M&S Hunters chicken and potato wedges

I have to admit, I love an M&S ready meal! My favouritea are their sausage penne or chicken and brocolli pie, but most of them taste great. While perusing the 3 for £10 deal options, I spotted this hunters chicken and - loving bbq sauce as much as I do - I had to give it a go.

The meal costs £3.85, but - as previously stated - is part of their 3 for £10 deal. 

This is oven cook only, but it only takes 25 minutes. As it warmed up, the smell was delicious; I could definitely smell that sauce!

When the 25 minutes were up, the bbq sauce was bubbling nicely and the wedges looked beautifully crisp. I couldn't wait to dig in.

The meal is a nice sized portion, but I wish I'd served it with bit of veg to bulk it up further. The piece of chicken was just right for me and was lovely and juicy and tasted great with the spicy bbq sauce. I am glad M&S removed the skin, as I'm really not a fan of chicken skin!

I really liked the sauce, it had a subtle spice and a slight sweetness from the peppers. It stopped the chicken and wedges being too dry and was just utterly delicious.

The wedges were perfectly cooked, with a crispy skin and fluffy middle; I liked that they were seasoned with paprika, as that's my favourite spice. The paprika tasted really good combined with the bbq sauce.

The only thing I disliked about this meal was the bacon, which tasted fatty and disgusting. Thankfully, the bacon bits were minimal and didn't spoil the meal.

Would I have this again? Definitely! It's not my favourite by any means, but it makes a nice change from pasta and potato topped pies. For a quick and tasty tea, I'd definitely recommend this.

Munchie stuff 

Top 10 new foods of 2017

We're taking a break from the reviews today and instead bringing you a round up of our top 10 new foods of 2017. Sweet fans rejoice, because most of the 10 is chocolate!

10. at number 10 are these Cadbury roundie biscuits.

Now, a lot of people complained that these were bland and uninspired, but - hear me out - they gave me a sense of nostalgia, as they reminded me a little of McVities Riva biscuits, which were popular when I was a kid.

Cadburys chocolate may well have gone down hill, but - when it's used to cover a biscuit or wafer - I still really enjoy it. They just scrape into the top 10, but they deserves their place in the line up.

9. Mars ice cream holds 9th place and was my favourite new ice cream release this year. Not as much chocolate as the bar, but you get lots more ice cream and caramel and it tastes great!

Mars are releasing a Malteaser tub next year, so maybe that will make the top 10 of 2018

8. Muller white chocolate Mmmousse is in at number 8 (and will also be reviewed soon).

Muller released 3 mousses this year and - after trying all three (in the name of reviewing) - the white chocolate definitely reigned supreme. It's a light, fluffy and delicious dessert, made for sharing but best eaten alone!

7. Dominos' pulled pork pizza is our first savoury entry in the top 10.

As the subject of another future review, I don't want to say too much; but this pizza is delicious - slightly spicy, with a perfect amount of toppings and amazing dipped in that famous Dominos garlic and herb dip. Yum!

6. This ultimate salted caramel offering from Krispy Kreme just misses out on the top 5.

This doughnut most definitely earns it's "ultimate" title - full of gooey caramel filling, with that soft Krispy Kreme dough, and a gorgeous chocolate topping - this is one of my favourite KK doughnuts.

5. My favourite new release from Cadbury comes in at number 5...

These gooey, chocolate filled, chocolate topped muffins are absolutely amazing! They taste fresh and are lovely and moist (sorry). They are one of the nicest shop bought muffins I've ever tasted. Proof that, when they try hard enough, Cadburys can get it so right!

4. McVities digestive nibbles have been a favourite of mine since they released the caramel ones, the white version take the 4th spot in the top 10.

Reminding me so much of the sadly discontinued white Malteasers, these white nibbles are super moreish, sweet and very tasty. The digestive biscuit goes so well with the white chocolate, making for a very tasty treat.

3. The second and last savoury entry is at number 3, in the form of this Signature burger from Mcdonalds.

This gourmet style offering from Mcdonalds is meaty and delicious. The brioche bun is soft and fresh and the burger tastes like a real beef burger should. It's tasty and filling and definitely worth paying a bit more for.

2. It was tough deciding which of the last two foods should take top place, as both are equally delicious. After much pondering, I decided that second place would be given to Tesco finest snowflake tiffins.

Beautifully rich chocolate ganache with cranberries and shortcake, covered in chocolate - these tiffins are incredible! They would have made top spot if they weren't limited edition. A little pricey at £4.50, but most definitely worth it. These are pure indulgence; I implore you to grab some while they're still around.

