Slim Noodles - Hoisin & Garlic - New Years Diet! (@nli10)

Happy New Year! As part of the post-celebrations a lot of people decide to make healthier choices in the new year.

We picked up these Slim Noodles as part of a meal kit - mainly because they were in the sale.

Holland and Barrett have a lot of things like this that I would happily put in the ‘woo’ section but they are often quite tasty and filling if prepared properly. It’s genuinely not a good idea to calorie restrict without a good reason or plan ( even the NHS doesn’t fund a lot of these crash diet schemes now as they just don’t work long term).

That said - it certainly is a good idea to increase the amount of nutrients per calorie that you consume - and these are quite smart. The noodles aren’t really noodles, and have an odd bean-like texture. And the extra veggies that go in with the sauce and Quorn mean that instead of a bachelor chow noodle pot you make a nice little meal for two.

 

The sauce had a decent flavour and the veggies had crunch - and it was easy to prepare.

Just chuck the things in the pan!

You have to rince the noodles but that’s easy enough

The veggies and sauce are all pre packaged but I added some more frozen veg with the Quorn

If you want to claim my free cookbook then go ahead! I’m not sure why it’s called eat water…

The konjac noodles are the star, even if I didn’t bother with the kits again I’d certainly want more of these noodles

And here’s the back of the box, sorry the photos went up in the wrong order but I think it worked out.

ERIDANOUS - Greek Style Gyros at home (@NLi10)

Lidl by work have all kinds of odd theme weeks, and earlier in the year they did some awesome Greek stuff.  I bought this to fry up for home lunches - and promptly forgot about it.  It floated to the bottom of the freezer where it's  been for say 4 months.

It's essentially one of their bachelor chow things - a meal in a bag.  Add some water and heat and you have a mix of meat, veg and carbs. But do you have any flavour or authenticity.

Hmmm - frozen Greek bits in water doesn't look great.

When the rice sucks all that moisture up though it turns into a nice small dinner.  There are olives in here, decent quality pork, recognisable veggies with crunch, and of course the flavoured rice.

And it's a hit.  It really takes less than 10 mins from freezer to plate (oddly the microwave recipe is slower) and it has kept pretty well unopened.  I don't expect the other 2/3 of the bag to make it so long - a quick tasty lunch is always a pleasure.

Not authentic to Greek restaurant quality, but good enough for a TV meal.

Vemondo Vegan Chilli Sin Carne (@NLi10) via Lidl

One of my favourite things to tag reviews with is bachelor chow, a wonderful catch-all term from the TV show Futurama for meals that essentially come in a can/bag and can be eaten when it's just you at home.

Here's one now!

Except I shared this with my partner - adding some more rice to the side and a few veggies.

Put bag in pan - hit and heat until done!

The sauce is essentially giant ice-cubes - which as anyone who has tried the cook for the week style of meal preparation will tell you is an amazing way to make a load of sauce in one go and then spread that effort over the next few months.  It works best with curry so I was willing to give it a go.  I was surprised that this also had rice built in!

Fortunately it also has beans and minor veggies - the bag much to my surprise said it was a meal for one person so at this point I grabbed all the extras and turned it into something worth sharing - and forgot to take further pictures!

You'll have to take my word for the fact that it looks like a fairly standard bean chilli.

The spice wasn't all that exciting, I'd add a little of my own next time, but it was certainly a satisfying and easy way to make a big pot of vegan chilli with just a cheap frozen bag from Lidl!

Huel Savoury - Tomato & Herb (@NLi10) @gethuel

I've been putting this one off for a few weeks so have decided to split the two flavours into two reviews.

Huel is basically science porridge - it's a lunch that you can make with just water and powder, and once you get over the fact that it's not that special, it's actually very filling and satisfying, and seems to be really good for me in terms of vitamins and minerals.  I actually miss it at the weekends (I leave it at work). 

People get twitchy when you include your referral link for this stuff in the reviews (due to the fact that most of the cost of it pays for the adverts) and so I'm not using them this time - and I'm also not submitting this to their creepy brand based influencer app that I signed up for.

All the 'cult of huel' stuff aside I actually like it, so while restocking on magic dust I decided to get the soupy savoury version.

Turns out it's basically a bag of grain - like a lunch time hot breakfast cereal - bachelor chow for the win!

It's a bit hard to read here but it's all on their website.  It's mostly seeds and grains but with the magic powder added to make you get all those missing extras.

