New Covent Garden Soup Co Multigrain Risotto

I love, love, love New Covent Garden Soup Co soups, my favourites are the Carrot & Coriander and the Carrot & Butternut.

I tried the new Scream Of Pumpkin soup last week but didn't bother reviewing it as there was nothing Lucy said in her review that I didn't agree with! 

There are three new "Taste Of Health" products out from New Covent Garden, I'd like to try all of them but the first I found in Sainsburys - Multigrain Risotto with Greens. 

A little back story, I dream of a risotto I had on my honeymoon. It was just Cretan vegetable risotto with tomato and a little hint of cheese, but hands down it is the best thing I've ever eaten. Ever. 

It doesn't look too great but I don't think risotto is a pretty food anyway! It only takes seven minutes on the hob and as you can see in the photo, it comes out of the carton very thick and gloopy but it thinned out as I warmed it up. 

The end result was great, far too thick to be soupy but just a tad more watery than normal risotto. Not that it tasted watery in the slightest, it was thick, filling and the mixed grains (barley, red rice, quinoa, pinhead oats, spelt) tasted and felt like actual risotto, not mushy or too hard at all. 

The flavour was lovely and creamy, there was no overpowering individual 'green' that stood out and they all complimented each other well. That said I did have a few whole heads of broccoli which was interesting - I didn't expect that!

All of a sudden I got a taste of that cheese that has been missing from every risotto I've had since that one perfect one - Pecorino Cheese according to the ingredients. There's not a huge amount of the cheese in the risotto but it packs a punch and adds a creamy cheesey element to what's already a good dish, 

This is probably the nicest ready made risotto I've tried. It's certainly the nicest where the preparation is put it in a pan and give it a stir occaisonally for seven minutes or whack it in the microwave and forget about it. 

It's nice and healthy, low in sugar and saturated fats, a good source of fibre and protein and half a carton is one of your five a day but it doesn't taste like it should be! 

8/10 

More Hazlenut Chocolate!

So it seems like I only eat chocolate by my posts but I do eat other things…. Sometimes!

Anyway last night I got some serious chocolate cravings, went to my secret chocolate stash and it was a toss up between this bar, Cadbury Bournville and the strawberry Cadbury bar which I still haven’t got around to opening yet!

This was actually given to me so I’m not sure on the price but it did come from a multi pack, in the Aldi Choceur range, I have tried the large bars and expected this to be the same but it’s not.

It has the same chocolate base, but the difference from what I can remember is that the larger bars have whole nuts in them whereas this bar has chopped. It’s very similar in a sense to the divine bar in my previous post, a nice enough bar of chocolate – with nice Hazlenut flavours but not really much crunch (which is even in the name!!!) For the price Aldi sells it’s chocolate at though I don’t think you can really go wrong, especially if your not as bothered by me as the texture in your chocolate and are more of a flavour person.

Rating 3/5

Also had to rave about my Morrisons Chicken Saag Masala, it was far too hot to cook from scratch this week so we purchased some curry ready meals. To be fair I did cook the rice and even the curry in the oven rather than the microwave :-P

It was nice enough for a ready meal, lots of nice flavour and plenty of spinach which I love however what impressed me was the amount of chicken it had! Fair play to Morrisons – I stopped buying things like this from Tesco because they seemed to be 90% sauce and 10% meat, unless you buy from the finest range – but Morrisons are definitely not stingey in that department, not bad for £3. The pack says serves two (yeah right) but I suppose with rice, naan, popadoms etc you could pad this out to feed two people.

Tesco Finest Goats Cheese And Caramelised Red Onion Flatbread

It’s been a week since I last wrote as the doctor has sent me to be tested for coeliacs so I’ve not been too sure what to eat!

I wouldn’t have picked this for myself as it’s part of the tesco finest low calorie range and that’s kind of defeating the object but the Mr bought two of them with a short shelf life and I can’t stand letting food go to waste.

 

This is a flatbread with goats cheese, red onion and spinach from the finest range, it’s quite similar to the Marks and Spencer’s tostada. Marks and Spencer’s offering is cooked for around 20 minutes in the oven whereas the Tesco version is 9 minutes in a microwave, I didn’t have high hopes for the microwave version but I was very pleasantly surprised!

                        Before microwaving

The flatbread (although to me I wouldn’t really call it a flatbread, as any I’ve had while abroad have been thick – sort of like a naan or pitta but this is more like wrap thickness, feel free to correct me!) crisped up nicely unlike the Marks and Spencer version which seemed to go soggy, and stayed that way giving a satisfying crunch.

                                      All ready

The goats cheese was lovely and crumbly and had strong flavor my only criticism being there wasn’t enough of it, and the red onion was delicious and went great with the cheese, the spinach was kind of overpowered by the rest which is a shame as I do like spinach. This is a really nice diet ready meal and if you’re looking for low calorie filling food I would definitely recommend it.