Date night ~ in the kitchen

With 7 children and no relatives within 80 miles, plus neither of us are 'from round here' we don't get babysitters very often. In fact never.

We've left the biggest one in charge only once for more than 1/2 an hour - it was for 90 minutes, at 5pm on a weekday and we were testing out the pub at the end of our road. Maybe we're a bit overly cautious, but the thought of a huge scrap breaking out or boy no.4 feeding the fish while we're gone is enough to make me break out in a sweat.

In order that we get some 'couple time' to ourselves, every once in a while I feed the children and then cook something a bit special for 2. We pack them off into the living room with a DVD and a big bowl of popcorn, I lower the blinds in the kitchen, light some candles and open a bottle of wine and we sit at the kitchen table, just the two of us, and have a nice romantic meal.

I buy a meal deal or otherwise try and cook something that doesn't take me hours and cause loads of stress - especially as I'll have already cooked once for everyone else. Scratch meals I thought would be absolutely ideal because they are still home-cooked and have beautiful fresh ingredients, but it's all there in front of you and cooks really easily, so my meat-eating partner and I can choose something completely different and I'm not wasting half the ingredients or spending hours preparing something I'm unfamiliar with.



Unfortunately despite searching all the stockists anywhere in North and Central Manchester we were completely unable to get me the vegetarian meal Tagliatelle Pistachio Pesto (which I was really looking forward to), so I had to give in. The only meals we were able to find were Chicken Thai Green Curry and Singaporean Crayfish Noodle Laksa (my partner is not a fan of seafood).

The meals look really good, the packaging allows you to see how fresh the ingredients are and how plentiful.

 The cooking instructions are really clear and easy to follow

And it really does cook with minimal effort in under 10 minutes.

My partners opinion was that it was very nice but not very special. It was very fruity but didn't have as much spice as he'd like. It looked gorgeous on the plate and the ingredients, especially the sugarsnap peas, were incredibly fresh.

My step-daughter, who ate the second portion, said it was nice and strangely sweet.

They both really enjoyed it, the ingredients were lovely and fresh and good quality and it didn't taste or look anything like a ready meal. At around £3.95  it offers good value for money for a nice meal that has no waste and minimal preparation and cooking.

Just a shame we couldn't have eaten together.....

I was sent vouchers for two Scratch meals in return for this review