Blood Orange Flavour Drinking Chocolate (Asda) By @Cinabar

I can’t help but get excited about a new variety of hot chocolate and this tin of Blood Orange Flavour Drinking Chocolate looked amazing especially as it was part of Asda’s Extra Special range. One of the great things about this time of year is new hot chocolates, although I do drink them all year round I like the extra selection we get in the winter months. I opened up the tin and could really see the sugar mixed in with the cocoa, there was a nice orange and chocolate scent too.

I heated some milk in the microwave and was pleased that the Blood Orange Flavour Drinking Chocolate mixed in quite well, with a bit of a stir it all dissolved nicely. I gave the drink a sip and honestly couldn’t make my mind up on the flavour. The chocolate seems dark but it still has sweetness, the orange tasted bitter (it is supposed to be blood orange) and this almost worked with the chocolate but it wasn’t quite the dream match. The drink is nice, it is pleasant, I just felt like it could have been better. The dark chocolate, the sweetness and the bitter orange flavoured all just seemed a little at odds with one another all fighting to be the lead flavour and somehow none of them won.

Two styles of vegan chocolate - Gnaw & Happi (@NLi10)

 Dark chocolate is good for you - lots of people recommend a little a day to do all kinds of magical things.  Me?  I just enjoy dark chocolate!  And vegan chocolate is by definition dark chocolate right - well - not anymore, you can add other milky things like oats to the mix to make it more accessible to the regular chocolate eater.

So - here we have two versions - one gifted by my mom (Gnaw Dark Chocolate) and one picked up by me from Red Brick market in Birmingham (specifically The Peddling Pantry).

First up Vegan-dark GNAW

We've had this a while - I don't like to open things until I'm ready to review and eat, and we've had a lot of choc recently.

Seems pretty good. £2.99 for 100g isn't cheap but it's fairly standard.  Palm Oil free is a big tick - and it's fully compostable.  

Looks ace! Putting shiny things in the compost heap always feels odd - but at least this will biodegrade in landfill and not leave plastics behind.

And it's certainly a dark chocolate - not too aggressive (my partner enjoyed it and she dislikes the 90% dark style things).  The flavour is strong, and the texture has some welcome grain to it - a pleasure to melt on the tongue.  I don't think you'll accidentally eat a whole bar without realising though - it's still dark choc after all!

The side effects of being Vegan are negligible. No wacky aftertaste or odd melt pattern (NoMo flashbacks!)

So how about the Happi?  This one feels a lot more like a real Vegan work - with all it's credentials on display.  It's also a little more expensive at £1.85 for 40g although I think they did sell 100g for a similar price to the Gnaw (but like I said - I have heaps of chocolate to get through!)

Oat milk has a tendency to disappoint me as it's not my favourite in tea, and not as good as almond is with cereal.  Slave free chocolate - with fully compostable inner (and recyclable box) certainly makes me happy.  While we can now recycle pet food pouches we really don't generate much packaging waste in our house and it feels great!

Inside is less spectacular though - this one doesn't feel like a present.  That said - cracking open the plant based wrapper unleashes the orange and all is forgiven.   This one is smooooooth and while a little darker than your typical high street bar it's very snackable.  I've accidentally eaten twice as much of this as the Gnaw bar while reviewing...

This is the future of vegan chocolate then.  Sustainable - cow free - slave free - and with none of those old school vegan issues with the texture and aftertaste.

I fully expect to get more of these when I pop into the market again (maybe today if it's still open!) as they have a much milkier version to risk...

Meet Me Underwater Seaweed Beer (@BrassCastleBeer) By @SpectreUK

"Meet Me Underwater" sounds like some sort of cryptic message between lovers on holiday in a beach resort, or even a couple who meet in the spa pool at the gym and start seeing each other there on a regular basis. From the heat of some sunny far off place to the heat of a sauna, there is always thirst that needs quenching after passionate moments!

