Rustic Dining In Your Deckchair! (Goodlife Butternut Squash Roasts)

Member Name: Machair1

Product:	Goodlife Butternut Squash Roasts
Date:	09/06/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bursting With Healthy Ingredients

Disadvantages: None

Goodlife Butternut Squash Roasts are a product from an ethical company, and one which I have usually got in my freezer in case of an emergency guest, or a lazy day.

I purchase mine from Waitrose where they retail for £2.59. This gives you 2 lovely roasts and a generous helping of 2 sachets of a rich tomato sauce to cover them after they have cooked. This rich tomato sauce, made with oven roasted tomatoes, makes a lovely blanket for them. If you are a regular cook you may know that oven roasting vegetables brings out the flavours so intensely, and this sauce is an example of that-a lovely rich red, in which oven roasting has harnessed the tangy tomato flavour perfectly. These roasts are also widely available in many other supermarkets and health food stores.

Although these are called roasts to me they are chunky deep burgers, and if you don't want to serve them formally with vegetables, they are just as happy in a bun eaten with a little of the sauce to coat. They are round and stocky and make a substantial meal.

These are from a range Goodlife do called Bistro, and they are made from all natural ingredients, so if you fancy a night off cooking these are a healthy alternative to the lure of the local chippy!

They are made from carrots, butternut squash, mixed nuts, including peanuts, almonds and cashews, spinach, parsnips, chick peas, mushrooms, tomato puree, cornflour, breadcrumbs, onion, garlic puree, salt and parsley. They are suitable for veggies and vegans, but the breadcrumb coating excludes those with a wheat allergy from enjoying these lovely colourful roasts. It is really great to find something vegan friendly, as one of my daughters is a vegan, and this would certainly be something she would enjoy. Each roast contains 262 calories and so is not too bad for the dieter, although being generously endowed with nuts it does elevate the fat content up to 15%.

The cooking is easy; you simply heat in the oven for 30 minutes 200C/400F/Gas mark 6. Then you simply heat up the sachets of sauce for 3 minutes in some boiling water,cut open and pour over the drench the roasts. You can't microwave these as it spoils them.

The thing I really love about these is the farmhouse, chunky homemade look and texture of them, it is not unusual to find big chunky pieces of nuts inside and there is nothing which says "ready made" about these, and they are healthy and nutritious. They are so colourful with a myriad of shades created by tightly packed veg and nuts, which create a mosaic of textures and flavours. Emerald spinach and amber carrots nestle amongst rustic nuts.

This meal has some redeeming aspects such as the inclusion of nuts, which are full of essential omega three fats, plenty of fibre in the vegetables, and an abundance of orange ones known for their antioxidant properties. The addition of chick peas makes a protein filled meal especially when you add in the protein provided by the nuts themselves, so this is great news for vegetarians, and the great thing is it makes a change to find a prepared meal which isn't loaded in cheese ,which of course many veggie meals can be.

I have tried many of their products and have been delighted every time. The Nut Cutlets and Bean Burgers they make are a treat, and the company themselves work hard to make good wholesome nutritious food from healthy ingredients, with no e numbers of any kind and no additives. As all the products they make are vegetarian there is no possibility of any meat contamination, which is important to me as I am a vegetarian. These are brilliant value and are something I will continue to buy as they represent what I feel ready made food should be, healthy and just as good as home made!

A brilliant meal for a lazy day!
All you need is a deckchair and a drink, and the oven can just for once do the work!

Summary: Great value and full of lovely things!