Degusta Box July 2018 (@DegustaboxUK) By @Cinabar

It is that time again when a nice delivery man brings us this month's Degusta box. This one felt quite heavy and I was keen to see what goodies were inside. It looked quite packed and had a nice mix of drinks in there too, perfect in this hot and muggy weather. The first thing that caught my eye though were new crisps.

These crisps are from the brand London Flavours and isn't a make I've heard of before. We are very much looking forward to trying out a new brand, and I have to say I'm loving their packaging.

Spectre immediatley disappeared this Rosie's Rhubarb Cider when he saw it. This is from a brand he knows well, and has enjoyed in the past. It is a nice refreshing twist for the weather with the added rhubarb.

I am more into my soft drinks, so was excited to see these fizzy drinks from Ribena, which has always been a favourite brand in our household. I was pleased they were is glass bottles which are easily recycled. I love the sound of the topical one with pineapple and passion fruit.

There is nothing better on a hot day than an iced coffee, so I have stashed this carton of Percol Protein Latte coffee in the fridge. It contains a boost of protein too which seems to to be the popular hipster added ingredient. Not that I have a lot of knowledge on the subject, but if you are trying to increase your protein intake a small can of tuna contains a decent amount, but doesn't work as well in glass over ice.

Some people might think it is too hot for hot chocolate, but they would be wrong, I drink it throughout the year for a easy chocolate fix. I do love that this version from Cadbury High Lights is low sugar and low calories, so there is no guilt.

Talking of low sugar these Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles are new as they are lower in sugar, which is better for us. I'm looking forward to trying these out.

There are also two mixes from Capsicana, one for Paprika and Spices for chicken, the other to mix up our own guacamole. Both of these would go together well, especially if the spiced chicken is in a wrap.

I'll be popping this next item in my lunch box for an afternoon treat. It is from the company Pulson and is a raw chocolate brownie, flavoured with the ever popular salted caramel. That should get me through the afternoon sugar craving.

There are also some cheese flavoured rice crackers from Peckish, these will come in handy for afternoon snacks.

We also have some sachets of Miso soup, which makes a nice accompaniment to a sandwich for lunch. These are from Miso Tasty and are flavoured with warming spices.

Last but not least we have some Heinz Salad Cream. This is a staple already in our house, but especially at this time of year when we are eating more light healthy salads. Spectre also likes crisps dipped in Heinz Salad Cream but he has always been a bit odd!

The Blue Coffee Box @bluecoffeebox #LoveBlueCoffee (By Uxorious)

The Blue Coffee Box is a coffee subscription club with a mission to bring speciality coffees from around the world to your door. In their own words they are a “gourmet” service and “You've never tasted coffee this good”. Their coffees are sourced from regions you don’t typically find in your supermarket aisle, with the farmers being paid above the Fairtrade price for their products. In summary, they live up to their acronym BLUE: Best of the best, Luxury, Unique and Ethical. With all these claims and such an obvious passion for coffee, how could I say no to reviewing their beans!?!

The Blue Coffee box arrived in the post, the presentation is absolutely beautiful and if you take a picture of the box and display it on social media, they even enter you into a competition. Does the FoodStuff Finds blog count? I think it must.

If you have read any of my previous coffee blogs, then you’ll know that I’m a physicist who lives on coffee; a physicist after all is simply a device for turning coffee into theories. My research is fuelled by deep dark rich black espressos, with my office and kitchen both having espresso machines; I just don’t have time to queue at some coffee outlet to get my needed shot of caffeine. As the Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Barry says, “It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”

The first bean to try is from El Salvador, Finca Las Nubes, and the coffee roasters are Campbell and Syme. Into my home bean-to-cup machine the light brown bean goes and a few moments later out pours the espresso. It produces a really good crema and the drink has a woody aroma. The taste is zingy full of berries that hit the sides of your tongue. This has a wonderful long-lasting flavour that will wake you up, it’s electric and alive, and even though it’s a mild roast it has some zesty strong kick to it! This espresso made me smile and my tongue buzz.

Onto the next bean, from Peru, San Ignacio, roasted by the Cast Iron Coffee Roasters. Another light brown bean that produced a moderate crema with a sweet mild aroma. I found that this expresso lingered beautifully, and had a very mild soft flavour. This is quite different to the El Salvador expresso; this is an anytime of day espresso.

Last but not least, from Nicaragua, Calixto and roasted by Campbell and Syme. Again, a light brown bean that generated an espresso with a thin crema and mild aroma. This was my favourite of the three beans I tried; it was fruity, full of treacle and the espresso sticks to your tongue. The flavour is wonderful, a velvety anytime espresso. Could you send me some more please!

