McCains home chips recipe challenge

Recently I was contacted by McCain's with the tempting offer of trying out one their recipes. I simply (HA ha!) had to choose one of the 5 recipes they emailed me and I would be sent the ingredients to make our choice.

I say ha-ha because it was very tricky to choose, well I narrowed it down to 4 pretty quickly as neither Stephanie or I like minced meats so the chili chip pots were out.
that left us to choose between;

• Salmon and prawn parcels
• Steak pie
• Stuffed chicken
• Stuffed peppers

The children ruled out the stuffed peppers as Dylan doesn't like them at all and Stephanie doesn't like them cooked. I decided to let the children look at the recipes and see which they would most like to try. The result was the only one they could agree on
The Salmon and prawn parcels.

I was very kindly sent all of the ingredients to make this by a confused delivery man who said there's only these 3 bags? LOL

The receipt said the lovely goodies to make this recipe came in at £17.48! That's a whopping total bearing in mind we only have £20.00 as our weekly food budget. However there is enough here to make 2 dinners, and actually as we tend to eat slightly smaller portions probably even 3 meals. You could make the dinner cheaper by taking offers as we normally would by buying whole salmon and filleting it into our sized portions to make this a much cheaper recipe.

Stephanie decided she wanted to go and visit her dad today so had dinner with him instead of at home so in the end it was just me and Dylan for dinner. So I got started;

Herby butter ready to mix- that is the 100g of butter, 1 tablespoon of chopped chives and 2tablespoons of chopped parsley. Now in my excitement when the delivery arrived I put the butter in the fridge so at dinner time it was pretty hard. not to worry I put the hundred grams in the microwave for 20 seconds. If you try this be careful my microwave is very basic, if you have a posher one it may not need that long! Just long enough to soften the butter and make mixing easier. The recipe says to leave this for a few minutes to allow the flavours to develop. So I took a few moments to go and get the washing in off the line.
When I came back I continued to follow the recipe, I cut some squares of greaseproof paper and buttered one side of each. I laid the salmon pieces, one on each sheet. Then put prawns on top and then a generous dollop of the Herby butter;

 

2 parcels ready to wrap. Guess which one is mine, HINT: prawns are my favourite ;-)

 

Then I wrapped them up tightly;

Spread some chips on an oven tray and put it all in the oven at gas mark 8. The recipe says for 20-22 Min's. Again I know my oven is not always the fastest so I set my timer for 22 minutes. Which left me enough time to do this-

 

snaffle the last of the prawns from the packet- this is my favourite way to eat them!
And then a little of this;

I have had a busy day pottering around home and washing windows so I had nets for 3 windows to iron and hang. It turns out that this recipe takes just enough time for me to iron and hang the nets and make a quick side salad using items from the fridge;

Mine and Dylan's' yummy dinner. Dylan doesn't like prawns but I put some on his salmon in the hope that he would change his mind  if he tried one with this meal. It didn't work however it did mean that I got to eat his share too.

The recipe was Delicious. I was surprised by the chips. I don't normally buy McCain's as at £2.00 a bag they are a little out of our price range to be honest. I honestly was surprised- they were delicious. We don't have chips often as I try to eat healthily and oven chips normally just aren't that nice. These ones are!! I ate all of what was on my plate, we had a few left over which I offered to Stephanie, she arrived home as I was cooking. She was full so didn't want so I put them in a bowl and left them on the side in case she changed her mind. Probably a good job she hasn't as I keep sneaking back for 'just one more'- even cold they are delicious!!

These will feature on a treat meal for us as I really have enjoyed them and well it's still cheaper than the chip shop for a treat even at £2 a kilo.

If you get a chance I really would try these, either your having a treat moment, or spot them on offer maybe.
I am also very impressed as we have chips left in the freezer and enough fish etc to repeat this recipe another day- Thank you McCain's!

Now which recipe will I try next...........




I was not paid for writing this review, I did receive the food in order to make the recipe free from McCains. The opinions in this review are my own, honest opinion.