The Sunday Roast. What is your favourite option- chicken, pork, lamb or beef? Mine is definitely pork and the rest of my family love them all. It is without  doubt their favourite meal of the week. The only problem I have with it is that it takes lots of prep time and it means that an adult has to be in the house to supervise the cooking, par-boiling, peeling and juggling of many components and this is not always possible.

So roasts are certainly not an every week meal in our house but when things go to plan and the roast is going ahead that certainly makes for a happy bunch of eaters.

My latest roast was sent to me by the people at Knorr. A hamper with the works including a joint of beef and their award-winning gravy pots which won “Product of the year 2014” award along with a few other lucky winners. Before I go on to tell you what I think of the gravy pots I do have to say that I would usually make my own gravy and haven’t bought a product such as this since my student days of sausage, mash & gravy  made with Bisto granules.  Will I be converted? Well I’ll  give you my verdict after a few photos of my roast beef with all the trimmings……………….

To make the gravy, I used the tin that the beef was roasted in and deglazed the meat juices with some water before adding in the stock pots and the recommended amount of water. I used 2 types of gravy pots as  I received chicken and onion flavour in my hamper but not beef, so improvising was necessary! The gravy was dark, rich and thick so more water was added to achieve the gravy consistency that I like.

I cooked the beef for only 40 minutes to achieve a perfectly rare joint, with a generous coating of Dijon mustard & seasoning. Carrots & parsnips were also roasted (before the beef) with some chilli honey added in for the last 10 minutes of cooking. Potatoes were cooked alongside the beef but the Yorkies were put in the oven while the beef was resting. 

The finished plate! 

More detailed instructions on how to achieve a simple yet delicious roast can be found HERE. 

What did I think of the Knorr Gravy Pots?

As ready-made gravies go, this is  a good product. It is something I would use again as a standby or to top up a home-made gravy that needs to go further and to feed more people. 

It would be something I would use to go with sausage and mash or toad in the hole when I really need a gravy mid-week for a quick supper and sweating onions simply isn’t going to happen.

I think they would be good to add  into a cottage pie or shepherds pie to give it more depth of flavour.

The gravy pots would be the perfect dip for all of the mini Yorkshire puddings my kids eat (they actually drink it) for tea, often served on their own with some veg. 

I would imagine adding a little gravy pot to a beef stew would be another good way to use them.

Thanks to Knorr for providing me with hamper roast meal. I was not paid to write this review and  all opinions expressed here are my own