Mitch’s Kitchen: Plant based convenience

I was recently sent a selection of Mitch’s Kitchen review samples to try out. This couldn’t really have come at a better time as being pregnant, cooking isn’t always high on my agenda, but I do need to be eating well where I can.

Rather than your usual high fat, high salt gloop from the supermarket, Mitch’s Kitchen create vegan meals that are free from gluten, palm oil and pesticides. They come packaged in sustainable and fully recyclable packaging (although you do have them delivered to your house, so there are food miles involved).

All of the meals were interesting – a good mixture of cuisines from around the world was represented. I’ve been gradually tasting them in emergency situations when a fresh homecooked meal is not readily available! I have also kept a couple to one side.s I know when Moley arrives we’re likely to have even less time to cook and batch cooking has been way up there as advice from existing parents!!

Mitch’s Kitchen Review: Plant based ready meals

I was a really big fan of the Spanish tapas meal. All of these meals can be cooked in 10 minutes in the microwave and around 40 minutes in the oven. I kept them in the trays rather than attempt to serve them for the photos. I wasn’t sure that they wouldn’t just all go to mush!! There isn’t much going on in the way of texture if you microwave them. So do oven heat.

The tapas dish is the best for combinations of flavour and texture in my opinion. The crunch of the ‘beet balls’ along with the earthy flavours goes well with all the beans in spinach. The patatas bravas element has a nice little kick to it too.

The only bit that didn’t really do it for me was the tofu frittata. It managed to neither have texture, nor flavour. Which is quite an accomplishment for food!! But overall I really enjoyed that dish.

Vegan Chocolate Chilli

Another dish that I would recommend was the chocolate chilli. The spicing was just a little too hot for my current tastes (but that’s me being pregnant, not a fault on their part). The chocolate did add a nice richness and depth to the chilli, which was full of beans and peppers. This dish was really, REALLY filling as well, accompanied as it was with a hearty serving of coriander and sweetcorn wholegrain rice. Really ticked all the boxes for a quick and easy, but wholesome meal.

Coconut Kathal Masala

In the interests of balance though, I would mention the Coconut Kathal Masala. This was by far one of the most uninteresting dishes I have eaten in a significant amount of time. There was a slight coconut note, but even the normally quite flavourful Romanesco cauliflower was bleached and bland. I was conscious of a chilli heat building as I ate, but that was it – even with significant seasoning added. So I think the key here is trial and error to find the dishes that you like.

There are currently 9 different meals in the range, so there is quite a lot of choice. I like that the menu very much celebrates the plant-based ingredients. Much better than trying to be recreations of non-vegan items – like veggie sausages and the like. And I enjoyed the range of different global flavours. I think I would be happy to use them again as a fallback meal. But you do need the period of trial and error to find favourites. Such was I polarised on what I tried.