Thornleys Gluten-Free sauce range

My Thornleys Week

This week I have had the pleasure of sampling the whole range of recipe and sauce mixes by Thornleys. There are five different sauces in the range:- spaghetti carbonara, parsley sauce, chilli con carne, creamy chicken and herb sauce, and tuna pasta bake. It was my plan to try all five dishes in one week - challenge accepted!

Thornleys are a family-run business, the owner Gail Brown herself is a Coeliac along with her father and daughter. They definitely take being Coeliac seriously and understand about the gluten-free diet and the restrictions this can sometimes place upon us, particularly when it comes to convenience foods.

What I like about the mixes is the shiny, silver packaging - they certainly would stand out on a shelf in the supermarkets. The sauces all come in powdered form and are therefore a real space-saver in your kitchen cupboards, you could have all five sauces in the cupboard and they would take up hardly any room at all compared to having five different jars or tins of the equivalent sauces. This makes the sauces ideal for taking on a self-catering holiday with you, just pack them in your suitcase. I would definitely consider taking the sauces with me on holiday to Cyprus when I next visit my parents (who are based there) as it means I won't be spending ages in a foreign supermarket trying to decipher the labels on products to check whether they are gluten-free or not.

All five sauces are really easy to use, not even I could go wrong with them! So, how did I get on?

Sunday

On Sunday my brother and sister-in-law came round for lunch. This was the ideal opportunity to use the tuna pasta bake. You simply add milk to the packet contents, bring to the boil, add a tin of tuna and a tin of sweetcorn to your cooked pasta, pop in to a dish, grate cheese on top and grill until the cheese is nice and golden brown. We served ours with a bit of salad and garlic bread.

I really liked this sauce as it was so quick and easy to make. There were very subtle herby flavourings which complimented the tuna really well. Everybody said how nice the sauce tasted and they couldn't believe it was gluten-free.

Monday

Monday in our house usually means Mexican night! We tend to alternate between fajitas or chilli and so it made perfect sense to try the chilli con carne mix. Chilli is my ultimate favourite comfort food, I would have it every single night if I could and I love comparing and contrasting different brands of chilli sauce/packet mixes. The chilli is the only sauce you don't mix with milk, instead you add water, a tin of tomatoes and kidney beans. We actually added two tins of beans though to make the meal go further and a green pepper and diced onion. Because there are only two of us we don't like to waste food and so by adding extra ingredients we actually made six portions rather than four, popping the other four portions in to the freezer. The only thing I will say about the chilli mix is that personally, I would have preferred a bit more chilli and paprika flavours in mine, only because I like my chilli with a bit of a kick. This really isn't a criticism though as the great thing about Thornleys is they have made their chilli family-friendly by just adding a subtle hint of chilli and cumin which means kids will love it too.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went for the spaghetti carbonara. I was really impressed with this one and it was probably my favourite of all five sauces. I found it so rich and creamy and it didn't taste like it had come from a packet. The sauce thickened up really well and was so full of flavour with lots of garlic which is just how I like it. We also added a few frozen peas to add some colour. We used the exact amount of spaghetti suggested on the packet but halved it for two people however we did find that this didn't give us enough pasta so next time we would add more than the packet states. By only using half of the packet we saved the rest for another day later that week.

Wednesday

On Wednesday I needed something quick and easy as I was going out for the evening so I had left over chilli from Monday, defrosted and heated up again in a pan. It still tasted delicious. To make mine more spicy this time I added a teaspoon of chilli powder and a teaspoon of paprika.

Thursday

Thursday was time to try the parsley sauce which we served with some lovely smoked fish and salad, peas and potatoes. I really loved the lemon flavouring of this sauce, it certainly went well with fish and tasted so fresh and light and cleansing to the palette. We saved the other half of the packet to use next week.

Friday

As usual I went for my Friday night swim after work and so there wasn't much time to cook when I got home so we finished off the remaining carbonara mix which was lovely even second-time round.

Saturday

To round off my Thornleys week nicely we had the creamy chicken and herb mix. This smelt absolutely wonderful as it was cooking and I couldn't wait to taste it. The sauce did not disappoint and was full of herby flavourings and oh so delicious, a perfect accompaniment to the juicy chicken pieces.

Overall, I would give the range a 9/10 as they were so simple to use and really quick - ideal for families on the go and definitely great for taking on holiday either abroad or on a caravan holiday. I wouldn't normally go for a packet mix as I tend to prefer to make my own sauces but for times when I'm in a hurry I would definitely keep a couple of Thornleys packets in the cupboard.

The sauces are available to buy on the website http://thornleysglutenfree.co.uk/ and also available in selected farm shops in the North West. They are priced at between £1.95 and £2.20 which I think is very reasonable considering the sauces serve four people.

Treacle Market, Macclesfield

I literally couldn't wait to visit Treacle Market yesterday as I'd heard the Foodamentalists would be exhibiting there. I follow the award winning Foodamentalists on Twitter and have been meaning to try their gluten-free products for a while since reading the many rave reviews online. This was the perfect opportunity to sample their products and purchase some to take home.

The Treacle Market is held on the last Sunday of the month and is a very popular and bustling market. There are over 100 stalls exhibiting arts and crafts, food and drink and antiques. Not forgetting the great live music and the real sense of community you get as you wander around the cobbled streets.

First point of call, naturally, was to head to the Foodamentalists stall. It was great to chat to them and I purchased some of their tortilla mix - I smell homemade fajita's coming soon! (future blog post to follow). Seriously though, I could have spent a lot more money than I did, all of their products looked amazing!

A couple of stalls down we found Mrs P's chilli jam. Oh my goodness, you have to give this a try! It's the most amazing jam I've ever had with a real kick to it and it's gluten-free so this immediately went in to my shopping bag.

Next, we bumped in to Adam and Marinha on their Delicious Sauce stand. I've not heard of this brand before but I was intrigued to try their Portugese and African-style sauces and oils, as you can probably tell by now I am partial to a bit of chilli. Everybody was dipping bread in to the taster pots but the lovely Adam and Marinha were really conscious that I couldn't have any contamination from 'normal' bread and so they gave me the sauces to try on a spoon. Plus thanks to the Foodamentalists I had a few slices of their gluten-free bread to dip in (leftovers from their samples). All their sauces are gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan friendly and use only the freshest and natural of ingredients. If you like chilli then these sauces are for you! I decided on the garlic and chilli sauce in the end after much deliberating mainly because they told me that people use it to make garlic bread with - I was sold! Another blog post to follow I'm sure. I also picked up a bottle of their basil and chilli-infused olive oil.

There was plenty of other food and drink to sample (sadly not for me) but this was a great afternoon out in the sunshine and I will definitely be going again.

You can read more about the market here