Why? Why would they do that?

Had a pretty strenuous day to day with several trips to the naughty step (and to the edge of reason for me).

What we needed was a air of calm to the close of the day. A meal he was sure to eat and then a wind down to the bedtime routine.

There is one, one, sure fire dish to be eaten without complaint, eaten in full and it is requested at least daily. Macaroni cheese.

Now this is not as easy as it sounds. No restaurant version will do, neither will mummy's (or even daddy's - which is usually much better) home made version, Heinz tinned variety doesn't even make it off the shelf. No it must be a supermarket ready meal - and out of the many supermarkets only one (and it's specialist kids range) will do.

So today I wearily headed to the freezer, pulled out the familiar box - noted that the child on the front had changed, but thought nothing of it and bunged the ready meal in the oven.

40 minutes later my world was shattered! Why oh why oh why did they do it? On what planet was it deemed sensible? Who were the customer panel and why did they approve it?

Our one 'safe' dish of comforting pasta in a cheese sauce has been polluted, violated, with .... broccoli! Broccoli! Arguably every child in the country's LEAST favourite vegetable - the sort of vegetable that other supermarkets have claimed to have 'hidden' in their mash.

My son loves his macaroni cheese (or maca chease as he calls it) and probably would have still eaten it with peas or even carrots added into the sauce but broccoli met with flat refusal.

I can see their sales are going to go down quite dramatically (if only from us).

If it ain't broke don't fix it.