The Coconut Kitchen - Pad Thai Meal Kit (Asda) @NLi10

Thai food is amazing, in fact I’m going out for some tonight!

At home it’s fairly simple but getting the specific tastes is sometimes a bit awkward.  So here we have a kit to take care of all that.

It promises restaurant quality pad Thai 

And all you need is the sauce sachet, the noodles and the recipe card!

The noodles are of fine quality, and perfectly pan-sized.

And it looks pleasing enough when made with quorum (Quorn - gah Auto-correct) and a few veggies. The taste was a little spicier than I’d expect for Pad Thai but I really enjoyed it and it was very quick and easy.  And most importantly being in full control made this a veggie meal (not vegan due to egg).

Upbeat Blueberry & Raspberry Smoothie (Waitrose) By @SpectreUK

You may think just before bed is a funny time to try a “Dairy Protein Smoothie” energy drink, but I’ve had a busy day. I also didn’t sleep well the night before so a pick-me-up before bed to help me write a blog about what I’m writing about seemed an ideal idea. This blueberry and raspberry flavoured Upbeat Smoothie has 20g of high quality protein. Good for building muscles after a workout, if not for a nightcap. I don’t usually drink or eat blueberries, as I’ve never been much of a fan. However I do like raspberries and figured the flavours would mix well together with the milk. Plus there was the added bonus, or not added in this case, of no bananas! Some smoothies have added banana which instantly distracts from any other ingredients in the flavour of a smoothie ruining every smoothie it’s added to in my opinion. Here no added banana is fine by me… In taste this drink is undoubtably smooth, with the milk taking most of the tartness from the blueberries and raspberries reminiscent of a cool creamy raspberry and blueberry ripple. I reckon these mixed together would also make a great ice-cream too.
Information on the bottle:
The 330ml bottle has 152 calories with 1.6g of fat, 12.5g of sugar, and 0.34g of salt. For ingredients please see photograph.

Lindt Creation Macaron Milk Chocolate Bar (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

Although I couldn’t see a “new” label on this bar of Lindt Creation Macaron chocolate, I also couldn’t recall ever seeing it before, and I certainly haven’t tried the bar before. This is why it went into my basket while I was shopping, it turns out that although some new items cling to their new labels for longer than they should, other items just appear subtly on the shelves.

Anyway this bar is a milk chocolate bar, with a filling of macaroon. I like macaron biscuits but wasn’t quite sure how that was going to be represented in chocolate. Macarons are shiny round biscuits that seem to be quite on trend in recent years. Reading the packaging I realised that the filling was essentially a vanilla cream, like you might find sandwiched between two macaroon pieces, and some of the biscuit bits in the centre.
I opened up the bar and found the Lindt pieces to be quite big and neatly printed in chocolate with the brand and imagery. I gave the chocolate a bite and the sweet creamy flavours overwhelmed my tastebuds. The centre is very creamy, sweet and and overflowing with rich vanilla tones. The chocolate is sweet too, and again very creamy. Vanilla and the rich milk chocolate worked well together, but this was a rich bar, indulgent, but also a bit full on. I liked the texture from the macaroon bits, it gave the bar a light crunch and hint of crispiness. The bar was all about the vanilla though, and after two squares I found myself defeated, putting the rest of the bar away for another day. Even for my sweet tooth I found this was a bar that was best indulged in small doses with a coffee on the side for contrast.

Limited Edition Orange Daim Bar (PoundLand) By @Cinabar

Although Daim bars are fairly easy to get hold of in the UK, the Limited Edition flavours rarely make it onto UK shelves. You can sometimes find them in Ikea, but they can be quite pricey in there. This Foodstuff Find came from the wonderfully well priced £1 in Poundland for a multipack of three, awesome!

The bars are in a bright orange pack, and do state Limited Edition, without giving much of a clue as to how long they are available, hence I bought two multipacks! Inside each pack are three individually wrapped bars. The chocolate bar is fairly flat and consists of a crunchy almond cracknel coated in a fairly thick milk chocolate, flavoured with orange. The minute I opened up the wrapper I could smell the sweet orange essence and new this was going to be a good version of the chocolate bar. I had forgotten how lovely the texture is on a Daim bar, the centre is brittle, crunchy and the it turns slightly chewy as you eat it, and all of this is wrapped in creamy milk chocolate. The flavour is a lovely mix of chocolate and orange, it is sweet and full of citrus. You can still taste the almond and caramel cracknel and the flavours mingle together perfectly. I loved the playful textures too and am rather pleased with myself that I’d stocked up.

Toblerone Ice-Cream!! (@NLi10)

In my Ice-Cream round up from Sunday I mentioned that I'd saved the star attraction for another day - and here it is - Toblerone Ice-Cream!

I've not seen this in the UK, but frankly where better to try it than a cafe on the side of a volcano in Tenerife.

It's a bit smushed but they had to hunt for one as there were none in the main fridge and I was worried they'd run out.  It's just authentic volcanic action.  As you can see the outside has all the nuts and stuff that you'd expect from the chocolate bar.

The choc inside was great and had the flavour of nougat if not the chewy bits (there may have been some on the outside I suppose).

As it was so hot it started to fall to pieces an I had to finish the pits that fell off with a spoon!  Definitely something that should come to the UK (if the stealth import stores of B&M and Iceland don't already have some) so that we can enjoy it if we get a summer this year.