Sometimes a mum just wants to have an easy life and offer her family fabulous food with no fuss. Well. This mum does anyway. Take Friday for instance. I was rushing around like a loony trying to sort last minute arrangements for our anniversary break but oddly the children still expected me to feed them!
Luckily I was prepared and from the freezer I whipped out a selection of PizzaExpress Artisana products including pizzas and a carbonara pasta dish for my daughter who is less keen on pizza than the rest of my tribe.
In two shakes of an Italian lamb's tail my happy family were tucking into my 3 different tasty pizzas.
We had my favourite pizza - PizzaExpress's take on a Hawaiian. Apologies to all Italian chefs who shudder at putting pineapple on pizza but this one with béchamel sauce, ham and mildly spicy pineapple chutney is divine and I wish they'd put it back onto restaurant menus.
I cooked a PizzaExpress Pepperoni Doppio pizza for my younger sons and as a treat added the new, exclusive to Iceland, Chicken Barbacoa pizza.
This has a sourdough base which positively bristles with ingredients - spiced chicken, red and yellow peppers, red onions, spicy chipotle salsa and of course creamy mozzarella and PizzaExpress's famous passata.
This proved a popular addition with my children and two of my neighbours who were drawn to the mouthwatering smell as I photographed the pizza on a table in the front garden (good light!) for this blog post.
Luckily, the pizzas are a generous size and there was enough to go round. I'd like to tell you what the Carbonara with pancetta, cream and garlic sauce tasted like but my daughter wolfed it down before I had chance to get near with a fork. She assures me it was delicious. I think I could tell that from the licked clean bowl.
I love going out to PizzaExpress and I have to say I think the cook at home range does a good job of giving you that restaurant taste at home.
Luckily I was prepared and from the freezer I whipped out a selection of PizzaExpress Artisana products including pizzas and a carbonara pasta dish for my daughter who is less keen on pizza than the rest of my tribe.
In two shakes of an Italian lamb's tail my happy family were tucking into my 3 different tasty pizzas.
We had my favourite pizza - PizzaExpress's take on a Hawaiian. Apologies to all Italian chefs who shudder at putting pineapple on pizza but this one with béchamel sauce, ham and mildly spicy pineapple chutney is divine and I wish they'd put it back onto restaurant menus.
I cooked a PizzaExpress Pepperoni Doppio pizza for my younger sons and as a treat added the new, exclusive to Iceland, Chicken Barbacoa pizza.
This has a sourdough base which positively bristles with ingredients - spiced chicken, red and yellow peppers, red onions, spicy chipotle salsa and of course creamy mozzarella and PizzaExpress's famous passata.
This proved a popular addition with my children and two of my neighbours who were drawn to the mouthwatering smell as I photographed the pizza on a table in the front garden (good light!) for this blog post.
Luckily, the pizzas are a generous size and there was enough to go round. I'd like to tell you what the Carbonara with pancetta, cream and garlic sauce tasted like but my daughter wolfed it down before I had chance to get near with a fork. She assures me it was delicious. I think I could tell that from the licked clean bowl.
I love going out to PizzaExpress and I have to say I think the cook at home range does a good job of giving you that restaurant taste at home.
The official blurb claims: "The Artisana range at Iceland celebrates PizzaExpress quality with generous recipes which have been carefully crafted and then frozen to capture their freshness and flavour to enjoy at home. Developed using authentic ingredients, they reflect the restaurant style quality of PizzaExpress dishes but with unique recipes and flavours."
I actually agree with that statement and often pop to Iceland just to pick up these pizzas to have in the freezer for days like Friday when we wanted a tasty but fast to prepare meal without any effort. We also like them for movie nights and they are great teamed with coleslaw, salad, fries or potato wedges or maybe as a real treat, some of those gorgeous PizzaExpress dough balls. Mmmmmm!
Disclaimer: We were sent a voucher to spend at Iceland to try out the new Chicken Barbacoa pizza and Carbonara pasta dish from the PizzaExpress Artisana range. Views and opinions remain honest and my own.