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Dolmio Stir-in Spicy Pepperoni & Tomato
by Sassy29
I stumbled across these pots whilst I was out shopping one day. I saw that they were on offer and I thought I would give them a go. I love all the Dolmio sauces and had high hopes for these little pots of loveliness.
Now for the important stuff!...
*** What is it? ***
This is a stir-in spicy pepperoni and ... tomato sauce made by Dolmio. It comes in a plastic container, with a plastic peel-able lid. There is a cardboard sleeve over the top of the container which informs you of the serving instructions, nutritional information, ingredients and a picture of the final product. The container has a 150g of sauce, and suggests that it can serve two people.
*** How to serve? ***
I usually boil up some pasta, drain and stir in the sauce. This sauce is meant to be served cold, as the pasta is meant to heat it up, so there is no need to use an additional sauce pan, or microwave, to heat.
I also buy the Dolmio Pasta Twists (200g), which is microwaveable pasta, when I am at work as I don't have a hob and it only takes 75 seconds in the microwave.
Once you have opened the sauce it needs to be stored in a fridge , but only lasts for up to 3 days.
*** Price and Availability ***
You can purchase the sauce on its own for £1.75 or you can purchase 2 for £3.00. As part of this you can either purchase 2 sauces or mix and match it with the microwaveable pasta packets. This offer is currently on at Sainsbury's, but I have also seen it at Asda and Tesco's as well.
*** Other Flavours To Choose From ****
As well as Spicy Pepperoni and Tomato, it also comes in 9 other flavours:
- Cherry Tomato and Pesto
- Creamy Carbonara
- Oven Roasted Vegetables
- Slow Roast Garlic and Tomato
- Smoked Bacon and Tomato (one of my personal favourites)
- Spicy Tomato and Sweet Onion
- Sun-dried Tomato
- Sun-dried Tomato Light
- Sweet Pepper
*** Nutrition ***
Each serving of 75g contains (Spicy Pepperoni and Tomato):
- Calories 114
- Sugar 4.9g
- Fat 8.5g
- Saturates 2.3g
- Salt 1.2g
*** Ingredients ***
Tomatoes (46%), Red peppers (16%), Pepperoni (pork meat, pork fat, salt, spice and herb extracts, dextrose, garlic powder, antioxidant: sodium ascorbate, preservative; sodium nitrite) (10%), Tomato puree (8%), Onions, Sunflower oil, Sugar, Modified maize starch, Olive oil, Parsley, Basil, Garlic, Salt, Chilli paste (chillies, salt), Spices.
**** My Thoughts ****
Theses pots of sauces are extremely handy, especially if you are in a hurry. They are simple to use and no effort is really required (apart from peeling the lid and microwaving/boiling the pasta). I buy them regularly as I find them perfect for a lunch time snack.
The Spicy Pepperoni and Tomato sauce is very tasty. As soon as you peel the lid you get a strong waft of tomatoes, vegetables and spicy pepperoni. The overriding taste of the sauce is tomato and there is a kick of chilli in it as well. However, the chilli is not too overpowering, which is great as I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to spiciness. There are quite a few chunks of pepperoni in the mix, which are also very tasty and certainly livens up the sauce.
Now they suggest this serves two people but I must say there is not a lot of sauce in one pot, and I can quite easily eat one on my own. So if I am serving this for two people than I usually use two pots. I don't think that I eat very big portions, but I do like my pasta to be smothered in sauce.
I find the sauce quite oily and runny, but there are quite a few chunks of tomato in it. I usually mix the sauce into the pasta thoroughly before serving.
Even though this pots are tasty and easy to use I think £1.75 is quite a lot of money to pay for such a small pot of sauce, especially as you can buy a 500g jar of Dolmio sauce for £1.98 (Tesco's). I only pick these up when they are on offer.
The one problem I have found with these pots is if the pasta is not piping hot, than the sauce can taste quite cold. And because of this, I usually have to put the sauce in a pan or microwave to heat it up. And if I am doing this than I might as well have got a bigger jar for a cheaper price.
*** Would I recommend? ***
I would recommend these pots as a quick, easy, tasty snacks. I have eaten these many times and usually have a couple stashed in my cupboard. The only down side is the cost, I think £1.75 for a little pot of sauce is quite expensive and also the size of the pots, as they are not suitable for two people. I would only buy these pots if they were on offer. I am going to give these tasty little pots 4 out of 5 stars!
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Schwartz Chilli Con Carne
by xxfoxyredxx
When it comes to cooking I have to admit that I am not the worlds best at it but I get by. For quite a while I had been living on ready meals or takeaways and not only did that feel a very unhealthy way to eat but it was very expensive too.
I have recently moved flats and now I have a huge country style kitchen to which made ... my mum laugh when she saw it to which she muttered something about it probably never of having a takeaway in it before and at that moment I had an 'I'll show you mum' moment!
Since that day I have been cooking, knocked the takeaways on the head and put my kitchen to work. I still though rely on mixes such as this and a slow cooker and steamer and the likes but it works for me and I'm saving myself a small fortune! Lol
This mix I bought in my local Tesco store. It usually retails at around the 80p mark however I bought several different recipe mixes for just 10p each as they seemed to be selling loads and loads off so maybe they're changing the packaging of these or something like that.