Your first order comes with a stylish black cup.  I also ordered another for the normal shaker as I dropped mine pretty much immediately and it's had a crack in it ever since.  Expensive hobby as these pots are about £4 each, but as the meal powder itself is about £2.50 a day that's cheaper than walking out of my office and finding a sandwich, and it's nicer too.

Paying £50 for dust seems mad.

I thought I gave it a good stir, but this looks in hindsight like mostly the veg on the top of the bag AND it's not a full scoop.

I'm making the world's most expensive Pot Noodle aren't I...?

And goodness it looks wrong?!!  I ate it, but it was watery and the consistency was all weird.  It was mostly beans.  Like with the Huel cereal (which they still owe me for missing one out of my original order!) unless you physically mix the contents of the bag around then you are just going to separate it out more by shaking the bag.  This seems to be a massive flaw in the big bag design.

Give the bag a big old stir first and you end up with this - an appetising bowl of somewhere between cereal and paella - which is great indeed.  Not only is this a lot more satisfying to eat than the milkshake, the heat is also a welcome bonus in the cold days.  If only they sold some kind of insulated bowl that kept it warm while the phone rings and your colleagues interrupt you...

This was the tomato and herb flavour - it's still pretty basic stuff, but it happily takes a shot of balsamic to the top to liven it up (and that's basically fat and calorie free so doesn't ruin the healthiness of it all).

I'll write up the Thai version next.

 

Loma Linda - Thai Green Curry for lunch in 2 mins (@NLi10) @Holland_Barrett

Holland & Barrett are fast becoming my go-to shop for quick things to pick up for review - they should probably give their 'food & snacks' buyers a raise!

Yesterday I found some discounted lunch pouches - like the meaty bachelor chow ones that I used to keep in stock - but plant based and vegan and sustainable.

I'm thinking they can't be that bad - and it makes a change from Huel.

I kind of cut off the reasoning behind it all - if people that live in Loma Linda have good longevity then it's clearly due to eating microwavable bags of fuel imported from Thailand right?  I mean as a Public Health guy I do have to point out that people tend to move to places where they feel they will fit in so these healthy hot-spots are highly self selected and massively biased.  That said, calorie restriction is linked to longevity, and all of us eating sustainably means we still have a planet to live on so I guess it has some merit - lets heat it up!

90 sec in the Microwave - 30 seconds standing so the super-heated water vapour doesn't remove all your skin.  

Looks like classic lazy lunch bags.

Actually serves pretty well! Didn't dry up on cooking (the secret is to tear both sides but only a tiny way), has a variety of grains and textures and actually tastes like (vegan) Thai Curry.  No fish sauce here!

The protein chunks aren't Quorn, they have a sponginess and are almost round.  I'd be intrigued to find out how they work with the Indian sauce, but with the aromatic (barely spicey) Thai they work well.  You can add chilli flakes (and nam pla sauce!) if you wanted to taste.

This is another thing I picked up as a one and done review that had me plotting a course back to H&B to look for other flavours and check that this was just their typical sales and not something they will stop stocking.  The BBE dates on them are really good (a year!) so I can drop a few in my long term cupboard like I used to with the John Wests tuna cans and always have a back up tasty meal to go to.

It does say two portions, but I could have had a little veg or similar with this for a nice meal.  A definite win.

Wahaca Mexican Street Food Meal Kits - Mojo (by @NLi10)

In the UK there is a TV programme called The Last Leg, and sometimes it's a bit London-centric.  They (well Josh Widdecombe mostly) occasionally referenced something called a Wahaca.  On further inspection this appears to be a small chain of restaurants which haven't appeared in Birmingham yet.  I can only presume that their previous mentions of Nando's have proved so profitable that they have branched out (can't blame them - sometimes I get great PR goodies!).

Cut forwards a few months and work have a huge box of food arrive as part of some online deal where managers get things to give out (result). This includes three varieties of Wahaca meal kits and I happened to snag all three (double result).

I've started off with the green/beginner one as it's handy to know what you are dealing with.  I also didn't have any fresh ingredients to add to the mix so it's a bit 'bachelor chow' - but I did make it with Quorn so my partner could eat it too.

Makes 10 tacos, serves four people.  I guess with the added extras this would have been possible.

Like other meal kits you have separate bags, you put them into the hot places in order, you eat.

