The Hotel Chocolat Tasting Club

I have been a member of the hotel chocolat tasting club for a few years and although it is a real luxury who would begrudge such a high quality box of chocolates every 3 months?

The club produces a new box every month sent to your door with a tasting card and newsletter. As I am the only one in my house who eats dark chocolate I've set my subscription to once every 12 weeks.

Being a club member also entitles you to a 5% discount is store.

How easy was it to order?

The website is very easy to use to place your order or modify an order but you do need to phone up to cancel.

The club is also designed so that those not confident with the internet can order by phone and pay by cheque if desired.

     

Delivery and Packaging

The box arrives in a long box designed to fit through your door and the box of chocolates is wrapped in a cellophane sleeve to keep them fresh. There is alos a message for your postman telling them not to leave in sunlight!

  What's in the box?

A generous 'sleekster' box of chocolates, newsletter, tasting menu and score card.


The idea is that you have 2 of each chocolate, working through the menu you can then score each chocolate and report your answers on-line or by post. In each newsletter the results from each selection are posted and the best chocolates may be considered for the shop range. So as you can see its all very serious stuff!

Ratings  

Delivery - Delivery is included in the price so cannot be judged alone.
 
 

Packaging - Well packaged, yet just fits through the door!

 

Quality & Taste- Second to none, easily the best boxed chocolates sold in the UK.

 

Value for Money - Not too bad as long as you recognise this as a luxury item, yes you could buy a lot of cadburys or galaxy for £18 but you are paying for ethical production and high quality.

Other comments: The Tasting Club really is a unique experience and a real indulgence.

     

Overall Rating:

Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin With Peppercorn Sauce

Following the Pork theme of my last recipe HelloFresh seem to be quite generous with the pork!

For this recipe and the Spiced Pork Skewers I only needed 300g of pork fillet but was sent at least 600g so  an looking forward to making them both again.

300g Pork Fillet, 450g potatoes, 4 Rashers Streaky Bacon, 100ml Milk, 1 Clove of Garlic, 3 Tbsp Double Cream, 1 Beef Oxo cube, 3 Tbsp diced Shallot, 150g Broccoli, 1/2Tbsp Black Peppercorns

As usual chop everything up; Peel and finely dice the garlic and shallot, peel the potatoes and chop into just smaller than golf ball size pieces.

Boil two pans of water, with a pinch of salt in each, and add you potatoes to one of them. Let them boil for 10-15 minutes until soft throughout and drain.

lay the bacon out, overlapping the edges to make a sheet to wrap your pork loin in. place the loin on end and roll carefully into a giant pig in blanket.

Heat a pan with a tablespoon of oil then seal your pork roll and let brown a little on all sides.

Slice the roll into discs about 2cm thick then pop them back in the hot pan and fry for 90 seconds on each side. Let rest on a warm plate.

fry the shallots and garlic in the pan containing your pork juices then add half the stock cube and 200mls of water. Allow to simmer until reduced by half then crush the pepper corns and add these plus the cream to the pan. Leave bubbling until thick.

Now cook your broccoli for 3 minutes in the second pan of boiling water and mash your potatoes with the milk, a nob of butter and a little salt to taste.

Serve the pork on top of the mashed potatoes with a good splash of sauce and broccoli on the side.

Result:

A little bit fiddly rolling up the pork and bacon but worth it in the end.

An impressive dish with lots of flavours.

Recipe score:

Spiced Pork Skewers with Carmelised Onion Rice

Another lovely recipe from HelloFresh! last night.

After taking a bit of a break from proper cooking over Christmas I decided to give the healthy January boxes a go.

300g Pork Fillet, 200g Basmati Rice, 1 Red Pepper, 1 Clove of Garlic, 80g of Onion, A pinch of Smoked Paprika, 1tsp Curry Powder, 1 Lime, 300g Broccoli

First put the skewers in some water to soak, this stops them burning when the skewers go in the oven.

Chop up all your vegetables remembering that the garlic and onion need to be finely diced to go in the rice and the red pepper should be large chunks to go on the skewers. Chop a little off the top of one of your broccoli florets so that you have a teaspoon on tiny buds to garnish.

Chop your pork into bite sized chunks, again remember that they are going to be threaded onto skewers.

Heat a pan with a tablespoon of oil then add the garlic and onion, stir and allow to cook for 5 minutes.

Next add a generous pinch of paprika, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Add the rice and stir for a minute than add 300mls of cold water.

Once the pan starts to boil turn the heat down and pop on the lid. Turn your grill on to high and put a pan of water on to boil for your broccoli.

Meanwhile mix up a marinade of one tablespoon of olive oil, the curry powder, zest of half the lime and juice of half the lime. mix well and add a couple of pinches of slat and pepper then coat your pork and peppers. If you have time you could make the marinade the night before and leave the meat and pepper sot soak up the flavour in the fridge.

