Hot off the back of Marks and Spencer’s (M&S) popular ‘Dine In’ steak deal, they are back with a Dine in for Four for £20 on Mother’s Day.
The gloves are truly off between the supermarkets as they fight it out to bring in customers with their dine in and mix & match meal deals. Boots may have pioneered the ‘meal deal’, but supermarkets have made sure not to miss out on the action too.
The meal deals are constantly evolving, Lidl now offers ‘Deluxe Meals for Two’, you have Tesco Finest Dinner for Two, and ASDA’s Extra Special Meal for 2. Then you have M&S, the daddy of all deals, or in this case, the mother of all deals. Granted, they may not be as generous as they once were, but they all offer tremendous value, especially in today’s climate.
The M&S Mother’s Day deal may only be available until Sunday 19 March, but if you miss out this time, then don’t worry as the supermarket will be back next week with another offer, as they continually refresh the deal line-up. Don’t forget, they also run the £12 for four, two pizzas and two sides deal, which is another popular one.
The £20 Mother’s Day offer allows you to choose 1 main and 3 sides and is supposed to feed a family of four.
Options include British 21 day matured Select Farm Rump of Beef with herb butter, British Maris Piper Roast Potatoes, tumbled in beef dripping for a morish savoury crunch, Spring Greens, Cavolo Nero & Peas served with a wild garlic and mint butter and their Stuffing Pigs In Blankets made to a bespoke recipe using Beechwood smoked bacon.
You can swap the beef for a British Pork Rib Roast, Boneless Slow Cooked Shoulder of Lamb, or even a Roast Chicken. Each of these on there are priced at £15, plus sides. The price of sides vary from £3 to £4, so depending on the combination you go for can end up saving around £6.
We decided to go with Roast Chicken (main) and sides Beef Dripping Roast Potatoes, Stuffing Pigs in Blankets and Emperor Carrots. It wasn’t an easy choice, as all of the mains on offer looked simply amazing, and if you’ve ever bought your meats from M&S before, you’ll know that they won’t disappoint – and they didn’t.
The full on flavour M&S chicken was absolutely delicious. Thanks to the flavoursome butter and thyme, loading with the stock sachet, made the whole thing taste as a roast chicken should. Cooking time was approximately two hours, so you may want to factor that into your dinner preparation times.
We’ve not had pigs in blankets since Christmas, so it was a welcome return to our dinner plates. The M&S cocktail sausages are wrapped in beechwood smoked streaky bacon, and the sausages themselves are sage & onion. You’d think with so many flavours, it might be overkill, but they all complemented one another and blended very well together.
Every single one of the options chosen were full of flavour. My favourite had to be emperor carrots with red onion, and melted lemon and herb butter. Although saying that, beef dripping potatoes is always a winner as well.
Portion sizes were generous for the four of us (all adults). We had an equal amount of carrots and potatoes, and you’ll see from our pictures that there were plenty to go around. If your family consists of less adults and more children, you’d be able to make this go further.
Although those deals offer more than adequate amount of food, you may wish to add a few more bits to turn this into a fuller cooked dinner. We added Yorkshire puddings and garden peas to ours, along with gravy, which we did have already.
There is still time to go and pick up your very own Mother’s Day Dine in Meal for Four – for £20.
And if you do miss out, I’m sure M&S will be back next week with another incredible offer.
