Instead of bread

There'll be no bread for a few weeks. My kitchen is being refitted, and while that's in progress, all I have is a microwave oven. So this means I'll be eating more cook-chill food than I'd like. But it gives an opportunity to review the products I taste, so you don't have to.

So here's the first: Waitrose "deliciously different pearl barley and seafood risotto with yellow cherry tomatoes, salmon, king prawns & crab". This is the kind of thing I really ought to like. It's a worrying sign that the pack has to explain what pearl barley is. The meal is low in salt, fat and sugars, which of course means that you have to add salt to make it tasty. It's much too liquid to be called a risotto. There was a decent amount of salmon, and three or four prawns. I have to accept there was crab in there somewhere. Generally it was pretty tasteless, although the liquid has a bit of an aftertaste of bisque, which was quite nice. I forgot to take a picture of the cooked meal, but there was a bunch of rocket included, which was a bit mushy after the 4 minutes microwaving, and the tomatoes were of course pulped by it.

So, not impressed. If I were to buy this again, I'd remove the rocket and tomatoes before cooking, and add them back on serving. I'd add salt before cooking, and if possible get some sort of bread to mop up the liquid, and I'm sure some basil on top would help too.

This cost £2.75, reduced from £3.99 as today's the expiry date. It'd be really poor value at the higher price.