Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows (Pound World) [By @SpectreUK]

I always look forward to watching Ghostbusters on Halloween night. It’s not particularly scary, but it is timeless and very funny indeed. Spoilers – unless if you’ve been living in a cave for more than 30 years! I do love it when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man turns up towards the end of the movie. After Egon has warned the other Ghostbusters not to think of anything and clear their minds as whatever they think of will come to kill them. Of course cuddly Ray thinks of the huge hulking Stay Puft giant. I’ve often wondered what the marshmallows taste like. Finally Cinabar stumbled across a packet in a local store. Once passed to me I found that there was a heavy vanilla smell on opening the packet. I quickly discovered that once I’d put one creamy sweet vanilla marshmallow in my mouth and felt it melt as I chewed, that it was almost impossible not to put another one in straight away afterwards. They’d got it all wrong in the film. If the beleaguered people of New York had just banded together they could have easily eaten the great big Stay Puft giant, I’m sure of it! I was 9 years old at the time of the movie release, and I’m sure as I would then, I would definitely join in to eat a good marshemellow chunk!



Information on the packet;

170g packet at 100g there are 341 calories, less than 0.1g of fat, 0.03g of salt and 73g of sugar. Ingredients included; Glucose-Fructose syrup, sugar, water, pork gelatine, corn starch, and flavouring.

By Spectre

Dark Sister Beer (@Beer52HQ) [By @SpectreUK]

Ah! The Halloween season is upon us and I have the honour of starting this two-week round of blogs with this scary and yet tempting sounding brew. Brewed for the Beer Project Brussels and kindly delivered to my door by Beer 52, and without me having to hardly leave my armchair on a dark stormy night. So the label states that this Dark Sister is Delta’s evil twin and described as an obscure temptress. Sounds like a naughty lady indeed; one to keep away from and yet be strangely drawn to at the same time. Must be great at parties!

Anyway, back to the beer. Served in a 330ml bottle and at a devilish sounding 6.66% volume, this Dark Sister is made with Pale, Cara and Choco malts making for an almost black beer that poured like an excitable wicked maiden into my beer glass and almost overflowed. The hops used in the brewing were those of Challenger, Smaragd and Citra, with Belgian Saison yeast used in the fermentation process. On tasting there was a passionate chocolate and bitter coffee flavour from the malts, which had a sudden cutting finish like a dagger or a shot in the heart from an evil temptress’s hidden Derringer. This crisp flavour from the Saison yeast was almost immediately replaced and also complemented by the snappish fruity citrusy bitter hops that moved skilfully into the aftertaste. I could just imagine the red satin sheets to hide the bloodstains and a just finished glass of Dark Sister on the bedside cabinet. What a way to go!

By Spectre

Yorkshire Strawberry & Cherry Popcorn (Countryside Live)

My parents must hate me because they woke me up at 8 o'clock on a cold, wet Sunday morning to drag me to some show called Countryside Live at the Great Yorkshire Showground, near Harrogate (http://countrysidelive.co.uk/).

At the show there were loads of things going on, including animal demonstrations and food and animal competitions. My sister (believe it or not) raced a ferret and won #yay! There were also loads of little stores selling all kind of countryside products and foodstuffs. After making chocolate lollies and buns I saw a range of popcorn covered in weird, colourful flavourings that looked so bright and colourful I just had to try some! (Although I'm really particular about popcorn and eat the same flavour every day at break, so I didn’t think I’d like it!).

After trying the strawberry and cherry popcorn I have found my new favourite! The sweetness from the strawberry and bitterness from the cherry goes perfectly with the sweet popcorn. All the popcorn is fully covered! And the bright pink colour from the flavouring really makes it stand out. The flavour is perfect! (http://www.yorkshire-crisps.co.uk/)

By kaitlynriesxx

Raw Chocolate Company - a wide selection of things [by @NLi10] #ChocolateWeek

Part two of our chocolate week round up of FairTrade goodies comes courtesy of the Raw Chocolate company. We have six variations on their raw chocolate crumb, and two bags of berries dusted in raw chocolate powder.  These are a little more bizarre than the previous parcel of Green & Blacks and Divine and so a little more exciting.

They all take a very similar form, small bars which snap into satisfying little chunks with slightly irregular edges. We decided the pink bar with 55% strength and Vanoffe (a mix of vanilla and toffee) for a signature aftertaste was the Dairy Milk of the range and the suitable baseline. Even though this is described as dark it was very edible, and while the texture was more similar to regular chocolate than I was expecting it was good. The focus group that swarm my desk whenever it's chocolate sharing time agreed this was good, but the Vanoffe aftertaste was divisive and not liked by all.

The next we tried was the 72% dark - the highest concentrated of the lot. This was a very dirty dark chocolate (not quite as dispicably wonderful as the 85% bars) and one that requires a certain kind of chocolate lover to really get the most out of it. Those that liked it expressed an interest in adopting the bar once we'd finished, and while I'd like a few more cubes of this I'm not sure I need the whole bar. It is pretty special and gave me high hopes for the rest.

In the opposite direction we have the 'white' 'chocolate' of the bunch - with this confection being neither white nor described as chocolate - it's a confection. This was liked by some, but met with indifference by others. I found it nice, but not as compulsive as the others. Even though this is probably the most different of the six bars I expect it to be the last that is finished.

