MoneySupermarket are brilliant at coming up with blogger challenges - they recently set us the challenge to give Sophie's room a makeover with a £50 budget and this time, they've launched The Charcoal Challenge - an invitation to host a barbecue with a £50 budget.
Well, we already had the barbecue so we just had to buy a bag of charcoal and a bottle of lighter fuel. (Cost £7.50)
Madhouse Daddy has a bit of a money-saving and environmentally-friendly tip for getting the barbecue started. He uses pine cones as 100% natural firestarters on top of the charcoal instead of those stinky square artificial things. (cost - absolutely nothing !)
Now, it always makes me laugh that as soon as you light a barbecue, all the men - who usually refuse point blank to get involved in the cooking - run over and want to be in charge. I always think it's a Neanderthal thing - all those slabs of raw meat and cooking on an open fire must appeal to some inner virility that goes back to our earliest ancestors ! Oh well, whatever the reason, I'm certainly not complaining !
We always cook loads of different sorts of meat so there are leftovers for an extra couple of meals - we had chicken thighs, chipolatas and beefburgers on the coals at this point but there was round two afterwards, with thinky sliced steaks, pork chops and spare ribs. (Budget : about £35)
While Madhouse Daddy tackled the meat, I got busy in the kitchen making some salad and vegetable accompaniments. I always find the kids will eat more healthy stuff if it looks pretty so I like to arrange vegetable sticks (carrot, cucumber, red pepper) in a sun shape. I piled olives into the centre and whizzed up a bowl of guacamole for dipping them in. (Budget : £2.50)
A big bowl of mixed salad, some homemade potato salad and boiled baby potatoes, plus a family sized bag of crisps, and we had everything we needed on the table.
I'm sure he'd have liked to have unleashed his inner caveman and used a sharpened flint but scissors are actually the easiest thing for cutting up spare ribs !
Now, is it me with a dirty mind or was someone having a laugh when they served me this plateful ?!
That didn't leave me much of a budget for dessert but nobody is ever very hungry after a barbecue because we end up eating way too much because it tastes so good ! A lovely honeydew melon, chilled in the fridge and chopped into slices dripping with sweet juice, was the perfect way to end the meal.
That's definitely a taste of summer ! Hopefully barbecue season is here to stay for at least a while longer.
Disclosure : I was given £50 to cover the costs of the barbecue, in order to take part in The Charcoal Challenge with Money Supermarket - click through to find out how to join in.
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Madhouse Daddy doesn't look like Neanderthal at all. PMSL at the food design on the plate, and yes, it does look a bit 50shades.
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