The old look!

We are big fans of Meals from Scratch and were pleased to meet the team at the recent Specialty Fine Food fair. We got to see the new packaging which is being released today.

Scratch is an alternative to ready meals and takeaway with a way of cooking a healthy meal for one from scratch without the added food waste and hassle in less than eight minutes. They are delicious, too. We tried them.

Scratch are stocked in 40 Sainsbury’s Locals in London and online nationwide Ocado.com

Side by side – the new look ‘Who Stirs Wins’ arrives in store at Sainsbury’s Local

We’ve tried them all apart from the Tagliatelle Pistachio Pesto and can vouch that they are really tasty! Here’s an article we first wrote in April 2012.

The full range:
Scratch Singaporean Crayfish Noodle Laksa 300g
Scratch Chicken Thai Green Curry with Bamboo Shoots 410g
Scratch King Prawn and Chorizo Paella 415g
Scratch Makhani Chicken Tikka Masala 400g
Scratch Tagliatelle Pistachio Pesto 300g

Scratch Meals New Logo and Packaging

Cook from Scratch – Recipes by Michel Roux OBE

And if it wasn’t simple enough there’s even a video:

The bottom line? The Ready Meal is Dead!

Michel Roux Snr, forever immortalised as the Godfather of the UK’s culinary revolution and founder of the Waterside Inn, the only restaurant outside of France to be honoured with three Michelin Stars consecutively for 25 years, has created an innovative range of fresh, wholesome and affordable meal-kits ready to be cooked from scratch in under ten minutes.

Designed for people who value the virtues of good cooking but are squeezed on time and refuse to succumb to the ‘ping’ of a microwave, the genius of Scratch lies in its simplicity.

One box, containing premium pre chopped, washed and weighed fresh ingredients, no additives or preservatives and a simple set of instructions requiring nothing more than a wooden spoon and no more than two pots or pans.

From April 25th the range, comprising of Chicken Thai Green Curry with Bamboo Shoots (£3.95), King Prawn and Chorizo Paella (£3.95), Makhani Chicken Tikka Masala (£3.95) and Tagliatelle Pistachio Pesto and Cherry Tomatoes (£3.95) will be stocked in 60 Sainsbury’s Local stores across London, with a view to rolling out nationally across the UK later in the year.

So it really works! We tried the Chicken Thai Green Curry – and it was great.  There’s an introductory offer of 1/3 off at Sainsbury’s Local in London and with a buy ten-get-one-free offer inside the packaging we reckon we’ll be eating more like this in the future. There’s even a fresh lime leaf in the kit and a useful free wooden spoon. The only criticism is the packaging – there’s too much of it with each ingredient wrapped up or potted separately but the plastic is already 50% recycled material and the cardboard sleeve 100% recycled and they say they are looking for ways to improve on this.

It says 7 minutes on the pack but took us a 10 minutes because we weren’t quite sure if the rice would really only take 3 minutes, so it must be par boiled. It felt good using  pans again.  Everything fresh and tasty. Thumbs up from us.

Michel Roux Scratch Meal Kits

The blurb from the packet is quite cute too (and after reading it we are not quite sure what Michel Roux has to do with the kits):

‘We’re a small independent company passionate about making it easier for busy people to cook from… scratch. We started SCRATCH because we found it difficult to cook tasty, healthy meals whilst living alone, working long hours and trying to cram the occasional visit to the gym or drink with friends. The soul-destroying ‘ping’ of the microwave, the food waste and cost of cooking for one led us to try to solve this problem.

From our first day at Whitecross Street Market, we’ve been on a mission to make it possible to experience the joy of cooking from scratch in the same time it takes to heat a ready meal. We are at the start of this journey and are continuously looking to improve so would love to hear your thoughts. Please email us at hello@mealsfromscratch.co.uk’

Follow them on twitter@scratchmeals they are going to be a hit.

UPDATE: We tried the Makhani Chicken Tikka Masala and loved that one too – spicy and rich.

Makhani Chicken Tikka Masala

New Meal: Singaporean Crayfish Noodle Laksa

May 31, 2012  From: The Scratch Team

We’ve been hard at work in the Scratch office to bring you with more options. We’ve come up with a Singaporean Crayfish Noodle Laksa with delicious bean sprouts and lime. You should be able to find this new meal in our Sainsbury’s Locals starting 13th of June. Keep checking back at our blog, Facebook, orTwitter for more news!