The Packaging:
This recipe mix comes in a plastic on the outside, silver foil on the inside large square sachet and the colourscheme of it is red and white and on the front of it we are clearly told that it is Schwartz Chilli Con Carne Recipe Mix, that it cooks in 25 minutes, serves 4 people and there is an at a glance nutritional chart shown along with a photograph of a very nice looking chilli con carne all made up. On the back of the pack other information listed includes being told what ingredients you need to make up a chilli and directions for doing so are clearly stated, the ingredients used in this are given (This is suitable for vegetarians by the way), there is a full nutritional chart stated, the weight is given of the mix which is 41g, the best before date is clearly stated and contact details for the manufacturer are given. You simply open this sachet up with a pair of scissors and its all informative enough too.
The Mix:
Using this couldn't actually be any simpler and the directions for using it more easy to follow! All you do is fry off some mince and onions till lightly browned then add this mix in some water, a tin of tomatoes and a tin of kidney beans and allow it to simmer for about 25 minutes (at least). You can of course use any other ingredients that you want to, make it a vegetarian dish whatever......my mum even fries off some chilli's with the mince and onions in the beginning of preparing the chilli to make this one hotter cos she reckons it isn't hot enough for her and my Stepdad.
This mix makes up a browny/reddish sauce that smells of chilli's and it thickens up whilst cooking and clings on the the ingredients used and gives a lot of extra sauce. This is described on the back of the pack of the sachet as being 'Hot', for me it is reasonably so but not boiling, blow your lips off hot...I really like it.
I serve my chilli on top of a spud, with rice or whatever and I get 4 generous portions from this and being on my own I tend to keep half out and eat that and divide the rest into freezable cartons and pop them in my freezer so it works out very economical for me and gives me food that I can later defrost and reheat quickly.
A great buy these are and they get the thumbs up from me and are available from all good supermarkets and so on.
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Uncle Bens Oriental Cantonese Sauce
by paulshorse
I reviewed Uncle Ben's Lemon Chicken Sauce a couple of weeks ago, and thought that I'd give a short review of their (his?) Cantonese sauce which we've tried tonight.
WHY I BOUGHT THIS SAUCE:-
The sauces were on offer at Morrisons a few weeks ago and although we'd never tried Uncle Ben's sauces before, I thought that ... because of the company's reputation, due to them being on offer for the same price as the supermarket's own brand sauces and not least the fact that they looked quite appetizing, I would buy one of each variety to give them a try. The Lemon Chicken Sauce was quite nice, so we gave the CanTonese flavour a try tonight.
PACKAGING:-
The sauce comes in a 500g-sized jar with the usual bright orange metal top. The label is no different to the others in the range, apart from the fact that this one is more of a brown colour which matches the colour of the sauce nicely. There's a picture on the front of chicken and the sauce on a bed of rice with a root of ginger, black mushrooms and what appears to be a slice of yellow pepper laying beside the dish. The reverse of the label has a list of ingredients which include onions, red and yellow peppers, baby corn, black mushrooms, ginger and garlic - it's claimed that all ingredients are 100% natural. The description of the contents states that it is 'an aromatic and richly flavoured sauce with soy, black mushrooms and a hint of ginger'. There is also a recipe suggestion on the label which uses diced chicken breast or beef - we had the chicken.
MY EXPERIENCE:-
I found the sauce to be quite tasty. I thought on looking at it that it would be similar to black bean sauce which I'm not over fond of, but it's actually a lot sweeter. I wouldn't say that it's anywhere near as sweet as a Sweet and Sour sauce, but the soy sauce is quite strong. You can definitely taste the ginger, but it's not overpowering, and there's a hint of garlic. I personally don't think that it's particularly spicy sauce - although it does contain spices there's not enough to make it a hot. What I do like about it is that there are quite a few lumps of pepper and slices of sweetcorn which add to the flavour and texture. Mushrooms are there, but not in abundance - they're thin and you can't really taste them. I wouldn't say that it's an authentic Cantonese flavour, though - but I don't think you can expect true authenticity out of a jar. The sauce is quite thick but even so there's enough for two people and it's very quick to prepare the meal - just fry the meat, add the sauce, let it simmer for about 5 minutes and serve on a bed of rice, so it's ideal if you're in a hurry.
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:-
Nutritional values per 100g:-
Energy - 78kcal
Protein - 0.8g
Carbohydrate - 17.4g
of which sugars - 12.8g
Fat - 0.3g
of which saturates - 0.1g
Fivre - 1.1g
Sodium - 0.32g
Salt - 0.80g
AVAILABILITY AND PRICE:-
You can buy this in most supermarkets and the usual price is in the region of £1.76 which is similar to what you would pay for other branded sauces. I bought it when it was on offer at Morrisons for £0.99 but I notice that at none of the supermarkets seem to have it reduced in price at the moment. You may be able to buy this in some of the discount stores such as B & M, but I personally don't use those stores much I can't be certain.
CONCLUSION:-
I'm afraid that there's not much more that I can add to the review - it's a very nice sauce that's tasty, quite sweet and not too spicy. I think I'll definitely buy this one again but I'll probably wait until I see it on offer.
Thank you for reading this review and I hope you found it useful
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