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If there has been one thing I have missed during the whole Coronavirus debacle, it has been the opportunity to spend time with family. Nothing flash, just having people over and enjoying the time together. What better way to do this than with a BBQ!?
Aside from the obvious (wasps), the downside of a BBQ is that it can get pretty expensive. Unless you are a fan of a cheapo sausage – and I am not – then by the time you have forked out for meat, buns, drinks and all of the sides… Well, you could be headed for a bit of a dent in the weekly food budget let’s put it that way.
Jacks supermarket challenged me to get together with family and have a BBQ on a budget. Honestly, I wasn’t convinced that it could be done without forgoing the BBQ food I like but I took their challenge and here is what happened.
So, where was the BBQ?!
First steps in putting together a lovely BBQ afternoon with family is to make sure you actually own a BBQ. When I announced the plan at 11:30am on a sunny Sunday, I was quickly reminded by MrG that we did not, in fact, own a BBQ because I dislike sharing my meal with wasps and the cheap barrel BBQ we bought 10 years ago had long since rusted away. Not an ideal start to be honest.
Luckily Jacks has an awesome middle aisle where I found a decent sized BBQ for less than £60! That was 1 box ticked! I was also able to grab a BBQ cleaning brush and some tongs and a burger flipper. I presented these items to MrG who was less excited to receive my gift than you might imagine. Guess who is on cleaning duty..
The grub
A quick trip to Jacks and we were loaded up with goodies. Managing to get all of the food I needed to feed 7 people (plus leftovers) for less than £40 was a great feeling.
I picked up packs of quarter pounders and sausages for the kids. I was really surprised by the quality of the burgers for the price especially as they were 86% beef!
The Firepit range at Jacks is awesome. Priced at just £2.99 per pack there was a range of tasty sounding products including kebabs, maple pork loin steaks and even flavoured cheeses!
I chose the salt and pepper thin cut beef steaks which were every bit as tasty as they looked. Also, the peri peri chicken which I used to make chicken, pepper and chorizo kebabs. Everyone loved these!
The kids wolfed down the sausages and burgers and to be honest so did the grown ups! We all agreed that the Jacks brand ketchup and mustard were really lovely especially for less than £2 for both bottles!
For our side dishes I made a lovely green salad using fresh ingredients from Jacks veg aisle and a rice salad which was just a couple of packs of Jacks golden savoury rice (35p per pack) which I cooked and then quickly cooled in cold water.
We all thought that the bottles of pop were great value at 45p each.
The veggie option
My niece has been a vegetarian for quite a while now and thankfully meat free options are becoming more and more widely available and the choice better and better!
Jacks stocked meat free sausages and burgers and I was also able to keep to veg for the side dishes. Coleslaw was just 38p for a tub and the Jacks potato salad was 55p. I even knocked up a veg kebab which my niece refused to share…
As well as the savouries we also found some delicious sweet options. Of course we had to have some marshmallows for toasting but we also chose the double chocolate gateaux and the toffee and pecan roulade. It was decided pretty early on that the kids would have the gateaux and the grown ups would get to share the roulade. This worked out very well on all counts and I even saved on washing up as you can see…
We loved the chance to spend time together and Jacks was an excellent choice when it came to keeping the costs low without compromising on quality or taste. We bought all of the food and drinks shown in this post for under £40 and Jacks also offer a BBQ bundle which comes in at less than £20!
What is your favourite BBQ food? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
