Today I made a chicken and vegetable pie for lunch to use up the leftovers from yesterday's Sunday roast and decided it would be the perfect time to try out the sachet of ready-to-heat Rich Turkey Gravy that we had recived from Schwartz. I usually make my own gravy with granules added to the liquid from the roast meat and vegetables so I was keen to see how the ready-to-heat gravy would compare.
Chicken and vegetable pie is a great way to cut down on food waste. After yesterday's roast dinner, I put all the leftovers - the chicken, vegetables, roast potatoes and gravy, all chopped up into bite sized pieces - into an ovenproof dish, covered it in foil and stashed it in the fridge until this morning. Overnight, the leftover gravy from yesterday had all been absorbed by the meat so it wasn't moist enough.
Time for reinforcements ! I poured over the sachet of Schwartz ready-to-heat Rich Turkey Gravy and was impressed at how thick and smooth it looked. If you always end up with lumpy gravy, this would be a great solution !
I mixed the meat, vegetables and gravy up so that everything was evenly covered in sauce then used a ready made roll of puff pastry to create a pastry lid. Delia's not the only one to use cheats in the kitchen ! Literally five minutes preparation time and it was ready to go in the oven.
Half an hour later, it had gone lovely and golden brown. The kids were drooling by this point !
The gravy wasn't quite as thick as it looked when I first poured it out of the sachet but it did have a lovely taste and seemed much less greasy than my usual gravy made with the cooking juices. The whole 200g pack only contains 62 calories, which is fabulous if you're watching your waistline.
If you don't want to incorporate the gravy into a pie, you can heat it in a saucepan for 1-2 minutes and it's ready. It can also be heated in the microwave but you need to put it in a microwavable dish and heat it for 60-90 seconds so it doesn't really seem worth it ! If you're feeling really lazy, you could pour it over your meal on a plate and microwave the whole thing though !
It's a great kitchen standby, especially if you only ever manage to make lumpy gravy with granules, which made it really easy to knock up a chicken pie in record-breaking time this lunchtime. It does work out more expensive than using gravy granules though so I wouldn't use it all the time.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : 71p for 200g
for more information : http://www.schwartz.co.uk/Products/Gravies/Gravies/Ready-to-Heat-Gravy/Rich-Turkey-Gravy.aspx
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Thanks for the recipe. I've never used ready prepared gravy but it looks good & I'm sure is tasty.
ReplyDeleteI might be tempted to give this a try. I always make my own gravy, but never use granules, I use an old slimming world recipe - 2 chopped onions and a garlic clove cooked slowly until really soft and brown, then stock added and blitzed until smooth.
ReplyDeleteI never use cooking juices because of the calories, but as this is so low, I'm definitely tempted to try instead of making it my way - which is fine for a Sunday roast, but a bit of a faff for midweek chops!