After being very satisfied with my first make-away from chef Marianne Lumb in January, on 8th February I ordered another one of Marianne’s meals, through Finish & Feast.  I chose her Vegan menu for two at £80 plus £6 delivery.  Now I’m not a vegan, but I have eaten many vegan dishes in my time, so I was confident that I would enjoy this experience, crafted by a chef who excels in bringing out the flavours of vegetables.  My delivery box arrived on time, and as before the sealed elements of each course were neatly packed in labelled paper bags, which makes prep so simple.  And, as before, there was a pretty colour booklet detailing the menu and assembly instructions. There wasn’t a video to link to, but Marianne’s dishes are relatively uncomplicated to put together.  What did strike me as odd though was that there wasn’t a list of allergens with the dishes.

Our meal began with an amuse bouche of a winter tomato consommé, on top of which I sprinkled some flakes of nori seaweed.  I love a good tomato consommé, but my cuisine training taught me to only attempt to make it in the height of summer, when British tomatoes are at their juiciest, so I was fascinated to see what Marianne could achieve in winter.  Well, she did a great job!  The consommé had a beautiful aroma and a good flavour; so much better than I was expecting. But of course, it tasted a touch more watery and less sweet than summer tomatoes, but I found this to be an excellent amuse bouche.  The flaked nori was a good touch which added umami without overpowering the tomato flavours.  We got two espresso cupfulls each from the portion. 9.5/10

The starter of “Slow Roasted Beetroot” didn’t require any heating either because it was a light, fresh cold dish.   To plate up I just had to put some horseradish cream in the centre of my plates, top with slow roasted purple and golden beetroots, added some rainbow beetroot slices and crunchy pickled vegetables, and covered it all with a rhubarb dressing.

The resulting dish was a light, tasty, well-balanced, clean and nutritious starter, which suited me very well. The horseradish cream, wasn’t, of course, creamy, nor was it very hot, but it was perfectly acceptable with the beets.  I would have liked to know what they used instead of dairy, but there wasn’t any ingredient info (not even an allergen list). 9/10

I was making the food as I went along, by reading the booklet. Mistake. Only when I got to the page for the main course was I told to turn an oven on.  A mushy ‘ratatouille’ of celeriac, artichoke and Bramley apple, and onion, artichoke pieces roasted celeriac needed to be heated for 30 minutes.  Pearled spelt and celeriac puree had to be gently warmed in pans.  Then I plated the spelt with ratatouille on top, decorated with tasty artichoke pieces and the onions, and finally added a lovely bright and fresh kale salsa verde.

The end result was a tasty dish, but it was rather beige and all a bit mushy.  For me the best bits were the artichoke pieces and the kale salsa verde, and the spelt was nicer than that in a previous Musette make-away, but overall the dish was not very attractive, and its texture didn’t sit well on my post-chemotherapy stomach. 6/10

Dessert sounded and looked very nice; a creme caramel with mango and mandarin in caramel, macadamia nuts and toasted coconut.  The flavours from the accompaniments were lovely, especially the toasted coconut, but the “creme caramel” was vastly inferior to a traditional creme caramel, in both texture (it was too firm), colour and taste.  Once again, I would have liked to know how Marianne made this dessert without dairy, but no information was provided. 5/10

Overall I thought parts of this meal were very tasty and nutritious, but other parts merely reinforced my preconceptions that vegan food is simply not as flavoursome as food containing animal fats and proteins.  It was a nice experiment, but not one I’ll readily repeat. 7/10