Thursday 7th February’s Dinner – Homestyle Macaroni Cheese

On Thursday the other week, I decided to try the first meat-free dish – Homestyle Macaroni Cheese.  I don’t know, but I’ve always loved meat so I was sceptical but I ended up really impressed with this dish.  If you love cheesy macaroni, you’ll definitely love this one.  Just be aware, it’s not like the four-minute packet macaroni cheese you buy from Colesworth, it’s much more authentic.

Homestyle Macaroni Cheese

After 7 minutes in the Panasonic, this is what comes out…  If I recall, this dish really should’ve been in for another 30 seconds, even on my Panasonic.  Nothing was frozen but the top left was just warm.  It did feel cooked through but I’ll double-check the temperature again next time.

Homestyle Macaroni Cheese

I reckon with minimal styling, some studio lighting and a decent camera and lens, you could easily make the contents of the packet look like what’s on the picture.

Firstly, this has got plenty of cheese.  I don’t know how Lite ‘n’ Easy got so much cheese and sauce into a meal that contains fewer than 2000kj.  There’s plenty of pasta and to just add a little extra flavour, there are three tomato slices.  The tomato cooked OK without going soggy.  Similarly, the pasta was OK except for small warm area. The pasts didn’t go hard as it looks like it’s been covered with all that cheese and sauce.  If you like the flavour of the Kraft stuff, you’ll find this isn’t as salty and hasn’t go that artificial tangy cheese flavour.  I reckon Lite ‘n’ Easy have found a solid recipe and modified it only slightly to suit the concept of delivering frozen meals to households.

Yes, I will get this again but not for the next order.  I will be getting some of the other meat-free dishes.

4 out of 5 thumbs.  Great work.

 

Tuesday 5th of February’s Dinner – Sweet & Sour Chicken

Again, I apologise for the delays in bringing you these taste tests.  However, the other week I had the Sweet & Sour Chicken.  I remember originally I did really want to try this but for the exercise, I ended up ordering this item from Lite ‘n’ Easy’s World Classics range.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

I think the picture on the packet looks quite appetising but after cooking for the recommended 8 minutes, I got this…

Sweet & Sour Chicken

What Lite ‘n’ Easy have got here is a generous portion of what is fried rice on the right.  You can see in the middle is some chicken but there’s also a little more under than sauce.  Overall, it doesn’t too bad.  But I have to pull up the sauce on this review.  It just didn’t taste like sweet ‘n’ sour sauce.  I can’t really describe the flavour but if you’re looking for that rich tang of the sour and the sweet, delicious pineapple flavour, you won’t find it here.  The sauce tastes like savoury-type sauce.  It’s nothing like what you’d find at the local Chinese restaurant.

I feel that maybe I just got a dodgy batch and the cook just forgot to throw in some “tang” or he/she just had a crappy day cooking this batch.  To be fair, what I might do is order this again either this week or next and try again.  Would I get this again otherwise?  Probably not, especially with butter chicken coming out.  I will get the butter chicken this week and check it out.

For the meantime, I’ll give the Sweet & Sour Chicken a 3 out of 5 thumbs.

 

 

Sunday, February the 3rd’s Dinner – Shepherd’s Pie

I apologise for not having put through some more posts on this blog but I haven’t been trying many new dishes recently.  I’ve mainly be going over some of the older ones.  However, back on Sunday the 3rd of February, I decided to try the Shepherd’s Pie.

Here’s what the pack looks like…

Shepherd’s Pie

This looks pretty good so I put this into my microwave oven for the 8 minutes specified.

Shepherd’s Pie

You can see the mash looks more like it’s been groomed like they do down at Perisher.  It doesn’t have the golden colour to it which one would expect.  Also, the mashed potato was cool.  It simply didn’t cook through enough despite feeling hot underneath when I puled the dish out.  I would probably add another 30 seconds to this dish next time.

In this dish, you’ll see a lonely piece of cauliflower, a few pieces of pumpkin and a three-veg mix consisting of beans, peas, and carrot.  This is standard fare and I believe this was cooked through OK.

Overall, there’s plenty of pie but I can’t really score this until I’ve retested it again.  I’ll be placing my order again this week so standby for a retest.

