Have you been feeling it? That urge to eat outdoors? With all that glorious sunshine we’ve been having, we’ve barely been eating a meal in the house.
Breakfast is never a family affair in our house – we all get up at different times – but in the summer we all seem to drift outside. I’ll be honest, I treasure those quiet early mornings – that first half an hour of a fresh new day, nursing my coffee and my kindle, steadfastly refusing to look at social media or the news.
Lunch and dinner are nearly always outside; whether it’s lunch for two or dinner for all six of us, we all crave that outdoor living when the weather allows.
And if you’re eating outside, then you need melamine right? Right.
We all know that you’re probably asking for disaster if you’re tripping gaily from kitchen to patio/decking/grass with an arm full of heavily-laden plates.
Things get dropped or knocked over – and what will bounce on a soft carpet in the house will defintely smash into tiny pieces on a hard outdoor surface.
This is a paid collaboration with Tesco, who have compensated me for sharing with you the new range. All product choices, opinions, reviews and photography are my own. Contains affiliate links – which frankly just help my coffee habit.
Also – if you’re eating your lunch on melamine and not your normal dinner plates, then it’s definitely a picnic, and practically a holiday. It’s the rule, yes? My brain thinks so, anyway.
So when Tesco suggested I talk this month about eating outdoors, I immediately headed for their seasonal aisle – and just LOOK at the goodness and riches I found (for not many rich pennies at all, might I add).
I’ve plucked from just two of their ranges – because they mix & match perfectly. The aqua blue is their Reactive range, and the floral serving dishes are the Batik range. Jug and glasses are the Swirl pattern.
So here’s a thing; I went into Tesco with just a basket (yes, I knew I was buying picnicware. No, I am not known for my spatial awareness), and struggled to juggle this lot to the checkout. Possibly because I was making a bit of a show, I caught some attention; and no less than three people commented on just how lovely the Batik serving plates and bowls were, and how useful the long serving platter looked.
And they were so right.
This whole range is actually available online, so you can add it to your weekly shop if you wish. I strongly recommend you do.
The fabulously long serving platter (£8) doesn’t do itself justice here – it’s fully 40cm long, and deeply troughed too – in the picture above it is holding a full punnet of cherries, one of raspberries, a larger one of strawberries, and two bags of grapes too. And there was STILL room for more.
The bowl is also in the Reactive glazed melamine range – and they’re just £3 each!
The Batik Platter (£8) was also never going fit into my basket – it’s a massive and practical 36cm in diameter. You’re looking at three huge brioche buns, a whole goats cheese log, some sandwich ham AND some mini picnic eggs. And the damned platter still looks empty! This’d be perfect for a pile of cooked items straight off the barbecue – even if you’re catering for a big family group, this platter would hold everything you cooked. Also – look at the Batik styling, it’s so pretty!
This one is the Batik Serving Bowl (£8) – another enormous server, measuring over 30cm across, and it’s really deep too. I don’t think this will see the inside of a cupboard all summer – every meal time since I’ve owned it I’ve thrown some salad in this and added it to the table. It’s frankly perfect.
You can see them all in relation to each other here – see how enormous the serving bowl is? And that enormous platter next to a pretty ordinary-sized dinner plate?
The melamine is excellent – remember how it used to feel like a rubbishly cheap and plasticky option? I guarantee we’ll be using these items for garden eating, picnics and barbecues for years; the sizing is practical, the designs not only pretty but also mix n match perfectly, and the price point is pretty perfect.
- Batik Serving Bowl £8
- Batik Flat Serving Platter £8
- Reactive Serving Platter Aqua £8
- Reactive Dinner Plate Aqua £3
- Reactive Bowl Aqua £3
- Swirl acrylic wine glasses £2
- Swirl acrylic jug £7
- picnic rug
£12now £6!
FIND IT AT TESCO…
The melamine picnic sets are all now available online here
To find out where you can purchase any of the spring/summer 2019 products featured in these pages, check Tesco here
Most products are available online, but are in most Tesco stores too, subject to availability – smaller stores will have more limited ranges, obviously.
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