As a Chef I take inspiration for food from all over such as other brilliant Chefs or food blogs.

But more often than not the inspiration comes from one thing, a place such as the Canary islands was one this week as I made Canary Island mojo sauce. But it could be anything nearly, a person or a ingredient maybe.

Because we are not working at the moment due to the lovely Covid 19 it has enabled me to cook at home and my Facebook page is full of lock down cooking.

People who know me, know I am passionate about Human Rights and I follow the legendary Human Rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith on Twitter, founder of @reprieve. See my other blog post why and this will explain why we give to the charity Appeal, we also include Appeal in our logo design on our clothing. 

Anyway I saw Clive had made some wild garlic pesto and served it on toast with cheese. Fancy cheese on toast, which then sparked a memory of Austin my friend and Chef collecting wild garlic which we used to make wild garlic sausage last spring.

But I wanted to make pesto, something I have not done in more years that I care to remember and I didn’t have any wild garlic. I knocked up some basil pesto and loved it, quickly followed by some mixed herb and I finally made Canary Island mojo sauce which was 5 years late in the making.

As we are in lock down I went on my daily walk and went where I thought I might find wild garlic and bingo it was there.

On my return home I had a quick twitter conversation  with the legend that is Clive Stafford Smith I came up with this recipe. I can honestly say it rocked and was well worth the effort.

The creation was wild garlic pesto, halloumi cheese, grilled veg tacos with Tzatziki dressing.

The dish consisted of

Wholemeal tacos/flatbread

Grilled onions, peppers and courgette

Pit cooked roasted sweet potato

Grilled halloumi

Wild garlic pesto

Tzatziki dressing

I part cooked for speed the sweet potato in the oven then finished it off in the coals of the grill, this takes it to a different level and adds a smokiness you would not get. I made the tacos and these were grilled on the BBQ.

The veggie kebabs were slowly cooked to start and when softening finished on the high heat side. The dressing and pesto was made so it was just a case of grilling the halloumi and we were done.

Simply add the different veg to the taco, dress in Pesto and Tzatziki and eat.

This dish was full of flavour and tasted great, it had smokiness, sweetness and a earthiness taste you just cannot buy from a shop.

It’s that good it might get added to a menu 🙂

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We thought we would share with you why we support Appeal our choosen Charity.

To understand why you need to go back 32 years ago to a documentary called “14 days in May” which followed the last 14 days of Edward Earl Johnsons life on deathrow in the USA.

Damon as a young 14 year old could not believe he was executed. Turned out Edward was innocent and wrongfully convicted. Edward’s lawyer later tracked down the real killer and interviewed him.

Years later Damon looked up on Twitter the lawyer who represented Edward in his last few weeks alive.

Clive Stafford Smith had set up and was now running @reprieve a charity that works around the world and represents many people facing death or just the wrongfully convicted aswell as rescuing innocent kids from Seria who have been kidnapped. Clive is a real superhero.

After Clive kindly exchanged tweets about Edward and the film “14 days in May” Damon noticed Clive was helping to promote the charity Appeal.

At the time they were looking for a venue to hold an event called “Bound by injustice” which was a weekend event that brought all the families from the 20+ cases together to help support them and deal with the fact that there loved ones have been wrongfully convicted.

Big Ds BBQ offered to host the event through a wedding venue they new in the Northeast of England. This though added costs and logistically wasn’t good.

We offered to pay for a venue that was more practical than what we were offering and the relationship was born.

After taking the time to do some due diligence and research the charity further Damon & Lindsay the owners of Big D’s BBQ felt it ticked all the boxes as a charity they wanted to support. They learned about the cases, researched the issues Appeal were trying to tackle and felt it was worthy of there company support.

We now aim to donate a significant amount of money each year. But we are still a small donor compared to some. The charity in our view runs a extremely tight ship when it comes to finances and operates on a modest budget. Without doubt all the staff could demand greater wages in the private sector and do it for the right reasons.

Recently Damon & Lindsay took the timeout to visit the charity in london and show some support to all the team. It was an excellent visit and they learned so much more about the charity and what great work they do, how they are funded and what the goals are for the future.

You can read about some of the cases here Appeal. Unfortunately our legal system is far from perfect and the innocent do get sent to prison fact. What we do not have is a good system to correct these mistakes. Hence we need a Charity like Appeal fighting for the people that have suffered from a miscarriage of justice.

We strongly encourage anyone interested in things like Making a Murderer or The Staircase documentary series currently on netflix to watch “14 days in May” this is widely available on youtube.

We also would encourage anyone looking for a small charity that has the ability to make a massive difference to think about supporting Appeal

As a company we will continue to support Redcar Mind, Angie Tripps memorial golf tournament, Redcar Fostering service, Reprieve along with Appeal which Damon & Lindsay have personal reasons for supporting.

As a BBQ wedding catering company we not only offer all the food for day and night we can also provide a mobile bar. We have an extensive range of drinks and various bar styles.