 

Monday’s Dinner – Corned Beef

This is a traditional favourite according to the marketing people at Lite ‘n’ Easy so let’s see if they’re correct.  Monday’s dinner consisted of the corned beef.

A traditional favourite.

This was prepared in my microwave at home so the cooking time of 8 minutes was correct.

Corned Beef

This looks a little suss but trust me, this is the real deal.  As always, they’ve got the meat and vegetables in the familiar layout.  There’s a small scoop of mashed potato up in the top right and heaps of peas and carrots as well as some cauliflower.  I can’t fault any of this – these vegetables are made for freezing.

As you can see, there’s heaps of white sauce so it’s best to use the vegetables and mash to grab all that sauce.  My only complaint with the sauce was that its texture was a little powdery at first.  Mixing it with the other stuff removed that powdery sensation.  It’s not as tangy as the white-sauces I remember but it’s more-or-less balanced.

The gem of the dish, however, is the corned beef.  They’ve slapped in a fair amount and it came out soft and juicy and tasty.  I didn’t think corned beef would freeze but they’ve managed here.

3.5 out of 5 thumbs.  I would get this one again.

 

Monday’s Dinner – Sausages with Onion Gravy

For the public holiday today, I decided to crack open the Sausages with Onion Gravy.  I swear I’ve had this one before.

Sausages with Onion Gravy

This one called for 9 minutes and 9 minutes was all it took.

Sausages with Onion Gravy

Now we’re talking.  There’s sausages, mashed potato pumpkin and peas.  There’s a also a piece or two of cauliflower.  In this instance, the peas failed the test.  They tasted chalky and had a powdery texture.  This is a first so I would let this slide.  Maybe the suppliers of peas had a bad season.  The pumpkin was a little squishy but acceptable.  The mash was tip-top and worked well with the gravy.  The gravy was just the standard offering with some onions it but it still tastes hearty and beefy.  There were three sausages included just like the picture on the pack.

The sausages felt they were down with something.  They weren’t 100% beef and looking at the pack, it appears I was right.  There’s sausage meal in there.  I guess it’s some sort of extender.  In any case, they were alright but I hope the sausage meal is more to cutr calories than to cut costs.

Give it a go but don’t expect snags like what you’d get off the barbie in this dish.

3.5 out of 5 thumbs.

 

Australia Day Dinner – Chicken & Satay Sauce

Australia Day was Saturday the 26th.  Unfortunately, my dietary intake on this day was not really my most healthiest.  I headed down to the Kiama Show and got stuck into a sausage sandwich for breakfast.  Morning tea consisted of a Dagwood Dog and a beer.  Lunch consisted of the same.  After lunch, I made my way to the bowlo to meet up with a mate so there were plenty of beers and also half a pizza consumed that afternoon.

I don’t remember what time I got home but I decided to crack open a Chicken & Satay Sauce meal.

Chicken & Satay Sauce

I can tell you, this looks pretty tasty and really healthy after a day of eating and drinking crap.  After 8 minutes in the microwave, I peeled back the lid and got this…

Chicken & Satay Sauce

Hmm.  There ain’t much sauce there but I reckon to keep the kilojoules down, they’ve had to crack down on the sauce.  Still, the sauce did have a mild peanut flavour and had the consistency you’d expect.  There’s plenty of stir-fry vegetables included and the chicken was cooked through perfectly.

Overall, I was pleased with this dish but it didn’t knock my socks off.  I reckon this would be better suited to a lunch meal.

3 out 5 thumbs.  I probably would get it again but with so many other dishes to choose from, this sits a little lower on my list of favourites.

 

Friday’s Dinner – Crumbed Fish

With the Australia Day long weekend, I haven’t had much of chance to post.  So here I am to catch up on a few of the dishes I’ve had over the weekend.

Friday night it was crumbed fish.

Lite ‘n’ Easy’s Crumbed Fish

This meal called for 7 minutes in the microwave and it came out pretty much spot-on.

Lite ‘n’ Easy’s Crumbed Fish after cooking.

