Madhouse Family Reviews: Tideford Organics Carbonara Sauce review

It's the final few days before we head off on holiday to Morocco (you won't even notice I'm gone though because I've been busy scheduling posts for when we're not here - ahh the wonders of modern technology !) so I'm running out of the usual fridge staples. When the kids said they'd like spaghetti carbonara for dinner, I started off thinking I'd make my usual twist on the classic cream and bacon sauce - I like to make it with extra onions, mushrooms and leeks, as well as lots of grated cheese to thicken it up - but I didn't have enough cream to make enough for all five of us.

Then I remembered a pot of Tideford Organic Carbonara Sauce that we had received to review and that was waiting in the freezer. I pulled it out to defrost and decided that would be perfect. Once it had defrosted, I had a little taste. It has a lovely flavour - you can taste the nutmeg coming through which adds a lovely depth to the usual creamy flavour - but the consistency did seem very thin and runny to me.

I had a fish around with a fork and there are some large chunks of bacon in there but not as many as I would have liked. I therefore decided to do a half and half homemade/shop bought sauce, following my usual recipe as far as possible (I didn't have any leeks or mushrooms and not much crème fraîche) then adding in the Tideford Sauce to make it stretch further. This worked perfectly - the nutmeg was a nice extra touch and my extra cheese, bacon and onions made for a more robust sauce.