Once we'd tried the three basic bars we graduated to the variants, and started with the orange. It wasn't until after I'd had a chunk that I'd realised this was sugar free, due to the noticeable cold taste of the xylitol. A natural sweetener from Finnish bark this is the same stuff that is used in a lot of sugar free sweets and mints. I'm not convinced it works that well here, but overall it's a nice taste experience. 

Shortly afterwards we opened the goji berry bar. I've found these little 'superfoods' to be very hit and miss, with them being pointless trendy sultanas in some foods and well integrated taste pockets in others. Fortunately this works really well here with the fab dark chocolate and I think for a lot of people this was the favourite bar overall. With this and the pink original bar people would make return trips for more without prompting and both could be finished by now if I'd let them!

I left the mint bar til last as I assumed it would be essentially just the Orange bar but with mint instead. When my parcel contained the box for the mint bars (but actually contained a selection) I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to try the range, turns out that might have been quite good. This is easily my winner. This has the darkness of the chocolate, the flavours of the mint, and the natural sweetener that blends the two. This means that not only is this a ridiculously tasty option (think After Eights only more so) but it's suitable for diabetics and low refined sugar diets.  It's rare that the healthiest option is the preferred one, but if I'm honest I think I'd take all the bars except the Orange and Confection ones again at some point - it's a mood thing.

The other thing in the box was the chocolate coated berries.

We took these to the Lord Clifden pub on Friday after work to nibble on between drinks. These were a lot less popular than I'd expected, purely as they were more fruit than chocolate. I liked both the mulberries and the goji berries with the flavours and textures being more similar to their dried counterparts than any of the choc bars. Much more something to pick at while out and about than to sit down and eat in one like crisps, I think these do have a place. Very good for sharing but they didn't have enough fans on this outing to prevent me from having to bring the rest home.

While the texture wasn't as magical as the Ailee May Raw chocolate that we had, I really enjoyed these and fully intend to get more of the Mint bar both for myself and as gifts for can't have regular chocolate.

Tapas Revolution (@tapasrevbham Grand Central, Birmingham) [By @Cinabar]

We had our second trip to the awesome place that is the new Grand Central shopping centre linked to Birmingham New Street. As a foodie one of the main pulls for me has been the amazing selection of places to eat, there are so many new restaurants featuring food from all over the world. We have already tried the Vietnamese restaurant Pho so I thought I’d have a look at the new Spanish place Tapas Revolution.
Again we were really lucky in getting a table for lunch. We arrived just before 12 and got shown straight to a table. By 12:10 there was a queue, so my handy tip is to turn up a little early.
We browsed the menu and weren't sure what to have, as this was my first Tapas experience it was difficult to choose our dishes. I spotted that there were some set menus for two, so we opted for that. We chose the Clasico which was £19. There are five items that came at different times, with plates on the table so you can easily share. Now the problem with the set menu is that it was missing English translations of the dishes. We used our minimal knowledge of European languages to recognise some of the key words, but found it quite fun to go in a bit blind!

For drinks we went for the homemade lemonade, this was refreshing and zingy. It had a hint of saffron giving it a lovely colour and a nice taste of the slightly bitter flavour from the herb. It was a good twist on a regular lemonade. Then the food started to arrive.

Pan Con Alioli
Now from my knowledge of French I thought this might be garlic bread. What came was some slices of Ciabatta with a flavoursome garlic dip. We had this as a kind of a starter to the meal, to get our taste buds going.

Tortilla De Patatas
We'd worked out that this would contain potatoes, but weren't quite expecting the slice of potato dish that arrived. It was difficult to share but I managed to cut it into two thinner slices, and we had one piece each. The taste was lovely and creamy with a hint of egg. The potatoes were soft and fluffy and it was an absolute pleasure to eat.

Croquetas De Jambon
What came next were five breaded croquets. Inside the golden shell was the most delicious cheese and ham concoction. They were soft and easy to eat, the ham flavour shone through. It left us with that awkward moment when we'd had two each as to who would have the last one. We split it in the end!

Paella Valenciana
Next up a bowl of paella arrived. This was easy to share. There were good flavours of gentle spices like paprika and all the goodies mixed into the rice were perfectly seasoned and the chicken was moist and tender.

Huevos Rotos
I have to admit my language skills left me a little blank with this one, so we were surprised when a terracotta bowl arrived with an egg on top of seasoned potatoes and chorizo.
Of all the dishes we had I have to say they left the best to last. The egg burst its yoke when I cut into it and shared out the dish. The potatoes and chorizo were warmly spiced, again there was a lovely hit of paprika and the chorizo had just a nice hint of warmth with just a bit of chilli. The texture of the sausage was good too, firm but still juicy. I'd quite happily have a bowl of just this, with some bread to mop it all up.

In conclusion we really enjoyed our experience of Spanish Food from Tapas Revolution. The restaurant is friendly and modern, and totally buzzing. It was impressive that they could maintain the quality of the food and level of service in such a busy place. The food was a complete treat and at £19 for a set meal for two we cant wait to return.

By Cinabar