All Blue Box Coffees score above 80 on the Specialty Coffee Association system, which officially makes them “speciality” coffees, and I can confirm that the recognised UCA marking scheme agrees, they are indeed special. That’s an official Uxorious Coffee Assessment thumbs up!

If you want to try Blue Coffee Box out for yourself we have a special Foodstuff Finds coupon for you to use of FS518 which gives £5 off any product, including gifts: The Blue Coffee Box

March Degusta Box (Unboxing @DegustaboxUK) By @Cinabar

It is that time again, when the lovely folk from Degusta Box send round a pack of goodies for unboxing. I always love the surprise element with their boxes, and couldn't wait to see what was tucked away inside.

This month the box was quite heavy, which led me to think there might be a few drinks inside, and I was right about this. There were other goodies too, so first up I found Mr Lee's Hong Kong Street Beef. This is an instant noodle product, where you add hot water to get a simple noodle lunch.  this could easily be spiced up with a splash of the new Encona Limited Edition Chilli Sauce. This is Encona's hottest sauce, and looks pretty scary. Not sure I'd be brave enough to eat it neat, but I'm sure it can spice up any number of sauces.

As this is the Easter box, there are some sweet treats too. There are some Mini Eggs from Nestle, mixing the filling with either Smarties chocolate or Milkybar. These eggs will not last long here at Foodstuff Finds, and will be excellent for munching on while watching an Easter film.
There is also an interesting looking flapjack from Hapervoll, which is also a Limited Edition. It looks fun and spicy, and is flavoured with cinnamon and cloves, which are similar to Hot Cross bun flavours really.

I'm always pleased when my Degusta box has something nice for breakfast, and this box is no disappointment. The box contains the new cereal from Shreddies; Max Granola. These are a good sauce of protein so very much on trend for foodies.

Quite by lucky coincidence there was a jar of Cirio tomatoes. I'm making pasta sauce this week so this is a welcome addition in the box. It is made with 100% pure tomatoes, and I always find the Cirio  products to be have particularly good flavour and a nice level of sweetness.

As predicted earlier there are quite a few drinks in this box, and they start with a couple of school ground favourites. We have a chocolate milkshake from the Canny company. This is a nice twist on the drink though as it has no added sugar, and is all natural. There are also some fruit cartons, like the one I used to take in my lunch box to school. These are mixed berries flavour and the cartons are decorated with Roald Dahl's favourite Matilda.

On a bit more of a grown up twist, there is also an energy drink. I'll be honest this is the sort of thing I'd normally pick up, but this one does look interesting. It is all natural and made by Tenzing, the caffeine even comes from green coffee beans.

Last but by no means least is this fab bottle of Ribena, that I can't wait to try. It is flavoured with Pineapple and Passion Fruit, and I do love the tropical tastes. This will come in very handy over Easter and I can't wait to give it the taste test.
I've really enjoyed this month box from Degusta, and I am looking forward to trying all the new products.

Hello Fresh Unboxing - Lamb Ragu Pappardelle @HelloFreshUK (By @Cinabar)

We were very kindly asked if we wanted to try out a Hello Fresh recipe box. We said we did and they sent us a huge box full of goodies. Inside were the recipes for three meals, including all the ingredients to make them. The delivery even came with all the chilled ingredients packed in heavy insulation and with ice packs. There was a note on the box saying it must be delivered that day, which wasn’t a problem as we were in.

We had a good look through the box and found that there were three bags, one for each recipe, they really are making it simple. I was impressed by the quality of the fresh ingredients, everything looked in good condition, and nothing worried me that it had to be eaten first. There was a nice range of meals too, with a prawn, chicken and lamb dish.

We decided to start off by trying out the Lamb Ragu Pappardelle. I gave the recipe a bit of a read and it all looked very straightforward. Prep the veggies, including chopping the onions, fry off the lamb, removing the excess fat. Add the onions and chopped tomatoes with basil and the stock. Give it all a taste test, so see if it needed salt and pepper, but it was spot on without. Cook the pasta, it was really big pasta, Pappardelle, not something I’ve bought before, but it did look posh in our pasta bowls. We finished the dish, and added herbs and cheese. I say cheese, but it was actually some pieces of parmesan that were included, and I grated it finely and topped the bowls. I can’t explain to you just how good the flavour of the cheese was, we regular buy the tubs of pre-grated hard Italian cheese, but this was so much nicer it was actually in a different league. One thing is for sure, I’m buying proper Parmesan from now on.
Apart from salt/pepper and oil, everything else was included in the bags. I liked that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything fresh. The recipe was delicious, and everyone commented on how good it was. It really wasn’t much more difficult that using a jar of sauce for pasta, but the results were tastier, fresher and without any preservatives, extra salt /sugar that might be added to a jar. It is a much nicer way to cook, and it was so simple to follow. This is a recipe I will be making again, as it made such a tastier evening meal. There is so much satisfaction of cooking something so tasty from scratch, and it was like cooking by numbers. I’m really looking forward to trying out the other two meals.

