Asda Mushroom and Spinach Polenta Bakes

June 1, 2016May 31, 2016 | Rhiannon

This is probably the “burger” with the longest name I’ve tried yet. Not only does it have a long name in the first place, but it also has a subtitle. This is the Asda Mushroom and Spinach Polenta Bakes with creamy mushroom sauce – and believe me, the packaging is a lie. Yes, alright, the bake does look sort of like that, but that’s about one-tenth of the sauce there, and since there are only two bakes in the packet, I guess the other plate was swimming.

Asda Polenta Bakes

The preparation involves first putting the bakes in the oven, then defrosting the sauce in hot water. Finally, you combine the two by pouring the sauce haphazardly around, hoping that you aren’t ruining the taste by doing so. It’s a big trend at the moment to have this extra sauce packet, and I just hate it. It’s a waste of everyone’s time. We have the technology to put sauces INSIDE bakes, people. It’s been happening for a while now.

Asda Polenta Bake with mushroom sauce

So, about the taste. The bake itself has a nutty, warm flavour with a cheesy taste. I wouldn’t say that you would notice it’s made of polenta unless you read the packet and knew. It just seems more like potato or that “mystery substance” that most veggie burgers seem to be made of (especially the cheap ones). It’s quite a thick slice even if it is somewhat small, so it manages to be quite substantial. It’s not very filling, however. I found myself wanting a bit more to eat, though probably not more of this bake.

The mushroom sauce is quite rich and combines well with the flavours of the bake. I just still don’t get why they don’t make the bake that flavourful in the first place to get rid of all of this hassle. Notice also how the bake is not quite the perfect square as described on the packaging. Not that I’m surprised, it’s just that they really did a number on this one. They even served it on a tiny side plate to make it look huge, which it isn’t.

Asda Polenta Fake

On the VegBurge scale, I give this…

Taste – 6/10

Price – 6/10

Rest of experience – 4/10

Penshurst Fair & Tonbridge Castle Food Festival

May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 | Rhiannon

Recent weeks have seen two food festivals come to our local area – the Penshurst Fair, and the Tonbridge Castle Food Festival. We managed to grab the time to go to both, and we always love seeing local vendors and picking up some treats. Let’s start with Penshurst, as this was the first of the two events to take place!

Penshurst Fair haul

It’s always great to attend this fair, which has a whole food tent as well as other areas for arts and crafts, clothing, jewellery, and so forth. It’s a huge get-together for people from all around the county and is well-attended – this is our third time going and we’re always keen to go back. There is an entry fee, but some local publications will have free entry vouchers around the time, so keep your eyes peeled for those.

Kentish cobnut products

We have a few stalls that we go back to time and time again. There’s a lovely older gentleman who runs a roasted nut stall who is just wonderful – he gave us a free packet the first time we went and is always happy to have a bit of a chat. There’s also the speciality cheese, which we ALWAYS pick up at least three of as they are all so delicious. Then there’s the Kentish cobnuts stall – this time around we picked up some brittle, which is really good, and some fudge, which I have to say is probably the best fudge I have ever eaten of all time. Seriously. It’s good stuff.

Le Range Mesurier

Finally we also picked up some sauces this time – normally we try a different brand on every visit as there are so many to choose from. This selection came from Le Range Mesurier, with apple sauce, mayonnaise, and chutney in the mix.

The Penshurst Fair is a real favourite, so the Tonbridge Castle Food Fair had a lot to live up to. It was a lot smaller in scale – covering just the area of green space within the castle grounds – but there was a fair mix of diversity. We managed to grab some olives and stuffed peppers to take home, as well as enjoying a fresh crepe while listening to the live music (see the Vine below). It was good fun, though with not quite as much to do as at Penshurst. It was also a little disappointing to see the stalls closing up reasonably early while the entertainment carried on – we missed out on churros, which is never a good fate.

Vine Recipe: Veggie Bacon Gnocchi

April 25, 2016 | Rhiannon

Gnocchi is back! We actually love making our own gnocchi and find it a really simple but delicious meal to make. This recipe is adapted from our simple gnocchi recipe to give it that little something extra special: bacon! Obviously, we aren’t including real bacon, but we’ve discovered the Quorn bacon lardons which are really delicious when cooked up properly.

Bacon gnocchi in tomato and herb sauce with rocket and feta

It’s a simple change to the recipe, so follow the instructions in the link above with one little addition. Firstly, while you are making the gnocchi, you want to start by putting some of the lardons in a frying pan with some oil. Cook them until they are nicely browned, then set them aside and let them cool while you do the rest of the preparations.

Next, when you come to time to roll your gnocchi, take one or two pieces of veggie bacon per gnocchi. The square shape of this product is perfectly suited because it will fit inside the gnocchi so easily without poking out or affecting the final look. Fold your piece of dough to enclose the gnocchi and pinch the sides a little to quickly seal it in. Next you roll between your hands or fingers to get that rounder shape. Don’t be afraid to reshape it and roll it more if you feel it doesn’t look right – it’s very pliable and won’t suffer from being handled more.

That’s all you need to do – the gnocchi will cook just as normal with the bacon inside! It gives it a bit more of an interesting texture, as each piece has that little smokey surprise inside. You can also scatter leftover pieces over the top to finish the dish – our serving method of choice is to layer rocket and tomato sauce over the gnocchi as you fish them out of the pan. This really finishes it off nicely!

