Barker's Antipasto - Roasted Capsicum product reviews

I absolutely love capsicums, and roasted capsicums are absolutely delicious, cooking a capsicum definitely enhances the flavours so adding capsicums in with other roasted vegetables makes my ordinary roasties seem a bit more exciting. We have been teaching our children about growing our own vegetables and capsicums were one of the things we planted out in spring, meaning we are just now harvesting fresh capsicums and have an abundance of them to use up.

While in hot weather I wouldn't normally cook or eat soup I had seen a tasty recipe for roasted capsicum soup and had to try it while had plenty of capsicums. I roasted my capsicums and some carrot, garlic, and onion then cooked them down further in vegetable stock with spices. I then decided to add an extra boost of flavour by adding a tablespoon of Barkers Roasted Capsicum Antipasto, the strength of the capsicum flavour in this is amazing so I knew it would really enhance my soup. The richness of the roasted capsicum and the depth of that red colour in this product brought everything out in my soup quite easily and only using a small amount did exactly what I wanted it to.

We have also been growing some fresh tomatoes, herbs and cucumbers so I have been making lots of salads, I have especially been enjoying fresh chunky home made salsas to use up our tomatoes and cucumbers, so decided to use this in our salsa to, the capsicum was a great combination with fresh tomato and cucumber and was amazing in our pulled pork pita pocket burgers, we ran out of the salsa I made and using this capsicum antipasto on its own even worked really well as a sauce in our burgers.

I have been very happy with this new range from Barkers and I will definitely buy the capsicum again, these have so many uses the only limit is your imagination to what you will make. I thought at first I would only use them as a dip, or a spread for our platters but I have since found these can be used much more while still being perfect to use just on their own too.

I used to adore capsicum in my youth, to the point of eating them as one would an apple but soon enough was put off them. My enjoyment of the vegetable has slowly increased over the past year as my kids have started to ask me to use some in my cooking. Having just used a couple of antipasto's on crackers and cheese I felt like this needed to be used a different way but found myself stuck on how it could be used and so it sat on my bench for a week, waiting to be used, till last night I was tired, sore, worn out and couldn't be bothered thinking hard about dinner.

I put some pasta on to boil, chopped up an onion and diced up a bulb of garlic. After sauteing the onion and garlic I grabbed this, with the idea of using it like a pesto sauce, and left it to heat up with the onion and garlic. Once everything was done, I stirred the pasta into the pot before serving up and sprinkling a nice helping of parmesan on top. The two kids who were at home for dinner, my mother and I all agreed that it worked well and tasted rather yummy. The only downside to the dish was the pieces of capsicum ended up at the bottom of the bowl and just didn't taste nice on their own.

This made a nice, quick easy dinner and may well end up on our shopping list again.

Barker's Roasted Capsicum antipasto is a unique mix - it combines the full sweet-and-bitter flavour of summer peppers with the simplest of ingredients: tomatoes, vinegar, and spices. The result is that the capsicum flavour dominates and will appeal to anyone who is a fan of this particular vegetable. As a group of people who nearly all enjoy this food, we looked forward to tasting the antipasto and trying it in various ways. When we realised that this was a chunky mix, we were even more excited as there were real pieces of capsicum and tomato in evidence.

At this time of year, when the barbecue rules, we all enjoy kebabs - whether a savoury kebab with peppers and onions, or a sweet version Pasifika-style with pineapple and peaches. They are great on the barbecue, and if they get a bit singed, that only adds to the flavour. We had some leftover pork roast, so chopped it into largish chunks and combined it with a selection of vegetables. Once barbecued, each one would be served on a bed of chopped hard-boiled eggs. The rest of the meal was served separately on two small dishes - each person got his or her own so they could add items as required. One dish had plain cannellini beans; the other had capsicum antipasto and curds. Some took a little from each dish; others, like me, simply tipped the lot on to our big plates and mixed it up. But serving it in this way meant each person could control the proportions of their own dinner.

Because the antipasto was reasonably firm, it was easy to spread on the kebab. I did it this way; it was especially nice with the roast meat, adding moisture to those pieces that were too dry while adding a unique flavour. It was wonderful with the fresh capsicum on the kebab stick; interestingly, it had a stronger taste than the fresh version! It was also delicious mixed with the beans; these are somewhat bland on their own, but like all white beans, take up the flavour of whatever they happen to be sharing a plate with.

We had roughly a third of a pottle left; this was reserved for sandwiches next day. Our friends had baked some bread with the intention of cutting it into thick slices and taking it on a picnic. We had smoked cheese and coleslaw as well; they would be a delicious filling with the antipasto and would sustain us during the tramp that our hosts were proposing. I have been on tramps with them before and can confirm that we all get very hungry after a lot of energy has been used climbing all the local hills. Sure enough, when it came time to have a break, the sandwiches were very welcome. The capsicum added interest to the mix and everyone was enthusiastic about it.

The consensus from everyone was that this is a wonderful, highly versatile product. Not one person expressed any negative comments, not even the older man who was initially not sure whether or not he liked capsicum. He has made his mind up now - he said it was "okay"; that is high praise coming from him.