We have also set an exclusive promotional code available if you want to give Hello Fresh a try yourself:
Code: FOODSTUFFFINDS
Offer: 50% off your first and second HelloFresh box.
hellofresh.co.uk

Degusta Box May 2017 (@DegustaboxUK) By @Cinabar

We had another fab delivery from Degusta Box, and thought we’d delve in to see what goodies they have sent this month. This was a curiously heavy box, and I couldn’t wait to see what new and interesting foodie items the subscription service had sent through. I do love the surprise of a mystery box.

New Homepride Strong White Bread Flour
So this was the heavy item, that made the box feel weighty. It reminds me I used to make a rocking soda bread - I assume this flour will be ok for that? I’m certainly going to give it ago. The flour is pre-sieved so that saves washing up a sieve. Yes, I'm that lazy.

Millions and Candy Kitten
There are plenty of sweets in this month’s box, I haven’t had Millions for ages, and had no idea they had chocolate coated ones. The Eton Mess gourmet sweets from Candy Kittens sound very summery too.

Peanut Caramel Crisp Dairy Milk
Now I’ve tried this particular Dairy Milk bar before, and if you have any love of chocolate and peanuts too you should give it a try.

Bean Bags
I think this may solve the problem I have about having decent coffee at work. I always resort to instant, for ease of both washing up and lack of technical equipment. These new coffee bags seems to work like a coffee filled tea bag, so should be super easy for work. I’m really looking forward to trying these out.

Hippeas and Crunchy Time
For snacks we have Hippeas which are a fun savoury snack made from peas, but that taste like crisps. The Crunchy Time is more of a cereal designed for snacking on. Healthy too, full of oats seeds and granola.

Crabbies Ginger Ale and Zeo
This can of Zeo is a soft drink and it is very on trend as it is flavoured with grapefruit, perfectly refrehsing on a warm summer’s day. The Crabbies Ginger Ale is the alcoholic option, and Spectre was excited to see it, and squirrelled it away immediately after the photo was taken!

Portlebay Spiracha Kraclecorn
Finally we have some Portlebay Spiracha Kraclecorn. I’ve tried Portlebay Popcorn many times before, but I’m not sure I’ve had Kracklecorn, so this should be interesting. Also the flavour promises to be Chilli Chilli Bang Bang, so that should be a fun level of heat right there.

I think this was an excellent box from Degusta, with some gorgeous chocolate and sweets, and reminder that I should get back to bread making with the flour.

Degusta Box March 2017 (@DegustaboxUK) By @Cinabar

The lovely folks from Degusta said they would send us one of their latest boxes of food finds for us to try. This is part of a monthly subscription box, so that you can have regular treats delivered.
This was quite exciting for us at Foodstuff Finds, as you can imagine we love the idea of new and interesting things to tuck into. Opening it up and discovering the contents was fun, here are some of the highlights.
We had the two new Dairy Milk Oreo bars, I’ve previously tried (and throughly enjoyed) the Mint edition, but this is the first time I have seen the Peanut Butter version, so expect that to be reviewed very soon.
Spectre’s eyes lit up when he saw that there were two cans of cider in the box, both of which he’d not tried before. He also picked up the Piper’s Cider Vinegar and Sea Salt crisps saying that these would be the perfect accompaniment to an evening of Cider “testing”! I’ve had Piper’s crisps before and we’ve always enjoyed them, so I may have to hope he shares!
There was a recipe in the box for chicken that used both the Heinz Seriously Good Mediterranean sauce and Maldon smoked sea salt, which I am going to have to give a try. I liked that they included this, I’m not sure I’ve ever use smoked sea salt before so it will encourage a little experimental cooking.
The Weetabix On The Go drinks will be good for me to have a quick liquid breakfast on my train journey to work. I’ve not seen the berry flavoured one before.
There are also some sweets (jelly beans, and chocolate eclairs) and a weird sounding jelly drink, coconut milk milkshake and a raw cocoa bar. All of which I’m looking forward to trying.
I have to give this Degusta Box a big thumbs up. I think the most impressive thing was that there were a lot of things we hadn’t tried before, which is quite something as we constantly have our eyes open for new and interesting products. We are looking forward to reviewing some of our stash on Foodstuff Finds over the next few weeks.

