Advent Day 8: Mish's Sainsbury's Ready to Cook Soup Review

As the winter nights draw in all you want is to have something warm to eat. A big bowl of soup is normally the answer. I love making soup, but not always eating it. Strange I know, but most soups for some reasons never fill me up, however the bread and butter provided always hits the spot, ahem...

Moving on, my favourite soup to make is butternut squash. Relatively easy to create but it can be time consuming peeling the squash. When my mother came home last month with a bag of Sainsbury's Ready to Cook Butternut Soup Mix with red onion and chilli; curiosity got the better of me.

Instructions are as follows: add the contents from the bag into a pot and fry for 5-10 mins in 2 teaspoons of oil. I fried the mixture for 15 mins as the vegetables were still a little hard after 10. Once fried add 700ml of boiled water to which I added a vegetable stock cube for flavour. (This is one of the tips on the back for "extra flavour" but I thought it was common knowledge to add a stock cube, clearly not according to Sainsbury's)

Before frying commences

After 20 mins of simmering

Now I am going to tell you a little secret, when I make my normal butternut soup I always add Dates. It gives a slight sweetness and also gives the soup a creamy texture once it has been blended. Chop up about 6 dates into smaller pieces and pop those in before you start boiling up.

After 20 mins or so your veges should have softened and cooked through. I let the soup cool a little before I plunged my hand held blender in and blended until the mixture was smooth.

The soup once blended, if you can see it through all the steam ;)

Truthfully the first taste was disappointing, the flavour didn't make a huge impact and the chilli was non-existent. I always add S&P after I make a soup as you don't know how strong the stock cube will be, so in went seasoning. I added ground ginger which vastly improved things and a dash of Piri Piri sauce for extra kick. Adding dates to this mixture didn't give the creaminess I was expecting so in went a dash of cream. Once I added my own little bits the soup did come alive but still tasted watery/bland for me, I'm thinking the vegetables were probably bland to begin with. All in all it was a nice soup but the bread and butter was calling me soon after.

Sainsbury's Ready to Cook Butternut Squash Soup Mix Review

1. 6.5 Stars out of a possible 10
2. Great if you are rushed for time, but be prepared to add a lot of extra seasoning. Makes me wonder if I'm saving that much time in the end.
3. Great concept from Sainsbury's but idea and ingredients needs tweaking in order to compete with the readymade soup market.

I was planning on creating glorious photos of a pristine kitchen, gleaming plates filled with wonderful soup but sadly I don't live like that. My kitchen is a jumble of different utensils, not enough space and no matter how much you clean the induction hob the ruddy thing loves finger marks. Also bonus points to you if you spotted the rouge Ketchup bottle in one of the pics haha.

So there we have it, I can't think if this is our first food review on the blog; but if it is?
How did you like it? Leave us a comment below we love hearing from you all.

Disclaimer: All photos copyright of Mish at Jute, Jam and Joy, 2014