Thread your meat and peppers alternately on the skewers and pop onto a baking tray and put on to the top shelf under the grill. Cook for 10-12 minutes making sure to turn every 3 minutes. Be careful as the skewers will heat up very quickly!

Lastly put the broccoli into the pan of boiling water and cook for 4 minutes and drain. check your rice and turn off the heat if all the water has been absorbed.


Serve the skewers on top of the rice with your broccoli bud garnish sprinkled on top and the florets on the side.

Result: 

Lovely tender Pork with plenty of flavour and the rice was good enough to be eaten on its own!

All that at under 500 calories.

Recipe Score:

My Tassimo Machine

I know this isn't my usual recipe/food review but I though I might branch out into food related things such as my lovely coffee machine. I used to work in a cafe as a barista and have struggled to get a decent coffee at home. I've had a Gaggia machine but it was a bit of hassle cleaning and scaling and time consuming to make a single cup as I am the only one who drinks coffee.

I've had a Tassimo machine for almost a year now and have to say I'm very satisfied.

 

Ordering

I ordered my machine from Amazon purely because they couldn't be beaten on price and I like to look at the reviews before purchasing. So ordering was as easy as anyone with an Amazon account will find and arrived the next day, as I have an Amazon Prime account.

Put in Milk disc

 

 What's in the Box

As you would expect the machine comes with cleaning instructions and everything you need to get going.... except samples!
I understand these might go out of date but it would be nice to have something to try when you get your machine home, so be warned, make sure to buy some T-Discs before getting the machine or you will be disappointed.



The Machine Itself

Put in Coffee disk

The machine, once set up, is able to dispense a fresh cup of coffee with one press of a button. If you like something a bit fancier you use 2 discs, one after the other. A single disk drink will take a minute to dispense and a double will be about 2 minutes. You can also top up your drink once its finished dispensing by holding the button down.

I made a lovely Costa cappuccino (pictured). I've heard some complaints that the milk is a condensed milk, so yes it is a bit sweeter, I would usually add sugar to my coffee but don't have to with the Tassimo milk discs. Also "no" it doesn't taste as good as going into Costa, at 54p, without leaving your house, nobody would go to Costa any more if it did!

Finished Cappuccino

I've found it much quicker than boiling the kettle and also only uses enough electricity to heat exactly the right amount of water.

Value For Money

I bought the T40 which is £119 on the Tassimo site, Amazon prices vary, It has a large removable water tank and is a little more noisy than advertised but not loud enough to wake anyone in the mornings.

The easiest way to look at cost is by single or double drinks. One disk varies from 24p for a basic coffee or tea to 28p for a Costa Americano, a double (so milk disc and coffee/chocolate disc) will cost from 47p for a Carte Noire Cappuccino to 62p for a Costa Latte, the latte uses a large milk disk.

A huge saving on coffee shop coffee but a bit more expensive than the premium (micro-ground) instants.

If my machine broke would I buy another one? Yes, definitely

Tesco Light Choices Ready Meals

Forgive me for I have sinned!

As well as failing to post for a month I have come to confess that this week I have been eating ready meals instead of home cooking. In a bid to beat the post-Christmas bulge we have been eating Tesco Light Choices Ready meals which do claim to be healthy.

Looking back at my meals for the last week I can see that the calorie content is indeed low and I have been making sure to eat breakfast but as expected the salt and fat content can still be quite high considering the portion size.

 Chicken and Bacon Pasta bake

Tonight's meal is a pasta bake, looks smells and tastes yummy so full marks there.

Is it really a healthy meal? I like to look at daily allowances here rather than grams and in theory I believe that a meals which uses 23% of your daily calorie allowance should ideally be similar for fats and salts etc. this meals actually only accounts for 15% of your allowance of fat but as most of it seems to be saturates (34% of allowance) may not be as good as you think at first glance. It also contains 2.2g of Salt which is 37% of your daily allowance.

Chicken Tikka Masala and Rice
Last week I also had a Chicken Tikka and Rice and I have to say I was very impressed with the nutritional values. At 459 Calories with 11% of your daily allowance of  Fat (only 13% GDA for saturates) and 1.4g of Salt this has to be one of the healthier meals available.

Very impressive for a curry and it also tasted like a nice curry and wasn't swimming in oil!

Chicken Breasts with Tomato and Basil sauce

The healthiest meal we had all week has to be the chicken breasts in tomato and basil sauce. At 150 calories per breast and less than 5% of your GDA for fat & saturates this lived up to its light choices branding.

The pack itself isn't a full meal like the others but is definitely the main event. I served these with half a baked potato and salad.




Still to try is the Chicken and Broccoli Pie, 33% GDA of salt but otherwise good, and the Braised Beef with Mash, again the salt GDA was above the the calorie GDA but good on the fats. So far All of the meals have been tasty and I understand that removing salt can result in a quite flavourless meal.


So "Yes" you will lose weight eating light choices meals when paired with healthy breakfasts and a good lunch, just be aware of salt and saturated fats!