1. Top spot and just beating the snowflake tiffins to the top spot, the winner is these milk chocolate chewy caramel biscuit bites from M&S.

This bag of mini chocolate bites is the stuff of dreams! Gorgeous milky truffle, dotted with crunchy biscuit, topped with caramel and coated in delicious milk chocolate - these are so bloody tasty! Taking the top spot because they aren't a limited edition festive food, these need to be tried asap!

There it is, the Munchie stuff top 10. Have you been lucky enough to try the foods on the list? Do you disagree with the top 10? Let us know. For now, we shall be back with lots more reviews, recipes and food related posts in 2018. Thank you for reading.

Munchie stuff

Jacobs roast lamb, rosemarie and mint cracker crisps

When cracker crisps first hit the shelves, I was obsessed with the salt and vinegar flavour; I ate them until I was sick of them and have pretty much left them alone since. However, when I spotted these limited edition ones, I just had to give them another go - I absolutely love lamb and mint.

This 150g bag was on offer at Tesco, so I only paid £1, but I think £2 is the regular price. They also had a beef, red wine and shallot flavour, which may well feature on the blog in the future.

Now, normally I'd bemoan the fact the bag is half full (or empty, depending on your view point) but these are a substantial snack, so I forgive the manufacturer on this occasion!

On opening the bag I could smell the meat, but it wasn't distinctly lamb, however the taste was beautiful and I could definitely taste the meatiness of the lamb, with a hint of mint and a gorgeous herby background flavour from the rosemarie. The flavours were well balanced and reminded me of a roast dinner.

I love the crunchy biscuit texture of Jacobs cracker crisps, and I think they offer something a little bit different - and, dare I say, superior - to a bog standard crisp.

I thoroughly enjoyed these meaty snacks and didn't waste any time in working my way through the entire bag!

If you're a fan of a lamb roast dinner then these cracker crisps will be right up your street. Perfect for sharing, but even better for eating them all yourself.

Munchie stuff

Tesco chocolate fudge brownie dessert

Happy Friday! Now the Christmas reviews are done and dusted, I can bring you the non-festive foods I have been sampling this last few weeks; one of which is this fudge brownie dessert from Tesco - a treat from my wife, for braving the shops with her.

The 130g single serve pot cost, which is pretty standard for this kind of dessert. This isn't one for you veggies, as it contains gelatine.

"Layers of fudge sauce, chocolate and fudge flavour mousses, chocolate brownie pieces and chocolate coated fudge", in all honesty, it had me interested at "chocolate".

The layers reminded me a little of a trifle, with the brownie pieces, mousse and sauce all layered upon each other. It certainly looked scrummy and the smell of the brownies hit me as soon as I peeled back the film lid. I was pleasantly suprised by the amount of pieces adorning the top of the dessert, as normally this kind of thing tends to be decorated with only a few chocolate flakes.

The dessert is absolutely delicious! The brownie pieces are really chocolatey and rich, as a brownie should be; they manage to retain that moist texture and are perfectly dense. I loved the mousse, it was light and tasted delicious. I couldn't distinguish between the fudge and chocolate flavours as they merged together, but this didn't matter in the slightest.

The sauce layer was more like a dark chocolate and tasted beautiful; it also added a nice gooey element to the pudding, with an almost ganache like texture; think McDonalds' hot fudge sundae (bit of a throw back there) The textures and flavours were just amazing together, making for  very indulgent pud!

For £1, you really can not go wrong with this dessert, it's a chocoholics dream and makes a nice change from the chocolate or strawberry sundae dessert pots. For those of you who prefer toffee, Tesco also have a new sticky toffee pudding dessert too.

Munchie stuff

M&S milk chocolate chewy caramel biscuit bites

What a mouthful that title is, huh?

Well, Christmas is over and the geese have all got fat...at least we all have in my house! If you aren't yet sick of the sight of chocolate then today's review may just interest you. These chewy caramel biscuit bites were new in M&S just before Christmas. The snazzy metallic green bag caught my eye and when I read what was inside, well, I had to try them.

The 120g bag comes in at £2, which is pretty standard for M&S and I actually feel their chocolate is worth that, as it never fails to satisfy my sweet tooth.

With caramel, biscuit pieces, crisp rice cereal and milk chocolate, these certainly sounded pretty delicious and I couldn't wait to tuck in.

There was a lovely aroma of cocoa when I tore the bag open, and I was impressed with the sizable chunks of chocolate.

There were 10 chunks in the bag, which may not seem like a lot, but they were each about half the size of a Milky Way, so certainly not small cubes. They felt very weighty as well, so I didn't feel at all ripped off.