Unlike other meal kits you can crack out the tiny, tiny luchadores and justify how much you spent on them.  I've not seen a kit with the yellow corn tortillas or a green salsa so I was quite looking forwards to this.

Step one is marinade the meat or veg, but with quorn defrosting in the sauce as you cook tends to get the best flavour.  I'd usually do this covered too as it prevents the quorn drying up too much (and the luchadores from doing spots off the utensils).

And here we see the finished, unfolded results.

Granted, with shredded lettuce and tomatoes and cheese (we did use cheese just not in the pictures) this would look more impressive, but it's still fairly exciting.  The mixture made just about 8 of these size tacos, so you could stretch that to 10.  I did eat 5 of these (and the remaining 2 tacos).

The flavour of the marinade and quorn was strong but not that spicy, all the heat in this kit was in the amazing green salsa which you could adjust easily for any non-Mexican fans.  The salsa popped and really brought the taste buds alive.  I'm worried about what the three chilli box will do, but the two chilli box should be fine.

The course textured tacos were a pleasant change from the old el paso style soft flour tacos, and gave the meal a different complexion to what I was expecting, adding bite where the quorn would usually lack some.

Good enough to add Wahaca to my computers spell check so it stops changing it to whacked, and definitely enough to continue up the strength scale of the boxes.  And next time i'm forced to make a pilgrimage down south to the capital I'll try and pop in to try the real deal.

Kershaw's Classic - steaklet and chips (@NLi10)

What the fox this?!

We take a break from our healthy eating and find ourselves with a TV dinner to pop in the microwave and consume. I know I'm a fan of bachelor chow, but even the guy in the corner shop that sold me this suggested it'd be like eating the box. But let's give it a fair trial...

We have three frozen portions. Meat, beans and chips. Like the three misunderstood food groups on our broken plate.

Nutritionally we get a wodge of calories, and half the days salt. Not ideal, but I was very tired and needed something where someone else had done all the work.

From experience i know that the microwave option is only for the desperate and leave it for 30 lonely minutes in our oven.

This gives me plenty of time to read the box and discover it's a family company that is in its 70th year. Maybe they know what they are doing then, and maybe they do care!

The portions are a little small - but it was only £1.59 - so I could have had two. The beans are misshapen, the steak is a decent burger, and the chips are fine.

It's all a bit beige so I added some red sugar sauce (or tomato ketchup) on the side. 

And it was perfectly fine. The flavours were muted as you'd expect, but the textures were fine and everything was cooked but not dried out like I'd feared. I'm surprising myself by saying this but is have this again.

If I'd been a bit better prepared I could have added a portion of veg to bring it up to size and to help myself in the nutrition too. As far as frozen meals go this was pretty good value for money and it's no surprise that they are still in business. 

And in fairness to them they do have options where the beans are replaced by some frozen veg but I figured that id go full comfort food.

Bami Goreng - frozen dinner in a bag! (Lidl) [by @NLi10]

As many of you know I love sophisticated and subtle flavours like Fentimans and Monty Bojangles. I also love bachelor chow - food that you just heat and eat. This bag of frozen Bami Goreng is the later.

Here Lidl has provided a huge bag of frozen stuff. Meat, veg, sauce and even noodles have been cryogenically stashed away to fuel me at a later date. I've no idea whether it's authentically Chinese, but it's here as part of the Chinese New Year promotion so let's fry it up!

Here we se it as it hits the frying pan. At this point I'm not convinced. At best it's catering grade.

As it heats up it looks like school dinners but the smell is getting there. It's also clearer that there are more foods in here than I thought. The meat looks decent chunks too.

And here is the finished product, it's not going to win any beauty contests but it's pretty good. If a take away threw a sauce on this and sold it I'm sure no one would notice of complain. 

A victory for the modern man - it probably even has nutrients. If this wasn't just a Chinese New Year thing then I'm picking up more. It's great for a small quick meal when it's just you and the TV.

Hunger Breaks Hot Pots "Chip shop" Chicken Curry & Rice [@Nli10]

In the quest to find a nice lunch I've been working my way down the ready meals aisle at Asda.  This one I bought based on the flavour alone - Chip Shop Curry sauce!

Interestingly it's in the same pots as the Fray Bentos range, but with different colours and a very different recipe.  This is the very height of bachelor chow and is essentially baby food for adult males.

