitchen 5/5

Easy to Use: Clear, easy to follow instructions, would be ideal for parent and child baking session 5/5

Overall the Bake It Easy Cookies get a big 4.5 star rating from the DEMC Food Team!

 

Have you tried a Bake It Easy cookie mix before?

Thanks for reading!

The DEMC FoodTeam

We went along to the festivities of the Limerick 2020 judging day on July 12^th. It was a great day and the sunshine came out to celebrate too! There were lots of cool stands and features all over the main street in Limerick city.  We met some seriously cool food producers and companies, joined in on a recipe swap and tried food and drinks from different countries. We took some snaps of the coolest parts of the day so that we could share them with you!

Some of the food producers we met included, Urban Co-Op, Pandora Bell, Mexican Food Dudes, Coqbull and many more. All brilliant companies so make sure to check them out.

One of our favourites parts of the day was the time we spent in the food marquee. There were several tables, each from different countries. There was a Greek, Nigerian, Afghanistan and Argentinian table. They were all doing a recipe swap as well as giving out samples of their chosen dish/ treat to represent their culture. We tasted some caramel from Argentina, some hot chocolate from Nigeria and some Green Tea Chai from Afghanistan. All delicious.

Lastly we had some dinner in Marco Polo, a restaurant based right in the center of the city. Fabulous restaurant, the food was divine and the staff were great.

We had so much fun and even if Limerick didn’t win the European city of culture for 2020, we were really impressed and had a fantastic day! Did you go out to support your local city that was in the running for European city of culture 2020 ? Let us know in the comments…

 

Thanks for reading,

The DEMC Team!

Hi it’s Donna,

Welcome to our blog! I am really excited to be launching this new blog which will give me a chance to talk about lots of different things. Things to expect from our blog are top trends, changes in the food industry, food safety, Irish food producers,  we will be blogging about any and all food festivals and events we attend along with sharing our tips and tricks and discussing some of my favourite foods.

There is so much information and legislation out there at the moment for food producers, it’s no wonder the final consumer can gets confused. We want to help create a food safety culture which ensures that people get the right information in the easiest and clearest way possible. Sometimes you have a question about food that you’ve bought and you don’t know who to ask, such as can I use a food after it’s use by date? What does best before really mean? Should I complain? If I have a complaint, what information does the food producer need in order to resolve the issue? We hope to give lots of practical advice and break down the barriers between consumer and producer!

We’ve a keen interest in finding out where our food comes from, we love to shop local and look for high quality products at the best price. As a company we provide quality and technical services to the food industry. We have over 28 years of experience and are really passionate about food safety! Check out our services section and see how we can help you. You can also follow us on social media for daily updates and some fun facts about food!

Thanks for reading, we hope you’ll enjoy our blog!

Creating a food safety culture together,

Donna!