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Recently Charlie Bigham’s got in touch and asked if I’d like to try out some of their meals. I popped along to our local Waitrose where they have a good selection, but you can get them at a range of different supermarkets.  You’ll find them in the chilled aisle and as soon as you see them on the shelf you realise they are a cut above the average ready meal.  Another thing I liked about them is that you buy a meal for two rather than having to buy separate meals for each person (although they do also make meals for one).

Charlie Bigham’s meals are created for foodies by foodies and are made with the same level of attention to detail that you’d expect in a lovingly prepared home cooked meal created from scratch at home.  The idea is that you can have the quality without all the work.  The Fish Pie we tried was very similar to the ones I make myself with a fraction of the work for me: I just needed to prepare some vegetables to go with it.  There’s a wide range of dishes available from some classic British favourites like Shepherd’s Pie, and a range of dishes from round the world.  You can eat Italian with Lasagne; or Spanish with a Paella with Chicken, King Prawn and Chorizo; or Chinese with Sweet & Sour Chicken with Egg Fried Rice.  You can even pick out a pudding from the range to finish your meal off in style.  How about Chocolate Fondant, Cherry Bakewell or Sticky Toffee Pudding?

We tried out a couple of dishes: the Fish Pie I mentioned earlier and one of their new range of curries Thai Green Curry.   The advantage of the curry one is that it came with rice, although it was less rice than I normally serve for two people (this is something I always find with ready meals including rice, so if you like less carbs, you’ll probably find it right for you).   The fish pie obviously needs to be served with vegetables.  There is a reasonable helping of mashed potato on top of the pie,  but I did some extra potatoes too.

Inside the Thai Green Curry pack there are two wooden trays containing the food and you can cook the dishes in them.  There was some foil provided to go over the rice to stop it drying out.  You can’t microwave the food as some of the recipe is made with raw ingredients.  The trays stand the cooking remarkably well.  Although one did show some minor scorch marks after use.  I’ve reused mine as containers for harvesting veg in the garden, but I think seed trays would work well too.  Once they are past their useful life, you can pop them in the garden waste or on the compost heap.

The Thai Green Curry certainly had a bit of kick and was spicy, yet fragrant too.  You could tell that it was made with good quality, fresh ingredients and it was of comparable quality to a good home cooked meal.  Obviously the cooking time means that the food isn’t ready instantly, but the dishes taste significantly better than that sort of ready meal.  It’s not so long to wait anyway, if you pop the oven on as you soon as you come in the door, it should be up to temperature within a few minutes.  Pop your dinner in and sit back with a cuppa or a glass of wine.

I loved the Fish Pie.  It was very moreish and I’d be very much tempted to buy one again rather than get all the ingredients separately and spend a long time in the kitchen.  I suspect I’d save money as well as time.  I liked that it had a mix of fish including haddock and salmon which are amongst my favourites.

One of the things I’ve found most time consuming about lockdown is the need to plan all my shopping, food planning, preparation, cooking and eating up of left overs.  It’s not been the easiest thing to achieve, which surprised me as I do generally cook from scratch a lot and would consider myself a good food planner.  So in amongst the meal planning and preparation, it’s nice to have a few meals that are less work and take up less time. It’s good to be able to pick out a good quality prepared meal to give the chef of the house the occasional evening off.

Created by foodies for foodies, Charlie Bigham’s dishes are lovingly made following the same attention to detail that you would if you were to scratch cook them yourself at home. Using top quality ingredients, chosen for their deliciousness, his goal is to help people steal back quality time by doing all the dinner prep for them.  And with more than 60 savoury dishes to choose from, inspired by British classics and world flavours, as well as a new range of gloriously indulgent Proper Puds, you’ll find a dish for you. 

A Little Luxury is offering four lucky readers the chance to win a Charlie Bigham’s meal for two, redeemable in-store. If you’d like to win, please enter via the Gleam widget below.

Sweet Cakey Thing recently got in touch and sent me a selection of their sweet cakey things to try out.  With all the doom and gloom around at the moment, it was a real treat to have something a little bit decadent, but filled with high quality ingredients, arrive at my door.

