When I lived there, I ate a lot of Marks and Spencer Count on Us food! One of my favorite dishes was the Prawns and Noodles in Sweet Chilli Sauce. I even brought home the wrapper so I could try to duplicate it from the ingredient panel I'd forgotten about it until I ran across it the other day. Before I start experimenting and flubbering it up, I was wondering if this is a common dish there, for which there may already be an existing recipe. I've searched the net without any luck.

Has anyone tried it?

The ingredients are:

Noodles
Prawns
Onion
Tomato Ketchup
Water Chestnuts
Baby Corn
Green Peppers
Sugar
Soy Sauce
Chilli Sauce
Rice Wine
Chillis
Tomato Puree
Ginger
Garlic
Corn Starch
Salt

Hmmmmm...I think I make try that next week. Will let you know what I work out.
(Are you hiding your signature? )

LOL, didn't want to distract anyone from the food Looks good, doesn't it? Oh, Ruth, the food over there was sooooo good. Marks and Spencer's Count on Us food was a million times better than our Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, etc. Most of their food is fresh, not frozen. You buy it in a department store, no less! They have very nice food sections

I want to go back to the UK, just so I can eat M&S!

Suzanne that is one of my favourite meals, but as you know M & S can be a bit pricey so I decided to make my own
here is my recipe
it serves one but depends on what size portion you want I admit I do usually make it stretch to 2 portions


ingredients and their calorie values

2oz fresh noodles ( raw weight ) = 220
Prawns 2oz fresh = 56
3oz onion chopped = 30
1 tbspn tomato ketchup =15
1oz canned water chestnuts = 9
2oz baby corn = 14
2oz green peppers sliced = 8
1 tspn sugar substiture = 0
1 tbspn soy sauce = 9
1 tspn sweet chilli sauce = 5
1/2 pnt vegetable stock = 7 (instead of rice wine )
1tbspn tomato puree =10
1 tspn corn startch = 11 Use a little more if you want the sauce a bit thicker
ginger garlic salt and black pepper to your own taste

total calories = 394

spray a wok with a couple of sprays of zero cal oil and stir fry the onions, baby corn, peppers,ginger, water chestnuts and garlic until softened then add the vegetable stock, soy sauce, tomato ketchup, tomato puree, sugar substitute and chilli sauce, allow to simmer for a few minutes.
Add the prawns and the noodles and heat through, finally add the corn starch to thicken the sauce and season with salt and black pepper to your own taste just before serving.

mmmmm yummy

Ali

that sounds really yummy.

I don't shop in M&S because of the cost, not a good idea when you are trying to feed 4 of you on a budget, but I will be giving Ali's recipe a go.

thanks

Thanks Ali, I can't wait to try it! It sounds like a winner


When I was there, my flat only had a microwave and a tiny refrigerator, so I was limited in what I could cook. I ate a lot of ready meals. I actually ate a lot of Ross Spinach Cannelloni, it only cost 99p. And Baxter's soups, those were good. But I did eat a lot of M&S. A lot of the dinners were't too high priced, I rarely bought the ones on the upper end. Since I was eating alone, it was easier and probably cheaper than trying to cook real meals.

My favorite M&S dinners were the Chicken Fajitas, Chargrilled Veggie pizza, and there was a grilled vegetable and bean dish that I don't recall the name of, but it was very smokey tasting. I really lovd that one. I don't know if you are familiar with Lincoln, but M&S was down hill, and I lived up hill... up Steep Hill , and it was well worth the climb for the food! How I managed to gain weight with all that climbing, i'll never know.

Well, thanks for posting the recipe, Ali. I definitely will make it and sneak it in some day when I'm not being Puritan about low carb. Harry will love it, I know.

I agree with Suzanne that our Lean and Healthy frozen dinners are not tasty and much prefer to make my own.

Thanks again. (I snoop so I can see what Suzanne is up to, besides being a marathon poster!)

Ruth, one of the biggest differences I noticed was the quality of chicken and other ingredients. Our frozen dinners are filled with highly processed chicken pieces, and not every bite is edible. The only time we see a whole piece of chicken is when it's a little chicken tenderloin piece. Over there, Lean Cuisine uses real chicken breast halves. They are small, though, lol, but I don't think they force-feed chicken the way we do. Also, every piece of chicken I ate in England tasted very rich and flavorful, almost like turkey. It wasn't just the chicken, everything I ate there had a better overall quality. They didn't have the variety we have, though. Before I found M&S, I was forced to choose between only 4 varieties of Lean Cuisine.

Hmm.. do I really want to return to the UK so I can explore the countryside and historic towns? Or am I just hungry?!

lol Suzanne...it is really strange about the lean cuisine foods...a few years ago they were all the rage and we had a really big selection, then suddenly you just couldn't find them anywhere...in fact I haven't seen them in any of the big supermarkets now for a while...from tie to time you see the odd one appear, but they are not a regular stocki item anymore.

Ruthxxx when are you going to find the time to try out that recipee, the amount of posts you make I am surprised you find time to do anything else...are you attached at the hip to your computer

Ali

Hi Suzanne! I'm Fiona, I'm new to this forum. I just wanted to say that I live in Lincoln, so I appreciate the climb you had to make to get home again with your M & S bags! Yes, it IS worth it! I love that meal - but I will give Ali's recipe a go too - to save some pennies!

Nice to meet you!

Thanks for the recipe Ali - it sounds gorgeous & I will definitely be trying it out as soon as I can get along to buy the extra ingredients I need. For anyone following WW who's interested I've worked the points out to 5.5, but if anyone wants to double-check please feel free.

Oh my gosh, I'm sorry I failed to return to this thread! It's nice to meet you too

Lincoln is the most charming place I've ever been, and I'll miss it terribly for the rest of my life. I do hope to return to the UK within the next year, but I'm going to explore Southern England this time.

Ali, I've not tried your recipe yet, but I've included the items on my grocery list and will make it next week! Looking forward to it