I’ve got to admit, this doesn’t look that appetising – there’s a bunch of beans and some corn pieces and a a generous amount of potato wedges.  As I feared, they had no crunch so I would like to try this in a conventional oven at some stage.  The fish didn’t fare much better.  It was sitting on some beans and corn which made the crumbs on the underside side soggy.  The top side wasn’t much better.  However, I do like the crumb flavour – it has a buttery flavour to it but the texture doesn’t do too well coming out of the microwave.

This piece of fish itself was almost undetectable.  The fish flesh had not flavour and the crumbing felt a little too much for the size of fish there.  I would definitely like a thicker piece of fish.  Some of the fish had dried during cooking process making its texture like cardboard.  I reckon a little bit of tartare sauce would’ve spiced the dish up considerably.

I don’t see myself ordering this one again unless I was to try using the conventional oven.  It reminded me of a fish ‘n’ chips dinner I had on a CountryLink train to Canberra one Friday night but I reckon that was better than this offering.  As I’ve said earlier, I like my seafood but I’m really picky when it comes to how it’s been cooked.

2.5 out 5 thumbs.  Give it a go but maybe try a regular oven.

 

Wednesday’s Dinner – Meatloaf

Like a bat outta hell, I got home and promptly threw this meal into the microwave.

No, it’s not the singer.

The packet states 9 minutes and this was spot-on despite a similar layout to another meal that had cold mash.

Meatloaf after cooking for 9 minutes.

There’s the standard array of peas and carrots and what-not as well as a scoop of mashed potato.  This was cooked through completely.

There’s plenty of gravy and it’s full of flavour so make sure you use the mash to get that sauce.  The gravy conceals a couple of slices of meatloaf.  However, the meatloaf is not what you’re probably used to.  This has a tofu-like texture.  It doesn’t have the minced-beef sort of consistency of a meatloaf I’m used to.  The good news is it didn’t have a saw-dust texture!

Yeah, I could take it or leave it.  Would I order it again?  If my next order is 5- or 7-dinner order, then probably not.  There are other dishes better than this I’d order first.  But it’s better than some other dishes.

3 out of 5 thumbs.

 

Tuesday’s Dinner – Beef With Red Wine & Mushroom

After my delicious lunch, I decided to try the Beef With Red Wine & Mushroom.  It was good.

Beef With Red Wine & Mushroom

Now the pack says to cook for 8 minutes and I’ve had pretty spot-on results in my home microwave but when I opened it, this is what I got:

Beef With Red Wine & Mushroom

Essentially, everything was cooked perfectly by the microwave except just a little of the mash potato which can be seen in the top right was a little cold.  I did do the ol’ feel-n-peel and it did feel quite hot underneath.  Maybe this just needs another 15 seconds or so.

But aside from that, there was plenty of beef and mushroom and if you’ve ever cooked something like this, you’ll find the flavour of the sauce has that deep, rich beefy taste.  The sauce is plentiful so make sure you use the mashed potato to its full potential.  The beans and carrots can also be used to pick up the sauce.  It’s thick enough.  The sauce wasn’t overly salty and I have seen beef and red wine recipes that need a ton of salt.  I don’t add much salt to my food so this tasted right to me.

To be honest, I could make this at home and freeze it but for convenience, you can’t beat it.  I will get this again and try a slightly longer time in the microwave.

3.5 outta 5 thumbs.

 

Monday’s Dinner – Steak With Creamy Mushroom Sauce

So last night I pulled out the Steak With Creamy Mushroom Sauce meal and was pretty impressed.  But I bet you I know how they made the steak so soft.

Steak With Creamy Mushroom Sauce

After 7 minutes, this is what I get:

Steak With Creamy Mushroom Sauce

As you will see, there’s plenty of carrots and beans and some potato wedges.  As always, they came out soft so I would like to try the oven method one time.

Then there’s the steak; it’s covered with heaps of mushroom sauce with actual mushroom pieces in it.  The sauce was fairly thick but wasn’t as rich as I would get at my local near where I work.

However, the steak was cooked through and I would bet they’ve braised it.  It was cooked pretty much medium well and was really soft.  Whereas my steaks I cook on the BBQ usually remind me of old boot soles, this was pretty soft and juicy.  It’s a decent sized piece of cow as well.

So this one’s a meal I’d definitely get again.  4 out of 5 thumbs.