Cooking with Old El Paso

Living as an expat in South Africa, involves regular trips to the home land to visit family and friends. With all of our 5 children now living back in the UK, these trips home will become more frequent. The family are spread from Leeds, down to Gloucester, through South Wales and in Bath. 

I don't view my trips home as a chore, but it certainly isn't a holiday. Whether staying with family or friends for a night or a bit longer, I do cause a disruption to their lives and it does cost them money to have me to stay, involving not only feeding me, shifting kids out of their room and a lift here and there, but it costs me money also, a gift, bunch of flowers or a meal out.

When the people at Old El Paso asked me if I would like to review their products, I jumped at the chance. I could cook for the people I was staying with as a thank you.

I've cooked and shared, fajitas, tacos, rice dishes and casseroles. I've supervised my friend's children cooking and been cooked for by another friend.

My parents don't like spicy food and stick with what they know, but as the interfering daughter concerned about their health I often cook when I visit, on this trip I arrived and my Mother informed me she had bought chicken and vegetables and added it would be a shame to break with tradition so I could cook dinner. Digging into my hand bag I pulled out the 'One Pan Rice Meal, extra mild, super tasty' and set to work.

I didn't add the onions or the pepper as suggested on the box as neither of my parents are keen on them and I only added half the spice mix.

I gave my mother the task of stirring and keeping an eye on things and she kept asking me when she should put the rice on. I kept explaining it was already in the pan and was cooking altogether.

We served it with steamed vegetables, it easily served 3 adults and would've pushed to 4 if needed.

It was eaten and enjoyed by all, with my mother adding....'it's not something I would have chosen to eat, but I did enjoy it and would have it again.' Unfortunately I'm not back in the UK until December, so she'll have to wait.

To see the full range and get some recipe ideas visit here.

Cooking with Old El Paso

The lovely people at Old El Paso asked me if I'd be interested in doing a food review for their products.....oh course I would and I get many requests but have to turn most of them down as I live in South Africa, however this offer coincided with a trip to the UK so I accepted and this arrived at my mums house this week. Check out their website for fab recipes and Party Planning.

My teenage son is in boarding school in the UK and is travelling the UK with me during the Easter holidays, as I visit family and friends around the country. Last week we were in Herefordshire staying with friends, a family of 5. Mum had been in hospital so I spent my time cooking, washing and cleaning as a way of saying thank you for having us to stay and helping. I could've done with my box of goodies last week, but I'm going to save something to cook with them before I return home.

This week I'm in Monmouth, South Wales, staying with a family of 6, they are renovating and extending their house and we are currently only have access to one toilet between the 8 of us. Any offer of help with their 4 children aged 11, 10, 9 and 6 is greatly received. Tonight the 4 children and I delved into the box and chose to cook the fajitas. 

Having sliced the chicken, the children then chopped the vegetables, got out all the equipment we needed which was a frying pan and a spatula. 

The fajitas were enjoyed by all including the 10 year old who declared he didn't like chicken, peppers or onions. We had to purchase additional wraps as there were only 8 included in the pack. We also left the wraps in the oven too long and some of them were a bit hard, but they made excellent chips to use with the dips.

I don't know how much the Old El Paso fajita box cost, the chicken, onions and peppers and an extra 8 wraps cost an additional £8.50 we also added some grated cheese.

The children had great fun preparing and cooking the mix and experimented and competed with the best way to roll the wraps. We all enjoyed the relish, although it was a bit difficult to squeeze out the sweetcorn from the bottle. tomorrow we have opted to try the Warming paprika and Herbs Casserole Recipe Mix served with rice.

I'm off to Bath over the Easter weekend to stay with another family of 6 and will be taking what's left to cook there and saving the Original Beef Tacos for my return visit to friends in Herefordshire.

I'll be using Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as chickenruby the rest of the meals over the next week.