Valentines @ASDA - cupcakes, chocolate and brownies - yum!! (by @NLi10) #Unboxing

I got three plain brown parcels in the post in the space of two days so I decided to try our first unboxing video! 

I'd thought about trying these ever since I received the manger full of quinoa in the post (which I STILL haven't written up due to festive posts)

Without spoiling too many surprises here it is!

To catch up those of you that didn't watch the three parcels all turned out to be from Asda - as did two more that arrived on Mon & Tue this week!  I'd not really thought much about the offer of free valentines stuff but when it looks like this...

I'm pretty happy I did!  I mean the pack says that it's Asda so you probably won't get points for indie credentials and organic stylings on your brownies (but they are only £2)

unless of course you take them out of the box first! Super indulgent breakfast in bed? Maybe.

The taste isn't up to that much really, it's all sugar and showmanship, but it's nice and I'd not turn these down.  Also - I couldn't bring myself to give the other box away as planned so they must have done something right.  Having the choc layer at the bottom be a little firmer gives them a nice bite, and the caramel flavour is more distinct than the red is so maybe I'd give this the edge - but if you are a couple you clearly should be having half of each.

Next up we have the I <heart> U cupcakes (£1.50) - skewed a little younger I feel.  These weren't that special, but were just decent little cup-cakes with a not too sweet frosting on top.  I forgot to take a solo pic so here is the whole haul.

There are of course better shots in the video ;) If you want a little gesture or something for the children to give out then these are the ones for you.

The other two boxes contained novelty heart mallows (£1 - great as a display or part of a larger gift, but essentially just flavoured sugar) and romantic chalk boards.  The mallows are a fairly standard idea, a heart shaped version of something that's already familiar - and they do taste OK - I'm happy to finish the bag, but the rest can go to work.

The chalk board is a little bit special however - as you can write your own message on it before you go to work and leave it out for a loved one.  Or use it to promote your blog!

I'd expected the fun to stop there and for the things inside to be fairly boring.  The wrappers are cheap and flashy, the chocolates are adorable and well worth a try.  

Essentially they are a little bit Lindt (Lindor?) with the ball with a crispy shell, and a little bit Kinder where the two chocolates combine for a fantastical taste.  If you know (or want to know) someone whose tastes are in this area, and have a witty or romantic thing to write on the box.  At £2.50 it's not going to break the bank either, but the recipient needn't know that...

Finally - conspicuous only by the fact that it's shown up in the other pictures and is the main thing we talk about in the video is the Extra Special Truffles.  These really are the business.

Note the unwrapped chalk board ball hiding in the box for scale.

They look like a fairly expensive gift, but at £3 you can forgive only getting 9 in the pack.  These, as I mentioned, have a lovely chocolatey hit, with the raspberry floating over the top.  What I hadn't appreciated was just how alcoholic that third bite and aftertaste would be.  This put some of the lucky people getting to try the remaining ones off, but even though I'm not a fan of prosecco it was a nice touch.  It felt like a grown up chocolate and a gift that can be enjoyed even if you are watching the calorie intake.  Sometimes a small luxurious portion is better! A lot harder for me to share than the other items - these would be my top pick - but not by much.

I wouldn't usually include the prices but these are only available in the one store (Asda) and - if you just take the brownies, the truffles and the chalk board home with you it's £7.50 - and you could probably get a card on top for under £10. There wasn't anything disappointing about these parcels - and hopefully we'll be getting more interesting things to open in future weeks.

Spanish Persimon Unboxing (by @NLi10)

We get lots of crazy post in our house. Lots from the one company that always uses the same courier - and always seems to send international goodies.

Here we have a lovely silver box of what I initially assumed were oranges - but were actually more exotic.

Here hiding in the festive packing were 6 Persimon - the pearl of Valencia!  To me these kind of looked like a cross between an apple and a tomato.

There are some lovely facts and pictures here - and they say it tastes like my favourite stone fruits!

Only when I (badly) cut ours up to eat they just weren't that exciting. The skin is a little too hard to be enjoyable, and the insides a bit mushy to carve neat slices out of. The flavour didn't really have any noticeable sweetness or sharpness to speak of and it left me thinking I'd done something wrong. 

The picture on the left with the perfect pattern of light and dark was visible in parts of the ones we ate but I just couldn't get excited about the flavour. Maybe I need to find someone who is an expert in Persimon to advise on serving. We gave the other 4 to various family members who were bigger fans than us so maybe it's one for those who prefer their flavours to be more delicate. I did like the cinnamon in the box and the smell from that was far more to my liking.