Here’s the Vine so you can see how that extra step works:

Vine Recipe: Sweet Potato Macaroni Cheese Bake

March 7, 2016 | Rhiannon

One of the latest additions to our cookbook shelf is Simply Nigella, which J received for Christmas, so we’ve been trying out a few of the recipes from it and playing around with them. As soon as I read about this sweet potato version of macaroni cheese, I knew I had to give it a try. As you’ll see below (especially if you have the book to compare to), we did change a few things around and put our own spin on it. Here’s what we came up with!

This was so delicious that we served out half the dish, then came back for seconds. There’s just something magical about sweet potato, cheese, and pasta that I never would have thought of before. I did cheat a little bit: I had some cheese sauce left over from making a lasagne in the week, and since the recipe calls for lots of butter, I decided to skip that part and use my sauce as a base. You can find your own healthy cheese sauce recipe if you wish! Vegan cheese in particular has come on leaps and bounds, so be sure to give it a try if you want a version that is lower calorie and doesn’t require butter or milk.

Sweet Potato Cheese Bake

2016-03-07 21:56:27

Serves 2

Originally conceived by Nigella as as a Macaroni Cheese variation, here we've transformed it into a proper cheese bake.

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Ingredients

500g sweet potatoes
300g large pasta shells
Half jar of cheesy sauce (eg white lasagne sauce)
1 tsp English mustard
1/2 tsp paprika (split in half)
75g feta cheese
150g grated cheddar

Instructions

Peel the sweet potatoes and chop into rough 2cm pieces.
Boil a pot of water, add salt, and cook sweet potato pieces for around 10 mins until soft.
Scoop potatoes out of the pan with a slotted spoon, reserving the water for later.
Mash sweet potato into a puree with a fork.
Stir 1/4 tsp paprika and English mustard into the cheesy sauce until fully mixed.
Add the pasta to the sweet potato water and cook according to packet instructions; remove two minutes early.
Drain pasta and fold into the sweet potato mash.
Fold in the white sauce and 125g cheddar.
Place into a baking dish and sprinkle with remaining 25g cheddar and 1/4 tsp paprika.
Bake for around 30 mins at 200c.

Notes

This dish is a great way to use up extra sauce. I find a lasagne only ever needs half a jar of white sauce, so making this the day or days after will use up the excess.

By VegBurge

Adapted from Simply Nigella

VegBurge https://vegburge.com/

February 24, 2016February 20, 2016 | Rhiannon

This nut bake from Asda has an interesting concept. Much like the Brazilian grills we tried last week, it comes with a sachet of sauce that you can pour over the bake in order to enhance the flavour. This allows you to try it with or without the sauce – though in all honesty I’m still dubious about this format. It’s little more than a gimmick in my eyes – and when you are creating something for the sake of a gimmick, it’s not always going to be the highest quality in terms of actual taste and enjoyment.

Still, we gave this one a try. We both love sweet potato and are often using kale in our recipes, so this one couldn’t go wrong, right? I’m always a bit wary of something that calls itself a nut bake or nut roast as these terms, in my mind, are usually associated with boring and unimaginative veggie options.

The sauce was not too spicy, just nicely sweet and tangy, so in this case it felt like a good addition. Not perhaps strictly necessary – but still nice. The square bake had strong nutty flavours and was actually quite rich; the kale taste was mostly indistinguishable from something like spinach, so there wasn’t really anything that screamed kale about it necessarily. The various layers were great and there were chunks of sweet potato to enjoy. It had a varied texture throughout to keep things interesting, especially where the nuts were concerned. As far as bakes go, this was definitely better than I expected.

On the VegBurge scale, I give this…

Taste – 7/10

Price – 5/10

Rest of experience – 6/10

February 17, 2016 | Rhiannon

This week we’re looking at the interesting proposal which is Asda’s red pepper and chickpea Brazilian grills. There are a few things about them that seem intriguing right from the start: first of all, what exactly is a Brazilian grill? Why is there a sachet of sauce inside the packet? Isn’t it just a red pepper and chickpea burger?

Asda Red Pepper and Chickpea Brazilian Grills

We can answer that second question right away, as this is one of a seeming rise in sauce-accompanied frozen goods in supermarkets. The grill goes under the, well, grill, and the sauce goes into a cup of boiling water to defrost it through the sachet. When all is finished, you serve it up by drizzling the sauce from the sachet onto the burger. It’s an interesting, if unnecessarily fiddly, way of doing things. Of course, if you don’t like the sauce and would prefer some good old mayonnaise, you’re going to be in trouble once it’s already served.

Much as could be predicted, the taste is like that of a slightly spicy bean burger, with the added tang of the red pepper. Nothing unusual there. The texture is interesting but it’s also quite dry, which I presume is why some innovative soul thought of adding the sauce to the packet. Actually, compared to the burger, the sauce is really quite spicy and has a very strong taste. It’s got an overwhelming impression that I can only describe as “green”. I have no idea what’s in it and I don’t think I want to, as it was not entirely pleasant. It also looks pretty horrible and was quite greasy. To be honest, these grills are much better without the sauce. I can see why they’ve included it – but maybe they should have dedicated more time to making sure the burger wasn’t dry instead of just going with the sauce.

On the VegBurge scale, I give this…

Taste – 6/10

Price – 5/10

Rest of experience – 4/10

VegBurge

Reviewing veggie burger recipes, restaurants, fast food, and more…

sauce

Asda Mushroom and Spinach Polenta Bakes

On the VegBurge scale, I give this…

Taste – 6/10

Price – 6/10

Rest of experience – 4/10

Penshurst Fair & Tonbridge Castle Food Festival

Vine Recipe: Veggie Bacon Gnocchi

Vine Recipe: Sweet Potato Macaroni Cheese Bake

Asda Sweet Potato and Kale Nut Bake

Asda Red Pepper and Chickpea Brazilian Grills