Turkey and Bacon Club Sandwich (Costa) By @Cinabar

Tiz the season to be jolly, and the season for the Christmas sandwiches to hit the shops. This year I thought I’d start off by trying out the new Club sandwich from Costa. As a club sandwich there are three slices of bread and two layers of filling, the first one being sausage and bacon, the top layer being turkey, stuffing and spinach. Not sure where the spinach fits in on the usual Christmas dinner, but I was pleased to see some green in there and I would have been more wary if it turned out to be Brussel Sprouts!
Thankfully the bread on this sandwich was smaller than regular bread, which meant that the tower of sandwich before me was more manageable. The sandwich was toasted by Costa, and this gave the bread a lovely texture. This was still a very indulgent sandwich and a meat lovers dream. There was turkey, bacon and sausage all making themselves known, and it had a very substantial feel. I loved the meaty taste, and it was filled with the flavours of Christmas. There was a lovely aftertaste of stuffing and cranberry and both added a good hit of herbs and sweetness. As someone who loves a mix of textures I felt the toast and all the ingredients made this very enjoyable to eat. This is my first Christmas sandwich of 2017 and it is going to be hard to beat!

A Greggs Christmas - Christmas Lunch Toastie And Festive Bake (@NLi10)

As it gets colder and the shops cotton on to the fact that some people want Christmas to start at Midnight on Halloween we see the festive variations creep onto the shelves.  Gregg's started their viral advertising early and hard this year by putting a sausage roll into the nativity instead of aliens and otters like my family's ever expanding Playmobil version contains.

I assume this was to announce the following - we do a Christmas Toastie - and a Festive Bake now!

I'm sure they have done these previously, and I may have even reviewed the bake, but I don't remember the toastie and it's quite a cool proposition.  A hot turkey and bacon sandwich doesn't need festive branding to get me interested.  This is £3.

The Festive Bake is half the price - but it's just chicken and bacon which isn't quite as festive.  Also the chunks are smaller and less recognisable.

As you can see the sandwich is quite stuffed - with big quality chunks of meat and actual recognisable ingredients and flavours.  They have decided that it needed cheese on top - because toasties can't exist without it?! This kind of ruins the festive flavour a bit, but luckily the rest is good enough to overpower it.  Well worth it if you like all the ingredients and want a hot sandwich.

I had the Festive slice for pudding (unremarkable compared to the sandwich, but certainly edible).  And an egg custard for starter because the sandwich takes a little while to toast.

Green’s Gluten Free Pilsner (Co-Op) By @SpectreUK

I've drank a few gluten free beers before. They are generally made with corn maize, or other cereals, instead of malted barley, which do not trigger an autoimmune response in celiacs, although some brewers limit the amount of malted barley by using rye. Although tasting slightly different than full-on gluten beer, the gluten free beers I've tasted in the past have always been pleasant, but usually missing something (of course). Having said that I am rather partial to red rye beer with its spicy flavour.

This Green's Gluten Free Pilsner was produced in Belgium. At 4.5% volume this beer sports a hoppy and citrus aroma on the label with a hint of vanilla. Unlike many gluten free beers, this beer was made with malted barley, but with the gluten removed. On opening the 330ml bottle I was certainly greeted with a hoppy smell with undertones of citrus and a slight sweetness at the back of the smell. This joyously fizzy golden pilsner filled my waiting beer glass with welcome bubbles and a cheeky white head.

On taste bitter citrus hops bashed at my tastebuds first, closely followed by the malted barley and a hint of the bottom fermented yeast that makes it a lager, and differs it from top fermented yeast for making ales. This is a very tasty lager, not too bloatingly fizzy like some lagers can be. Its obviously taken a great deal of care and attention to make it, rather than some other mass produced big burping lagers that 'grace' the shelves of so many supermarkets. This is great stuff, I'd recommend it, and it certainly didn't taste like it was missing anything!

Green & Black’s - Dark Chocolate Mint - Velvet Edition (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

This is a new bar of chocolate from Green and Black in their new Velvet Edition range. I am a big fan of mint chocolate so I thought this might be right up my street.
The bar itself is neatly packaged in card and then foil wrapped. The pieces of chocolate are very dark in colour and the aroma from the bar is outstanding, the tones of peppermint where very appetising.
I broke a piece of the chocolate off and was surprised by how firm the snap was. I do expect a firm snap on chocolate of good quality, but as this is a “velvet edition” bar I had thought it might be softer. The flavour is a wonder mix of rather strong dark chocolate tones, wrapping themselves around a fragrant and powerful peppermint. The chocolate isn’t too sweet, but the chocolate and mint work together oh so well. The texture is lovely too and as promised it does have a fairly thick melt that is very silky on the palette.
This is the perfect bar of chocolate for mint lovers, but its flavours are rather grown up. I like the rich tastes, and this is going to be a bar I pick up again and again.

Fry’s Family Vegan Schnitzels (@NLi10)

The Fry Family Vegan range is fantastic, and as long as we have an Ocado Smart Pass And they have these on special offer at 3for £6 then I’m going to keep working my way through them!

This time we have something a bit different, schnitzels are pretty meaty and very European - so how did they manage?

Well they certainly look authentic,

sometimes I do worry about feeding these things to my veggie partner - she’s very trusting!

We had the, with sweet potato fries, and a few left over falafels.  The flavour isn’t a bit smokey, and a little meaty, but the texture is unmistakably that of the Fry vegan range. I really enjoyed the mix of the outside and inside and the breaded coating was a nice touch. I don’t think my partner was so keen, she doesn’t like things that try too hard to be meaty. This just means I ge to eat both of the remaining ones in the freezer. Hooray,