As you may know, we are a multicultural family: I am Romanian, Alex is Greek and Emma, well, she was born and is being raised in Northern Ireland.

We eat a large variety of foods, which include not only Romanian, Irish and Greek dishes but also Thai, Italian and many more.

We love trying new things so when Grace Foods UK approaches us about the Caribbean Food Week, offering us a food hamper to sample, we had to say yes!

This was the first time I cooked Caribbean food so I did a bit of research once the hamper arrived. Caribbean food is all about flavour, I found out! It is about slowly marinating your meat in jerk sauce, a wonderfully tangy mixture of herbs, spices, lime juice and soya sauce. It is about heart warming sides, like the rice and peas (actually black beans) I cooked, which had thyme, coconut milk and all spice in it, a delight on a plate, if you ask me! And Caribbean food is all about spices! My sweet potato and bean (I know, so nutritious!) curry had me in floods of tears but begging for more, nevertheless! My recipes came from the BBC Good Food website and were simple to follow and most importantly, relatively quick to make.

I enjoyed my food with cool from the fridge Jamaican ginger beer, which pleasantly offset the spiciness of the meal with its flavour. As I said, Caribbean food and drink is indeed, all about the taste!

Our hamper still has tonnes of treasures to be discovered in the weeks to come. There is the cock soup, which I will maybe use it as thick sauce for another Caribbean inspired curry. There is the tinned Callaloo, which is an equivalent to spinach and which would make a beautiful side dish to any marinated meat meal. And, of course, I am hoping that the good weather will last so we can have a BBQ and use the rich and flavoursome Jerk BBQ sauce. To diversity to Emma’s chicken nuggets, which have become a sample in our kitchen, I will maybe use a bit of the chicken fry mix for really crunchy chicken bites!

Have you tried Caribbean food before? Which dish is your favourite?

Disclosure: we were sent the food hamper for the purpose of this review. The opinions expressed are my own and truthful.