Walkers Baked Cheese and Jalapeño Crisps (Ocado) By @Cinabar

I haven’t yet found any of the Walker’s Christmas flavours of crisps, perhaps it is still too early, but there are still some new varieties coming out in other ranges of theirs. I spotted these Cheese and Jalapeño Walkers in their Baked range, so they sounded perfect for lunch times. The crisps are baked, not fried, so they have lower calories. I tipped the pack out onto my lunch plate and did think that there weren’t that many in the bag, which seems to happen with multipack bags.

The crisps are hexagon in shape, because they are reformed and made from potato flakes instead of slices. I guess this is to help them cook while baking, or give texture. They are nice and crunchy. The positive bit about the shape is that they do have a tiny bit of ridging to catch and hold the seasoning, which is helpful. I gave one a try and was actually rather impressed. The cheese flavour is about right, a good cheddar-like flavour and a nice bit of heat from the jalapeño, there is a touch of sweetness from the chilli too, which really worked. It reminded me of the cheese you can buy with the chillies running through it, a hit of spice but just enough milky cheese flavour to tame it. These are a win, I think I just want a few more in the bag.

Popcorn Shed White Chocolate Popcorn (Popcorn Shed) By @SpectreUK

I do love everything white chocolate, but I've never had white chocolate popcorn before. This Popcorn Shed White Chocolate Popcorn may be a decent late night snack, especially accompanied by a pot of low calorie vanilla ice cream. The back of the packet stated that this popcorn was flavoured with caramel and white chocolate. I mean, this snack is sounding better every second.

 

On opening the packet you can see from the photograph that this Popcorn Shed White Chocolate Popcorn looked pretty much like any other regular popcorn at a glance. On closer inspection (yes, we do that here), the popcorn had a light covering of white chocolate over caramel. On taste the initial flavour was creamy white chocolate followed closely by sweet caramel. On mixing the vanilla ice cream with the white chocolate, sweet caramel and popcorn flavours, this was an indulgent flavoursome heavenly treat to watch with a good movie.

Information on the packet; The 24g packet was 103 calories, with 3.5g of fat, 10g of sugar, and 0.2g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients, which are all natural and gluten free.

Abbeydale Brewery Oktoberfest Festbier (@WeeBeerShop @AbbeydaleBeers) By @SpectreUK

I have to admit that I may be a little late drinking this Oktoberfest Festbier. Apparently the Germans celebrate Oktoberfest and drink this beer at the end of September. That made me wonder about the other months of the year, and if they celebrate those months at the end of the previous month. And why not if they do, if you're going to celebrate something, why not the next month, especially if the one you're in isn't all that great.

At 5% in volume this Oktoberfest Festbier was brewed by Abbeydale Brewery, in Sheffield. Sheffield I may point out, not in some leafy town in Germany. Personally I love their sausages, but that's another blog entirely. All I can think is that they must have nicked the recipe one September on a drunken night in Hamburg.

The back of the can stated that this is a fresh, crisp and rich beer, with a bready aroma. It recommended washing down a pretzel with it. Without a pretzel to hand, I decided to wash down my fish, chips, and battered sausage with this Oktoberfest Festbier in October instead. Fancy that.

On opening the can there was a strong depth of maltiness to the aroma of the dark brown beer inside. I could see how this Oktoberfest Festbier would go down well with a good bready meal, something like a Ploughman's Lunch in the UK. There was definitely a freshness to this beer, with a sharp bitterness from herbal hops after the strong maltiness first bathed my tastebuds. The breadiness of the malted barley flavour came back quickly after the crisp bite of hops and cushioned my senses off into the aftertaste. This is a gorgeous malty beer, fit for a bread heavy meal indeed. However, it went rather well indeed with my takeaway from the local chippy too.

Belgian Milk Chocolate Hot Chocolate Stirrers (Aldi) By @Cinabar

One of the simple pleasures in life is hot chocolate and over the years I have drunk many different varieties. I love the weird flavoured ones, and always try and hunt them out, but one of the best things, too, is just a good quality milk chocolate. Hotel Chocolat is very good for this (their 50%) but on the other end of the budget, I always do come back to Cadbury Drinking Chocolate and also being hard to beat.

I spotted these Belgian Milk Chocolate Hot Chocolate Stirrers in Aldi, made by Moser Roth and thought I’d give them a try. They have launched recently as part of their Autumn/Winter goodies. Hot chocolate is more popular in the colder months but they also look like perfect stocking fillers too. I heated up some milk in the microwave as, for me, that is the simplest way to do it, probably the cheapest way too as it only takes a couple of minutes. I unpacked the hot chocolate sticks and they were quite chunky, which was nice to see. I popped one in the hot milk and let it dissolve. It needed a bit of stirring to help it on its way, but I found this quite fun to do, to be honest.

I gave the drink a sip and have to say I was super impressed by the quality of the drink. It had thickened a little, gone a good shade of chocolate brown and gave a full flavour. It tasted like good quality chocolate, lots of cocoa tones and just right on the sweetness. It felt indulgent and a proper treat to drink. This is something I’ll be putting in my basket next time I’m in the shop too, perfect for hot chocolate fans.

Pokenori by Yakinori - delivered Pokebowls (@NLi10)

Last week,  no one really fancied cooking so i bravely looked on Uber eats for something that wasn't too unhealthy - and found that our good friends at Yakinori now had their own range of pokebowls for delivery.

Luna is quite excited too!

This is the veggie option, it has aubergine in and noodles underneath

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This was mine - chicken with some avocado stashed in 'off menu' on some really tasty rice.

and both were amazing.  We'd been meaning to visit their Birmingham store since they opened on New Street - but then their landlord had a flood in the flat above and it's been closed ever since.

This was a great, healthy way to sample their fantastic food without visiting the store, and a much healthier option to pop on the regular delivery schedule.