Honey Barbecue Multigrain Snack (Marks & Spencers) By @SpectreUK

Popping into motorway services on the way back from a Comic Con the other day, I saw these Honey Barbecue Multigrain Snacks in a service station. Produced for Marks & Spencer's, they were made with maize, rice, chickpeas and oats. This calls for an alternative snack blog, as opposed to the usual potato crisps.

There was a fetching wave effect on these Honey Barbecue Multigrain Snacks, which caught my eye in the store. I like it when you can see your snack when you buy it, rather than a covered over packet. There was something about that look of thick wavy orange paprika dusted multigrain crisps that made my mouth water.

On opening the bag there was a spicy paprika and smoky smell, as well as strong multigrain from the orange thick crisps inside. On first crunch these Honey Barbecue Multigrain Snacks had a sweet barbecue flavour, with a hint of spices from the cumin, chilli peppers and paprika, as well as a little garlic, onion and tomato. Moreish to an extreme these crunch wavy crisps disappeared pretty quickly I can tell you.

Information on the bag; The 60g bag contained 477 calories per 100g, with 23.3g of fat, 8.4g of sugar, 6.1g of protein, and 2.08g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup Smokey Bacon Flavour (Iceland) By @Cinabar

Heinz has been bringing out quite a lot of new sauces recently, but mostly they have been flavoured mayonnaises. We had Heinz MayoMust, which is mayonnaise with mustard. That was nice on ham sandwiches, but not something I went out to buy a second bottle of. Ketchup is their classic product, so I’m rather hoping that this Heinz Tomato Ketchup Smokey Bacon Flavour works well. This is a sauce that I hope when I taste it I think I hope this hangs around on the shelves.

Tonight for our dinner, we have Southern Fried Chicken and chips, the homemade kind rather than the takeaway kind. With this, we would normally have a spicy sauce to dip in, but I was looking forward to trying this as an alternative. The flavour worked really well with this meal. The ketchup is sweet with the tomatoes, but the smoky taste just works so nicely with it. There is a meatiness too, and I found myself making sure I got every last drop with my last chip. I hadn’t expected to love this as much as I did, but I’m so glad it worked as well as it did. This Heinz Tomato Ketchup Smokey Bacon Flavour is one that I want to buy again, and I will be going back for another bottle. 

Barratt Flumps Cupcakes (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

We went to the supermarket to do a bit of a top-up shop after a very busy weekend out and about at a Comic Con. Right by the door was a stand with these brightly coloured Barratt Flumps Cupcakes; they were our first purchase. We had gone in for bread, milk, and other essentials, but these looked perfect for a treat on a long weekend. 

The cupcakes look very pretty; they are based on the colourful marshmallows that I have with hot chocolate, and sometimes just straight from the bag. They have done a nice job on the topping by mimicking the colour of the sweets.

I gave the cupcake a try, and it was very tasty. It reminded me of birthday cake. The base sponge is light and fluffy, with lots of vanilla running through it. The topping is also sweet and vanilla, and it is soft and moist. The combination is a lovely, colourful treat. The topping is supposed to be marshmallow flavour, but despite eating Barratt Flumps sweets a lot, I think they are just vanilla, so in that respect, they nailed it. The cupcake is mostly about the eye catching buttercream on top, and the flavour is just an easy-going sweet treat. I’d still buy these Barratt Flumps Cupcakes again, as they were lovely as an afternoon sweet treat.

Porthleven Food Festival - Summer Berry Filled Churro & Brazilian Picana Sandwich [@NLi10]

 While in Cornwall for the week a local streamer gave me the top tip of visiting the Porthleven Food Festival.  We tend to avoid these things locally as it's usually the same people each time (much as I love the Fuffle Man), but here it's a whole new selection of Indy food makers!

Having been to Porthleven before I knew the layout and that there are lots of cool arty shops anyway, so we popped over.

There was music and drinking for the locals too!

I chose a Brazilian Picana Steak Sandwich for my lunch.  

Lovely and crispy with deep flavours and filled with lots of excitement.  This ordinarily would have been a highlight of the day.

My partner had a Buddha bowl which I'd almost been tempted by too - great variety here too - hard to make things like this at home without having loads of left-overs.

I'd already spotted this on lap one - the recon - and decided it was to be my pudding of choice.  And I went for the Summer Berry Filled Churro

Turns out I was the first to order this new item - and the guy behind me in the queue ordered the second!

It's a complicated mix of dried fruit and sugar on the outside, and a strawberry & vanilla creme on the inside - and it's amazing!

Like all filled Churro the second half is always a mess as it creeps out of the sides and the sugar starts to fall off and get everywhere. I managed to eat it all before the park & ride bus arrived to take us back to the car - so it wasn't too messy.

Overall a massive hit - and banana split style with ice-cream would easily be a restaurant grade pudding.

Well worth the trip out, and decent value for money too - I'd certainly go again.

Original Stormtrooper Goon Squad West Coast IPA By @SpectreUK

May the fourth be with you.

It's Star Wars Day today. If you're not a fan or if you haven't seen any of the movies or the new Disney series of various characters from various times between the movies doing various things, you may be missing out. If you don't like SciFi at all, you still might like this beer. If you don't like beer, hopefully my writing may help to distract you from your daily grind.

Whether you consider yourself a goody-two-shoes Jedi or a baddass Sith Lord, the little green fella in charge of everything nice, Yoda says; " For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." So, if you understood that, Jedis are the shiny ones, and Sith prefer dark colours and particularly red.

This Goon Squad West Coast IPA is 5.5% in volume. It has a Stormtrooper in disguise on the front. He must be trying to blend in with the good guys. Typically a West Coast India Pale Ale will have citrus and tropical fruity bitterness, perhaps with a hint of pine and then sweet malts. Goon Squad should live up to that nicely, and if I drink enough of it, I might get a red nose too.

On opening the Goon Squad can there was a tropical fruity citrus hops aroma, with a woody note, and also malts in the background. On taste this bright golden West Coast IPA did pretty much what it said on the can. Okay, so there weren't any Stormtroopers in disguise with red noses, but there were cutting citrus and tropical hops to begin with, followed by more than a hint of pine, and then the sweet pale malts to finish. Very tasty indeed. It washed down my pork chops a treat.