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When it is hot my husband would love to barbecue every single night, but I have to consider our budget when meal planning. After shopping at the butchers our bill was rather large so I added fish to our barbecue plan and compromised on some nights by substituting a cheap meal like pasta. See what you think….

1. Barbecued Trout, green salad and rice.
2. Kedgeree (I use a Nigella Lawson recipe – read it here) with salad.
3. Barbecued Sausages, new potato salad, rocket salad.
4. Bacon, spinach and creme fraiche pasta with salad.
5. Barbecued Chinese spiced ribs, rice salad, rocket and radish salad.
6. Barbecued Mackerel fillets, new potatoes and tomato salad.
7. Barbecued Minted Lamb chops, cous cous and marinated green bean salad.

How can you do a really tasty barbecue really quickly?

We have found the answer by buying all our meat already marinated from the butcher. Buying marinated meat is only a few pennies more but it saves time and we have been so impressed with the quality. The butcher is able to marinate the meat for much longer than we would and as a result the meat tastes incredible!

I enjoyed watching Jamie Oliver’s episode of ‘Jamie at Home’ on Channel 4, where he shared loads of great tips on barbecuing, watch it here.

Last week I saw Jamie Oliver cook tapas on ITV’s This Morning.

Jamie Oliver Does Tapas

At the end of the segment he quickly mentioned that tapas doesn’t have to be limited to Spanish cuisine, he suggested making English tapas with mini pork pies, scotch eggs and the like. This got me thinking how fun it would be to share a totally different type of meal, with lots of different things to fill up your plate and loads of different flavours to try. If people come over to eat they can help themselves to half a dozen small dishes rather than me being stuck in the kitchen by myself serving up.

At home I have already coined the term ‘Baby Tapas’ where I serve my son lots of different things to eat at once. He is such a little fuss pot when it comes to eating and I find a little of several things sometimes tempts him. So tapas for dinner would suit Baby G too.

Well, if I try ‘English Tapas’ what dishes should I cook? Scampi? Slices of apple with crumbled Stilton? Mini Yorkshire Puddings, mini Toad in the Hole, mini Cornish Pasties? Tapas does include hot dishes too, so maybe small portions of Stew and Dumplings or  Kedgeree. I definitely don’t want to end up just serving a buffet, so I think this is going to take some time and consideration. Yet if I try out a different country every time I can see the possibilities for this type of meal being endless. Help! I’m going to need some ideas!