AD – This meal was sent to me by Peach at Home in exchange for a review.
Celebrating special occasions with family & loved ones has been a challenge over the last year – and, if you’re anything like me, most of your celebrations will revolve around food! With restaurants closed, we’ve turned to takeaways & home cooked meals – however, much to my delight, restaurants around the UK have started offering cook at home boxes full of their prepped meals. The perfect solution for a special occasion at home! Peach at Home is a newly launched service offered by Peach, a collection of independently owned pubs around the country, delivering three delicious courses directly to your home ready for you to finish in your oven. There’s likely a Peach Pub near you – but, if you don’t live near one, it’s not a problem as they deliver across the UK!
Our Peach at Home box was prepared by our nearest Peach pub, The Chequers in Eversley Cross, and our box of choice was the fish box. The boxes are delivered on a Friday, ready to be eaten that day or on the Saturday. I was really impressed by how well packaged everything was inside our box – the majority of the packaging is reusable or recyclable and everything was surrounded by cold packs.
Inside your box you’ll find your menu for the evening along with detailed cooking & preparation instructions, as well as information about Peach & their suppliers.
On our menu for the evening was:
- Native scallops in the shell with shallot, cucumber & sea fennel
- Grilled Dover Sole with seasonal new potatoes, spinach & herb butter
- Lemon posset with air-dried raspberries, granola & white chocolate.
Let me show you inside our Peach at Home box!
Everything inside the box was clearly labelled & a couple of extras were included to set the mood – a tealight, matches & smarties (an inside joke from Peach!).
First up, our starter!
The scallops came vacuum-packed and were very easy to prepare & cook. The instructions for these were to bake them in the oven, which is something I don’t normally do for scallops – I tend to prefer them pan-fried! I did have them in the oven for a lot longer than was needed (mainly because I had never cooked scallops like this before), and they came out perfectly cooked. However, it’s worth noting that I often take any oven cooking instructions with a pinch of salt and I always tend to cook things for a little longer than specified – our ovens are all a little different!
A fine dining evening in at home isn’t complete without some wine – so we cracked open a bottle of our favourite Pinot Grigio to accompany our meal.
The scallops were fantastic – topped with a cucumber, shallot & dill salsa (which the instructions specified should be ‘tumbled’ over the scallops) and sprinkled with herb breadcrumbs. This is one of my favourite things to eat and I was so pleased that they came with the shells for cooking & presenting in.
Personally, I would have preferred for the scallops to have been pan fried – however, these did have a lovely delicate texture as a result of a slightly slower cooking process in the oven.
An excellent start to the meal – I’d definitely recommend selecting a Peach at Home menu with scallops on!
Onto the main!
When we’re eating out in a restaurant, I usually tend to opt for fish for my main course – often a whole fish if it’s on the menu! So, when I spotted Dover Sole on the menu I did get a *little* bit excited. I found this course involved a little more prep than the starter, but the potatoes were already sliced & the fish was pretty easy to pop in the oven.
We did have a few issues with this course – mainly involving cooking times – which I did report back to Peach at Home and I received a lovely response back. So, this course wasn’t quite right for us – however, I think these issues were a result of the business being relatively new and their menus are reviewed, tested & updated regularly to eradicate these sorts of things, so I’m confident these issues shouldn’t be present in future boxes.
Lastly – dessert!
Lemon posset is one of my favourite desserts (anything with lemon is a winner for me!), so I was fairly confident that this would be spectacular – and it did not disappoint. The lemon posset was easy to prepare – everything was already prepped, ready to be assembled at home. I transferred the posset over to some glasses, added the air-dried raspberries, granola & white chocolate toppings and they were ready to serve!
The posset was creamy & sharp, the raspberries added a lovely burst of flavour and the chocolate & granola created a satisfying texture. This was the perfect dessert for us, and a great way to end our meal!
Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our meal from Peach at Home – the scallops & lemon posset were the highlights for me, as these are two of my favourite dishes to eat and they are what I often order when dining in a restaurant! The main course wasn’t quite right for us, however Peach have had a Beef Wellington on their menu in the past (alongside many other dishes!) which looks fantastic – so I’d be inclined to try that if we ordered another meal.
We did have a few issues with the cooking times & our main course, which I did contact the team at Peach at Home about and they were very welcoming of the feedback – as this is a new service for them, there are potentially a few teething issues when the meals are cooked at home. They are regularly reviewing their menu items and the at home service, so I am confident that the issues I experienced will be ironed out for the next boxes!
I would absolutely recommend browsing the available meals from Peach at Home for your next special occasion! (They are taking a short break while the Peach pubs reopen, but keep an eye on their website for the next menus)
Find out more about Peach at Home on their website here and have a browse of their latest menus.
Thank you to the team at Peach at Home for sending me a meal to review! As always, these are my honest opinions – overall I was really impressed with the service & we had a lovely dinner.
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That looks great and your review so descriptive, well worth a try 👍. Lovely pics