REVIEW - Stewed! Nourish your soul range.

I have happily been reviewing the Stewed! range of meals over the last few weeks.  The range consists of 6 great and very different recipes, those being:

* Chickpea, Sweet Potato & Feta Stew
* Hungarian Goulash
* Thai Green Chicken
* Chorizo, Chickpea & Pork Stew
* Bob's British Beef in Ale
* Moroccan Chicken Stew

Handy chilled pots
(can be frozen)

When I had Tala I bought a slow cooker and I have to say I do enjoy using it so I was interested to see if these, for want of a better word, ready meals, would compare to a freshly slow cooked meal.

I started the tasting with the Chickpea, Sweet Potato & Feta Stew.  I love all the ingredients in this so was really looking forward to it.  Each pack is microwavable in 3 minutes from the fridge so I didn't have long to wait! The ingredients looked like they had just been cut and cooked, which impressed me although I really didn't get any of the Feta coming through in the flavours.

I was impressed with the ease of heating and the quality of ingredients. This pack contained only 234 calories but was still 2 of my 5 a day which was great.  I really like the packaging on the range as it is very clearly written and calorific and nutritional content are promoted on the front - makes it easy to find when zipping round the supermarket!

My husband was up next with the Bob's British Beef in Ale. As the meal is served without any side dish it leaves you to serve with anything you fancy. I put the Beef in Ale on top of a jacket potato.

Beef in Ale on jacket potato

The chunks of beef were large unlike so many other ranges that offer tiny pieces that you have to search for.  The beef was tender and again the ingredients looked good quality. My husband was impressed with it but said he would like to see a bigger sized amount - the pack is 325g, but he is a big eater.

Pre-teen tried the Chorizo, Chickpea and Pork Stew but wasn't keen (NB Not had Chorizo many times before) but I helped her out with it and I liked it but this meal did not feel like the others as the meat content was larger than the vegetable in my opinion and so didn't give me that Stewed! slow cooked feeling.

Chorizo, Chickpea & Pork Stew

Next up was the Hungarian Goulash which I had late one night when I was hungry and wanted something quick. With the microwavable heating this was easy to grab, heat and eat.  The Goulash was nice and I especially like the red kidney beans in it. It filled me up and gave me an extra 1 of my 5 a day. As I was in such a rush to eat I didn't even take a photo of this - sorry!

The last meal I tried was the Thai Green Chicken, This was hard for me as I haven't eaten chicken in about 15 years so I left the chicken pieces and ate the rest. You could really see and taste the shitake mushrooms, these could easily have dissolved into the rest of the ingredients but didn't - very impressive.

All in all I love the Stewed! range for it's fresh looking, good quality ingredients. The easy to read packaging and the ease of heating are great. If I had to find a down side it would be the Chorizo, Chickpea and Pork Stew - too watery and not enough veg.

Although I am not about to give up slow cooking myself, these pots offer a quick, tasty and diverse meal for when you're in a hurry to want the night off from cooking. The pots had quite a good shelf life so makes them even easier to keep one in the fridge for 'incase'.

The range is available to buy from Waitrose, Budgens and now Sainsburys. If you fancy having a go yourself Alan from Stewed! has a cookbook on sale in bookshops. I will have to have a look for it - sounds right up my street.

Stewed! by Alan Rosenthal

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