Midday Meal Taste Testerssssssssssssssssssss

Beef stew and dumplings. 

Sub title on box; tender pieces of beef & veg in a rich beef & ale gravy with dumplings.  

Let's take this as it's being sold to us as consumers shall we?  Take a look at this image.

• Wow, look at that beef.  It's almost as good looking as when I make my own stew.  
• Look at those wonderfully plump dumplings, 
• the thick gravy, 
• the whole cow being served up on your plate, or promise of one - in a stew for one!!!!! Wow.  Thank you Sainsbury's for looking after me when all I really want to do is eat too much and eat huge portions sizes.  Thanks for weighing out this deliciousness and doing the major work for me so all I have to do is pop it into an oven and wait for that tasty goodness to come forth and bellyply!
   
• Beautiful looking carrots, and yes, yes... that could be turnip or swede.  A sprinkling of additional herbs looks as though this is all we may need, bar the wonderful suggestive peas and broccoli in the background.  No worries Sainsbury, I can manage that much...
  
  It's so yummy, we were quite excited to get it out of the oven and eat.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I could just end this here really.  Because you can see from the images just what was pulled out of the depths of hell that is the oven! 

I'm not sure that in the packaging we might have missed something.. You know,  like a small set of control fairies which changes the product whilst its cooking in the oven, out of site, just to fuck you up when you see this thing appear.  Something happened.  Because that stuff above this paragraph, is not the stuff they show on the box!

There is a faint smell of fake alcohol, or maybe it's real, who knows.  Is it ale?  I doubt it very much.  The liquid gloop, sorry 'rich beef and ale gravy' is an insult on taste buds, but has such a weird odour, that it leaves you shuddering.  There is an after taste that both of us had, enough to send Deanie down to the local shop to grab some diet coke to wash down the badness with.

430 calories of beef stew like Grandma used to make?  Unless Granny was trying to kill you, then no, not like any human ever made.  The picture on the box compared to what was inside the box, cooked, was not comparable and is deceitful if I am really chucking it all out there on the table, unless of course you're a food starved pygmy from deepest darkest Baloogna who has never heard of Sainsbury's or had them or any of the other super markets ruin their taste buds.  

Who sits at a table at the big super markets and says, hmmm well done science food lab, this meal really tastes like Grandma used to make it'?  Who?  Someone please tell me who those people are because:


1. They're liars.
2. We have a loaded shot gun with a bullet especially for them.

I feel cheated really.  If I wanted to be poisoned for £1.50 I could have found rat pellets for less!  Sainsbury's, get rid of your taste testers, something is going horribly wrong if you think your boxed food really taste like somethin' kinda good!
Verdict:
This food is not food!!!!!! And is not worth the £1.50 paid for each of these meals.  It's just a box full of mess.