Food

New Mother Gifts From Hotel Chocolat

August 25, 2013 by Erica Hughes 1 Comment

You know how it is, you have a baby and everyone wants to buy cute, little baby clothes, but does anyone buy anything for the mother? When I gave birth a couple of people bought something for me rather than my baby son (or as well as) and you know, it was lovely to have something nice for me, to feel a little bit pampered and appreciated.

Hotel Chocolat have come up with some great ways to give new mother gifts to someone who has just had a baby. We were sent The New Arrival Selection to try out. It’s a selection of 12 velvety smooth pralines, pretty in pink raspberry pannacottas plus luxurious milk and white chocolate truffles. This would have been a very welcome gift to help me celebrate my son’s arrival. As you expect from Hotel Chocolat the gift is beautifully packaged and filled with high quality chocolates. They’re a really luxurious and special treat. The New Arrival Selection costs £14, but if you have a smaller budget or maybe want to buy a baby gift too, you could look at The New Arrival Pocket Selection or The Congratulations Message Box. These boxes contain 8 delicious chocolates and cost £8.

Tesco Thai Ingredients Range Review

July 8, 2013 by Erica Hughes 1 Comment

Recently Tesco launched a new Thai ingredients range and we have been trying out a selection of items from the range.

The range includes two Thai meal kits: Tesco Katsu Curry Meal Kit and the Tesco Green Thai Curry Meal Kit. They are intended to provide the key ingredients for an oriental meal for two. We tried the green curry one which included cooked rice, green Thai curry paste, coconut milk and a herb garnish. You need to add chicken (and/or vegetables) with a little oil. You can make the dish in 20 minutes. It is very quick and easy to use, in fact it too me less time as I was using cooked chicken rather than raw. The end result is a delicate, tasty dish and it went down well. The downside is that the quantities, particularly of the rice are insufficient for two. We managed a smallish dinner for my husband, a smallish dinner for my 6-year-old and a few mouthfuls for the chef and chief taster. There was a reasonable amount of the sauce ingredients though and I think there would have been enough for two adult portions.

We also tried out some of the Tesco Thai Curry Pastes from the Tesco Thai ingredients range. Curry pastes are a useful store cupboard standby allowing you to whip up a curry quite easily without having an extensive spice collection. Tesco have three varieties: red, yellow and green. The red curry paste is suitable for matching to robust meats like beef. Yellow and Green both go well with vegetable currys. I’d also use yellow curry paste for fish and seafood currys, but green curry paste for chicken. These jars have an intense, fragrant and distinctly Thai flavour.

Ilumi Review

June 30, 2013 by Erica Hughes 1 Comment

Recently we were sent a selection of Ilumi’s range of foods to review. Ilumi specialise in creating nut, gluten and milk free foods from quality ingredients. ‘Free From’ products can be uninspiring and often second best, as the replacement ingredient is inferior to the original. Also, it’s difficult to source quick and easy, ready meal products when you need to avoid certain ingredients. It’s this gap in the market that Ilumi is seeking to fill.

All the products are made by Ilumi themselves and they use quality ingredients from British suppliers. They create recipes which use safe ingredients rather than trying to make an allergen-free version of a dish. The food is delivered direct to your door, so Ilumi handle the whole process. Everything is conveniently packaged and doesn’t need to be kept refrigerated, so it’s very portable.

We tried out a range of dishes of different types and sizes. Inevitably, we liked some dishes more than others. I cooked a stir fry one night using the Sweet Chilli Stir Fry Sauce. The packet is really a generous one serving, but not quite enough to serve two we found. It’s a pleasant sauce and was easy to use. I had the Tom Kha Gai Soup for my lunch which was very tasty and had a subtly blended spicy flavour.

My husband tried out the ready meals: Chicken Cacciatora, a main dish from the range, was a bit disappointing. He served it up with some bread, but found the dish somewhat sparse in chicken. However, the complete meals went down very well. Both the Slow-Cooked Lamb Casserole and the Spanish Style Rice & Vegetables were very tasty and satisfying meals.

I think Ilumi’s food is a great idea for busy people with food allergies. It’s great to have some quick options for putting a meal together at home and to not have to worry about reading the packaging (although naturally the ingredients are fully listed and unusually on the front, rather than hidden round the back).