262: That VegBoxBoy, what a tart. Lyons Fish Ready meals and Total Greek yoghurt

Yes, it's true. I am. Here goes a semi-sponsored posting. I'm now up to a mighty 19 followers (Hello!), just think what freebies I could get should I actually have a blog that anyone reads! And just in case.... I am EXPERT, repeat EXPERT at Champagne reviewing.

Firstly, here's some links to Total Yoghurts. I place these on here almost entirely out of guilt. Twice now Total have sent me Yoghurt, which I was supposed to blog about. Unfortunately for Total all I've managed to do, is to eat said Yoghurt. It has had some positive effect for them... I buy the one with honey in when it's on offer. Very nice. Anyways here's their linkies:

• http://www.facebook.com/TotalGreekYoghurt
• http://twitter.com/TotalGreek

I took up an offer to review some Lyons fish ready meals. With a minimum of fuss a box of three of these ready meals arrived. They are priced at £3.99, so that was a whole £11.97's worth of dinners. Cooking each of the dishes takes the same formula: a packet of fish, some vegetables, some sauce  adding each in turn taking between 5 and 6 minutes to cook.

First up Thai Sweet Chilli: this for me was the weakest. I like my Chilli to have some heat. Although as regular readers will know, I am fairly obsessed with Chillis. Sweet with heat is ok. But this, like most other things that say Sweet Chilli was all about the sweet.  The water chestnuts were nice and crunchy though. All in, I thought this all a bit so-so. We had though, kind of got all these meals wrong, we were thinking the entire meal is in the box. However, to serve two they all need some Carbs adding. This one would go pretty well with either rice of possibly some noodles added in alongside the sauce.

Catalan Fish Stew: Much more my thing - Mussels (always a bonus to get mussels at home), chorizo and even squid. Even the veggies are just my thing, courgettes and big broad beans for texture. The sauce was nice and paprika-y and fairly rich. It says on the box to serve with crusty bread and I think they've called that one just right. Possibly some nice patatas bravas would go too. But bread's so easy why look past it? Also good is that I got extras.... Mrs VegBox isn't so keen of mussels, squid or broad beans. Bonus time!

 

Prawn Laksha: Lots of big prawns in a nice creamy sauce which has just a bit of heat to it. For a curry that takes 5 minutes to cook, this is really good. Obviously, I should have served this with some rice. But they sauce was so nice and there were sufficient vegetables that it was pretty good anyway.

All in, would I buy any of these again? - yes quite possibly. I don't often eat ready meals for reasons of: health, cost, taste and time. Often I find that by the time all the elements of a ready meal are cooked, I could have cooked something cheaper, healthier and tastier quicker. So on that basis, there's little reason to buy ready meals. However, with these they can be all cooked (with proper accompanyment) in double quick time. I often end up eating fairly late and so these occaisions I might go for the laksha or catalan stew.

Thanks Lyons for sending these through.