Sweet Cakey Thing started life as a Kupkase & Co which made wonderful cakes, but following the owner’s change to a paleo – keto – plant based food lifestyle, there was a move to providing something that was a real treat, but good for you at the same time. All the little pots of sweet cakey things are handmade in small batches and the cake batter is actually baked right in the jar, creating a moist and flavourful crumb, made with ingredients that work to actually nourish the body, unlike regular cake. Baking with almond flour rather than wheat flour; using coconut milk rather than cows’ milk and butter; and all natural sugars, rather than refined sugars or sweeteners is all part of the story. Sweet Cakey Thing is free, from wheat, gluten, grains, dairy, soya, additives, preservatives and refined, white sugar.

There are four flavours to choose from:

• Rouge Bouche with red velvet sponge, rich chocolate sauce and white chocolate almond cream. Finished off with a sprinkle of cocoa nibs.
• BerryLicious is a take on the classic victoria sandwich with layers of vanilla sponge, red berry compote and white chocolate almond cream.
• CocoaCrush is made from layers of moist chocolate sponge, chocolate coconut sauce and chocolate almond cream.
• LemonLush encorporates ribbons of lemon zest through the lemon, blueberry and tumeric sponge. There’s fresh made lemon curd and white chocolate almond cream.

I was very excited about the pots arriving and they did look so tempting as you can obviously see the goodies through the glass.  The tops are tightly on and I had to run the lid under the hot tap to open them, but that was easy enough and better than them leaking in transit. Once you open them up and taste them, you realise how moist they are.  The pot size was just right for me: enough to feel I’d had a treat and to make me feel full.  I loved that they are packed full of good things and they are really tasty too.  They are so indulgent to eat, you don’t feel that you are depriving yourself of anything and that is the perfect way to be.  I really enjoyed them and would certainly consider buying them again, or getting them for a friend as a treat.  If you’d like to find out more, pop over to https://www.sweetcakeything.co.uk/shop or visit them on Instagram.

The Celebrity Indian Restaurant on Broad Street has been a familiar feature of the famous thoroughfare for many years.  In fact, the restaurant has a long history and started life just around the corner near the Rep Theatre and was known as The Celebrity because it was a regular haunt of the theatre stars.  I first became aware of the restaurant after its move to Broad Street where it occupies the top floor of a handsome red brick building (the ground floor of which is the Brasshouse pub).  The location is ideal as its at the heart of Birmingham’s nightlife area and there are a host of places near by to enjoy a drink afterwards, or you can go clubbing if you want to party.

The Celebrity Restaurant is beautiful decorated and it’s a very stylish place to spend an evening.  The decor is almost monochrome and has been put together with an eye for detail.  The tables are generously spaced and it’s a very comfortable environment to spend time.  You wouldn’t know you were so close to one of Birmingham’s busiest streets.  It’s truly a place where you can savour the restaurant experience concentrating on the food and your companions.

One of the things that stood out for me as I looked over the menu is the range of dishes available and the fact that The Celebrity offer some interesting and unusual plates of food that are very different to the usual fare on offer at a local curry house.  Over the years the restaurant have created a comprehensive range of modern and traditional dishes, which are presented flair and vibrancy.

One of the highlights of the evening for me and my table companions was their signature starter: an onion bhaji stack.  This is the perfect dish for sharing as it’s so tempting to pick out those stands of onion with their gram flour batter coating, although you might prefer to keep it all to yourself.

The main course I picked out from their Signature Main Courses was the Seabass Khazana. In fact, I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of fish dishes on the à la carte menu.  I think it’s a delicate balance to hit: to get the combination of Indian spices right, but without overpowering the fish (some types of fish can be quite delicate in flavour).  The seabass is first marinated in spices and then pan fried in herbs to get that crispy skin whilst keeping the fish flesh moist.  Then the seabass is served on a bed of creamed vegetables with paprika, tomatoes and onions.  The Seabass Khazana did manage to find that sweet spot between delivering a punchy Asian flavour and overwhelming the sea bass, which should and did remain the star of the dish.

Disclosure: I was invited along to The Celebrity Restaurant to try out the food with the Westside Bid in Birmingham.  The Westside Business Improvement District (BID) is constantly working towards creating a more attractive, better marketed, brighter, safer and cleaner business environment in Broad Street, Brindleyplace, Five Ways, Centenary Square, Broadway Plaza and all the surrounding areas.  Photos are by Jas Sansi.