| Product: |
Tesco Finest Beef Lasagne |
| Date: |
12/11/07 (108 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Tastes great, quick and easy to cook, not expensive!
Disadvantages: None
As some of you will already know I am currently a full time carer to my mother who has Vascular Dementia. As my father finally lost his battle with Alzheimer’s disease last year mom gets very lonely and I spend the majority of my time keeping her company.
I prepare lunch for both of us as mom’s memory is so bad these days that she probably wouldn’t be able to prepare a meal for herself any more.
Some days I feel like cooking and other days I feel idle or maybe have been busy out in the garden or such like and just need to be able to prepare a quick meal and this is where the Tesco Finest range comes in.
The food in this particular range is sold ‘chilled’ but can easily be frozen so it is a good idea to stock up when Tesco’s have one of their regular money off promotions. The beef lasagne is normally £2.98 per 350g pack, but the current offer is buy two meals and get £1 off. This makes it great value and providing it is up to the usual standard of Tesco’s Finest products we’re on to another winner here!
The lasagne is packed in a plastic container (to be recycled of course) with a plastic film over the top (to be recycled again) and then covered with an outer cardboard sleeve (also recycleable!) It has already scored highly with me as I try to recycle as much as I possibly can.
The cardboard wrapper has the Tesco Finest logo on the top left and the main colours are grey and black apart from the colour picture of the lasagne which stands out against the plainer background making the whole thing look classy and inviting.
One of the main things that attracted me to this product and others in the same range is the promise that it contains ‘no artificial preservatives, flavours or colours’.
The other information on the front of the sleeve consists of the description of the product as follows:
‘A traditional rich Bolognese sauce layered with free range egg pasta
Slowly baked for richer flavour
Topped with a smooth creamy cheese sauce’
As with other Tesco foods there is also information about the calorie, sugar, salt, fat and saturates content in grams per pack and as a percentage of an average adult daily allowance.
On the reverse of the sleeve is all the usual information about how to cook the meal either by conventional oven or using the microwave – remember to allow a bit extra cooking time if you have frozen the item though! It does tell you to defrost the item thoroughly for 12 hours before cooking but it also gives instructions on how to cook the meal form frozen so that’s a bit odd! I have cooked mine straight from the freezer with no ill effects.
There is also a list of ingredients (as it says on the front of the pack nothing artificial), nutrition, allergy advice and the Tesco promise of satisfaction or a full refund.
As I said earlier this product was found in the chiller section at Tesco’s but it suitable for home freezing which is what I did.
Before I purchased the lasagne I slid the cardboard sleeve partly off so that I could see the size of the portion inside. How many times have you bought something in a generous sized pack only to find that the product inside is considerably smaller than the outer packaging? This was not the case here – the portion was easily big enough for a single adult meal.
So all this information is great – the packaging is all recycleable, there are no artificial ingredients in the lasagne and the portion size looks just right BUT how does it taste?
I decided to cook ours in the conventional oven as there were two of us eating. That way the meals are ready together rather than cooking one after the other in the microwave. That would make it like school – with first and second sittings!
To prepare it for conventional cooking I just had to remove the cardboard sleeve and then remove the plastic film across the top. This was easier said than done as it is very well stuck around the edges, but I got there in the end.
It would have taken 25 minutes in the oven on 190 degrees had it not been frozen but, as I said earlier, I had frozen ours so it took 30 – 35 minutes to cook. Obviously you need to check that it is hot all the way through before serving. Incidentally it would take a maximum of 6.5 minutes in the microwave so it would be great for someone living alone and in a hurry!
By the time it was cooked the smell coming from the kitchen was lovely.
To serve the lasagne I just put each of the containers on a separate plate rather than trying to get the product out of the tray as I am sure that I would have made a right mess of it!
Of course the other advantage of cooking and serving in this way is the lack of washing up – great stuff!
The lasagne looked excellent. The pasta, sauce and filling were all the right colours – there was nothing bright or artificial about it. In fact it looked good enough to be served in any Italian restaurant!
The taste was no disappointment either! The sauce was creamy and just cheesy enough without being overpowering. The pasta was all well cooked so there were no hard inedible pieces and the Bolognese was delicious! The other thing that we noticed about this lasagne was that it wasn’t at all greasy. Often with dishes made from mince the result can be quite greasy and not very palatable as a result but this was spot on!!
There was enough to make a filling meal for one, which isn’t always the case when you buy ready meals!
All in all I would recommend this product without hesitation! Lets face it even at the full price of £2.98 per portion it is still excellent value for the standard of the product – you couldn’t make it yourself for that much!
As I said earlier we had one or two different meals in this range so I shall have to do some more reviews to let you all know how they were!
Summary: A great tasting lasagne at a good price!
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