Meet Me Underwater is the last of my Brass Castle Brewery beers that Cinabar bought for me a while back. This Sabro & Mosaic Red IPA is flavoured with Seaweed. This is a famous beer, as it's recently been on the Hairy Bikers cooking programme. I haven't seen the episode myself, but Cinabar and her mom enjoyed it. I still haven't forgiven one of them for his terrible Strictly Come Dancing performances, and taking the criticism waaaay too seriously!

I've been a bit hit and miss with Brass Castle Brewery beers. Some I've enjoyed, some I've disliked so much I've struggled to finish them. I like citrus tropical hops flavours, so I can't see a problem with the Sabro and Mosaic hops. I love India Pale Ales. I've even liked a seaweed flavoured beer in the past. So I can't see any problems there either. And lore, looking at the ingredients the 'red' in this beer is malted rye! Oh my, I absolutely adore rye beer!

On opening Meet Me Underwater, this 6.5% in volume rye red IPA… (just typing 'rye' makes me so excited, as I haven't seen a rye beer for a couple of years at least…) had an aroma of citrus tropical hops and a touch of spice from the rye. Rye, rye, rye… yippie! This deep red (because of the RYE) IPA has a perfect balance of bitter tropical hops from the Sabro, with slight pine and floral favours from the Mosaic, merging sublimely with the sweet pale malts and spiciness from the… wait for it… rye!

Gosh, this is probably my favourite beer of this year so far. Although I may be a little biased towards the malted rye?! There is the merest hint of seaweed under all that beautiful spice from the rye after it merges with the bitter hops. If the can hadn't mentioned it, I'd probably not have noticed the seaweed, as I may be slightly over excited about the RYE! I'd certainly have plenty more of these cans in stock for warming me up over the winter months.

So Meet Me Underwater, in the sauna or wherever you like, just see if you can find me a rye beer on the way!

Gingerbread Pretzel Flipz (Asda) By @Cinabar

I do really enjoy Flipz as I like the mix of sweet and salty pretzel underneath. These are the small crunchy American style pretzels, not to be confused with the large fluffy ones from Europe. There are quite a few different flavours of Flipz available, both in the UK and from import shops, but here we have a wonderful new seasonal variety; Gingerbread Pretzel Flipz.

Inside he bag are dark cream coloured pretzels with an icing drizzle. I gave one a try an was super impressed by the flavour. The icing is a sweet gingerbread taste, not too spicy and with an almost treacle like taste. It was a decent recreation of gingerbread. The salt catches from the crunchy pretzel and it totally lights up the gingerbread taste, it was like a sprinkling of magic. Sweet and savoury. As each taste is different depending on the amount of salt underneath it, it makes them really interesting and really moreish to eat. These are probably my favourite edition of Flipz pretzels to date and definitely a flavour I’ll be stocking up on. That large bag of Gingerbread Pretzel Flipz did not last long.

Eridanous - Greek Style Bougasta - bake at home Nutella pastry (@NLi10)

Well - we've finally eptied the last of this Greek inspired range from the freezer that we got from Lidl! We've had Gyros  at home and before that, well we had Gyros on pizza at home so maybe I didn't get that adventurous with it all - until now!

Now we have that Greek delicacy of - Nutella turnover.

Admittedly this is an odd one - I bought it on the off-chance that we would have visitors.  It's really an eat all at once deal - and it's really a 4+ portion thing.  That said - I got desperate so we shared it one evening...

And that's all it is - some pastry, folded over and filled with a couple of grades of hazelnut spread.  I could probably manage this with box of the Jus Rol stuff.  You do get a tray to cook it in - and the JusRol stuff always has the same flavour.

And *poof* it's half way cooked - looks a little crispy, we now have to flip it.

Fairly close to the box art - I stand corrected - maybe there is more going on here than I suspected.

A little squashed really - I think our oven doesn't get hot enough!  And it was lovely.  Eating half of it to myself (OK - just over half) was a huge mistake - I essentially had a week's sugar in one meal.  Shared between 4-6 of you with ice-cream this would be an amazing at-home treat.

Hopefully Lidl have some similar deals and ranges next year - I've loved what I've tried this time.