| Product: |
Tesco Healthy Living Cottage Pie |
| Date: |
24/10/08 (80 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: ---------------
Disadvantages: Flavourless, gritty bits of meat, looks pale and uninteresting
I'm down to the last three or four meals in my freezer, and the hard work of defrosting the blasted thing is almost upon me. For tea last night I had a Tesco Healthy Living Cottage Pie as it fits nicely in my Weight Watchers points plan and also looked very tasty on the box.
I cooked it in the oven for around 35 minutes and also boiled some green beans and peas, as supermarket cottage pies rarely contain enough vegetables and I thought it may need bulking out.
Turning the cottage pie out of its cooking tray was surprisingly easy and the pie came out more or less in one piece, and with the potato on top as it should be. It looked a bit too pale for my liking, but I was aware the longer I kept it in the oven the more the meat was going to dry out. I had already cooked it for 10 minutes longer than I should have done and the top showed no sign of browning so I thought I might as well call it a day and tuck in.
I am less than impressed. The cottage pie may be a healthy option, but it is utterly tasteless and I would personally rather squander extra calories on a more interesting meal.
The potato topping needed a touch of salt, or perhaps a knob of butter, to liven it up and blow the calories or sodium intake. To me it tasted of dried potato and I couldn't help but liken it to that appalling Smash stuff. It looked and tasted pale and insipid.
The meat was no better. The gravy looked rich and meaty, but in truth is tasteless with a bit of a gloopy consistency. The mince is spread sparsely throughout the gravy and this is chewy and quite rubbery, it's in little tiny bits that get stuck in my teeth and left me with a gritty feeling in my mouth. There are a few little bits of carrot and some sort of green vegetable stirred in among the mince and gravy, but they can hardly be called vegetables as they are over processed, soggy and tasteless.
I shall never buy it again, even though this largish sized 450g cottage pie contains only 285 calories and 4.1g of fat, which equates to a mere 4 ½ Weight Watchers points. I would rather blow 8 points and dry fry my own mince, add a rich stock gravy, a couple of handfuls of veg and top with fresh fluffy mashed potato.
I bought this so long ago that I cannot honestly remember how much it cost, I know that the Tesco Healthy Living Meals are quite cheap compared to their chilled range so I would imagine this would have cost around £1.49. And that is a complete waste of £1.49 because I doubt you will enjoy this.
Summary: Possibly the dullest Cottage Pie ever!
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