It doesn't need added water AND it has a very distinct flavour and is actually pretty nice.  If you have teenagers that you worry are not eating enough then get some of these for them.  It's probably the least filling of all the ones I've had so far, but not by much.  The texture is very samey and off-putting and it produced a lot of funny looks.  In fact this is very much a school-dinners kind of thing where everything is in one pot.

I didn't hate it, and would happily explore the range to find some others that may be more my thing.  I'd much rather have something from the actual chip shop, but as far as quick snacks go - this is pretty effective.  And it does taste like chip shop curry too!

Dunn's River - Nurishment (original variety) [review by @NLi10]

I've been increasing my exercise recently with a spot of swimming and some prowrestling at a local dojo.  To this end I've been trying out a few of the more bulky energy drinks that have a variety of science claims and are designed to make you a superhuman beast.

To start with I picked up this can of bachelor chow that is named Nurishment. I've seen this around a lot. The people who drink this do tend to wear track suits, but don't tend to be doing exercise. I figured that I'd see what happened.

This is what was in the can. Science! 

I had achey post exercise legs before and after drinking it, I did become very, very sleepy though.  I'm not sure if this was just as a result of work and heat, but it did coincide very closely with the drink.  I will have to get another can and try it when I'm actively doing exercise.

The flavour was vaguely strawberry and it was very gloopy and felt like it wasn't veggie friendly (it isn't). I may be not quite the target market for this, but I am willing to try it again.

Tilda Stir Fry Thai Red Rice [by @NLi10]

Regular readers will know that I'm a sucker for Bachelor Chow - that is things that contain all the ingredients to make themselves. I believe they are one step up from ready meals and just nutritious enough to stave off scurvy. Plus it has the added bonus that you have to add your own meat! In the current horse-gate shenanigans this is more relevant to other people than it used to be but for my family it means I can make veggie versions so Ms. NLi10 can share too.

This particular odd box of rice is basically the microwave rice that I used to have for lunch, but upgraded with enough sauce to make it feel like a meal. Plus it's a bigger portion for two! I made it with Quorn fillets which I fried up with a little lemon juice, but other than that I added nothing that wasn't in the sachet.

The flavour was suitably Thai, but with a severe chilli kick. This I liked! I'd had a surprisingly hot bolognese pizza at Pizza Express the night before so this was a notch down, but still enough to encourage having a drink on standby.

I liked this a lot, and while I feel that I should have thrown a few veggies in it's direction to make it a full meal it was certainly satisfying enough to get me through the evening. I'll have to investigate the range (and remember where I got it from - probably Asda) I'm sure these are good for lazy nights in, and big lunches.

Whiskas Chicken Bite'n Chew - ready meal for one [By @Nli10]

As regular readers will know I'm a big fan of bachelor chow - that is food that is self contained and easy to cook for the solo guy at home on his own. Whether you live alone, or have just been left to fend for yourself on a Sunday it's often much preferred to make something nice and quick rather than to go to all the effort of a full meal. Past favourites in this have been the Beef & Basil Meatballs which can be cooked straight from the bag and makes a good meal.

UK food manufacturers Whiskas have jumped on this band-wagon with a series of mini pouches that are designed to appeal to the modern, metrosexual guy with cute kittens on the box, and the one I had for lunch today is from their new 'Bite 'n Chew' range - presumably to counter the critics who thought that their previous range was a bit on the slimy side.

The cooking directions aren't that clear and the pouch looked a bit metallic so I popped it on a side plate and microwaved it for 90 seconds until it was nicely steaming.

With a side of fresh (ish) rocket and sprinkles from their crunch range it made quite an appetising looking lunch!

The smell was quite strong, and unlike most ready meals quite tangy. While the 'Bite 'n Chew' means that you can feel the lumps as you eat it, this still decomposes in a very strange way in the mouth - the extra crunch is needed! The flavour is fairly unique and can only be described as sharply vinegary and the chicken is almost hidden behind a wall of mysterious meaty flavours. I wouldn't describe it as amazingly appetising, but once you get used to that initial bitter hit and suppress the gag reflex then it's nicely filling.

The Beef, Trout & Salmon flavours all come in the same pack (12 pouches seems a bit much) and I think that the Trout could be a winner with it's strong fishy overtones and briney aftertaste. There seems to be a whole untapped world of potential in these mini meals, and I look forwards to seeing more in the range.

By Nli10