Spare Crunchy Apple Crisps (Gloucester Services) By @SpectreUK

Gloucester Services is a place to behold. There is so much foodstuffs in the farm shop there. On the way back from a comic con with a fairly full car, we stopped off and filled the rest of the car with all manners of snacks and drinks.

These Spare Crunchy Apple Crisps seem like a healthy snack. Spare Snacks transform wonky apples into these Crunchy Apple Crisps. They are 100% fruit, fat free, with no added sugar, and are one of your five a day.

On opening the packet there was an aroma of apples. Some of the dried slices of apple had skin still in them. These crisps tasted of baked sweet apple, and were ridiculously moreish. If you don’t particularly like the experience of crunching through an apple, but you do like apples, these Spare Crunchy Apple Crisps are definitely for you.

Information on the packet; The 22g bag contains 80 calories, with less than 0.1g of fat, 16.1g of sugar, and less than 0.1g of salt. Ingredients: 100% apple.

McVities Jaffa Elf (Iceland) By @Cinabar

No apologies, but I’m officially onto the Christmas snacks. Here we have McVities Jaffa Elf, a cute impulse buy spotted in the supermarket. I do like Jaffa Cakes and am enjoying the different products they keep bringing out, and this Christmas one made me smile.

This McVities Jaffa Elf is also super cute once opened, with very detailed moulding and a smart elf uniform. The only obvious thing to do next was to snap him in half. This didn’t feel very seasonal, but it was that or bite his head off.

Inside, there is a lovely thick chocolate filled with biscuit pieces and a generous layer of Jaffa orange filling. This is more liquid than you might find in Jaffa Cakes, but the flavour is very much the same and has that familiar zing. The chocolate is milk chocolate, whereas Jaffa Cakes use dark chocolate, but this probably makes it more appealing to those wanting a chocolate snack. The biscuit pieces are more like shortbread than the sponge you find in Jaffa Cakes.

Now that I've put all that together, there isn't actually that much that makes these relate to proper Jaffa Cakes, apart from the design and branding! Oh well. It's still a lovely piece of thick milk chocolate, with loads of orange flavour and crunchy bits, so what's not to like?

Walkers Crispy Roast Potato Crisps (Ocado) By @Cinabar

This new packet of Crispy Roast Potato Crisps is part of this year's Christmas range from Walkers. Whenever I hear about potato-flavoured crisps, I get taken back to the M&S Jacket Potato Crisps that used to exist. They sound plain, but they were salty and buttery, with an enhanced potato flavour that really popped, making them pretty legendary. Walkers have tried other versions over the years, but none have beaten those original ones.

These, though, are roast potato rather than jacket potato, so they won't be as buttery, but I'm still keen to give them a try. I opened the pack and the first thing I noticed was just how herby they were! Much more so than when we have roast potatoes at home, as we never use that many herbs. The rosemary flavour is particularly strong (and I do love that herb), but there are other flavours mixed in too, including a gentle hint of onion.

They tasted lovely, and I really enjoyed the combination of flavours. Rosemary has such a fresh taste, and it works brilliantly here. I think these crisps are all about the herbs rather than the potato, and that's fine by me. They work well, and I'll look forward to my next bag. I'm still hoping that one day we'll get those jacket potato crisps back, though!

Aunt Bessie's Bake At Home Yorkshire Puddings [@Nli10]

 Our nan needs easy to make versions of the things she loves because she's 99 and lives on her own.  She does have daily visitors, but on a Sunday we go round and make a fuss.  This week I decided to try and make a mini Xmas dinner, but with pulled pork, fries and yorkshire puddings because that's what was in the freezer to use up.

I didn't expect the Yorkies to look like this

Little flat spaceships with oil/butter on the edges to make sure they rise and don't stick, it's basically just disks of batter.

Almost like something Kipling would come up with.

Foolishly I put them in the tray with the fries so they didn't heat evenly and looked a bit disasterous.  I forgot to get a picture of that state - but refer to the box for what the best one looked like, and the rest were deflated

Here is a Heron from her garden as compensation

While the appearance was underbaked, but also simultaneously burnt on the bits that did rise the overal flavour was good.  Suprisingly the oil stayed in the little tins too so they were not too soggy.

Placed in their own tin to the side and done properly these would be grand (a bit hard in nanas oven as she paid a man to clean it professioanlly and he cleaned all the numbers off so you have to guess the temperatures).

With the pulled pork and fries it was a hit and required all concerned to have a snooze afterwards.

Bailey’s Chocolate Dipped Meringues (Morrison’s) By @SpectreUK

Bailey’s was probably my Mom’s favourite tipple. I bought her a few bottles for presents in her time. So, I thought it was only fair to write a blog about these Bailey’s Chocolate Dipped Meringues in her absence. I’ll be thinking of her, as I often do, as I write about them.

I thought a blob of Bailey’s Squirty Cream would go well between two meringues. The meringues were crunchy and sweet and tasted of creamy Bailey’s and dark chocolate. The Bailey’s Squirty cream in the centre certainly added to the flavours of the meringues, and made for a very creamy chocolatey sweet treat for my after dinner pudding.

Cheers, Mom x

Information on the packet; Each meringue is 59 calories, 1.6g of fat, 9.9g of sugar, and 0.02g salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.