I have to admit, I was suprised when I bit into the chocolate as I had been expected something resembling a Twix. What I actually got was a biscuit flavoured truffle, with biscuit pieces and a layer of caramel on top...it was incredible! The truffle layer was sweet and milky and the added crunch from the biscuit pieces just worked so well. I didn't get any taste from the crispy rice cereal, but I assume that they added some of the crunch.

As I have come to expect from M&S, the chocolate had a lovely cocoa taste, with a hint of sweetness. It's a great quality chocolate, but it stayed very much in the background in this case, allowing the caramel and truffle to shine through. The caramel was smooth and delicious, with a nice hint of salt, creating a lovely balance of salt and sweet. Gorgeous.

I have to admit, I polished of the entire bag! They are a great addition to the M&S chocolate bags, and one I shall absolutely be having again. I'd go as far as saying that they are even better than the cookie dough bites from the M&S range. Go and grab a bag for yourself...go, go, go.

Munchie stuff

Sainsburys truffle reindeer

Well, tonight Santa will be doing his rounds, led by his trusty reindeer; with that in mind, today seemed like the right time to review this little truffle reindeer from Sainsburys bakery.

The little treat costs 75p, and I think that's very reasonable, given that Sainsburys bakery is epic!

Personally, I don't think this little fella looks quite like the animal it's meant to be, but with all of that delicious looking chocolate, I wasn't going to complain.

I am never a fan of the icing decorations on this kind of biscuit and the same applies here. It just doesn't work with the chocolate. That said, it's easy to pick off and makes the biscuit look rather cute. The chocolate was delicious! It was milky and sweet with a good cocoa hit; much better quality than a standard packet biscuit.

Now, I keep calling this a biscuit and I think that's where it all went wrong for me. I expected crunch and a creamy filling. I thought this would be a little like a bourbon; just bigger, better and covered in chocolate. What I actually got was a softer, more cake like affair and I didn't really like it. I know it wasn't stale, but the texture reminded me of biscuits that are on the turn and have that damp texture and peculiar after taste. I really didn't like it.

Now, I find it tough to give this a yay or nay, simply because I think the reason I wasn't keen is simply down to the fact I had assumed this was a biscuit. The chocolate coating and creamy filling were both superb, in fact the cake/biscuit (I'm still confused) tasted really nice, I just didn't like the texture and found the aftertaste a bit odd.

For 75p this is worth a go, you may like it - so long as you don't bite into it, expecting some crunch.

well, that's a wrap, folks! It's been 24 days of festive food reviews; I've eaten my way through a colossal amount of turkey sarnies and cranberry filled pastries and I hope you've enjoyed reading about it. I'll be back after Christmas with plenty more reviews and maybe even a few recipes to take you through the next year.

Have a very merry Christmas - eat, drink...and then eat some more!

Munchie stuff.

Co op boxing day sandwich

A few weeks back I did a mass review of some of the festive sandwiches I'd been eating since M&S brought turkey feasts back into my life (you can read that review here ). Since then I have continued my mission to taste all of the festive sarnies the shops have to offer. Today's review is about one of delights I've sampled - Coop's boxing day lunch.

The white bread sandwich contained smoked turkey, smoked ham, winter slaw and a spiced chutney. It costs £2.75 on it's own, but I bought mine as part of their meal deal (shimmering billionaire's shortbread and a can of Coke Zero completed my meal deal) for £3.50.

 

I took a big bite and was seriously impressed with how soft the bread was! I normally buy wholemeal or 50/50, but the white bread was perfect with this sandwich and it tasted very fresh. The spiced chutney was tasty, but subtle! It added a sort of sweet, orange spice zing to sandwich and was a nice change from the cranberry sauce that tends to be whacked in all things festive.

The meats were plentiful and had a delicious smokiness, but I couldn't really distinguish between the ham and the turkey, which was a little disappointing. The meat was nice enough, but I'm always a bit annoyed when festive sarnies contain reconstituted turkey, instead of the real thing. Still, I can't deny the meat in this did taste good - even if both additions did taste the same. I was very impressed by the amount of filling the sandwich contained, with no bulk-out-the-filling spinach in sight!

I was dubious about the winter slaw, but actually is was a nice addition to the sandwich, bringing a crunchy texture to contrast with the meat. It didn't add much to the flavour, but I got a faint hint of peppery freshness from the vegetables, which was very pleasant.

Now, I'm not sure this is really an innovative festive sandwich, in fact - without that spiced chutney - it's basically a club sandwich, however it was definitely really tasty. I enjoyed having the white bread for a change and the filling was delicious. Maybe I should grab another one and eat it on boxing day, just to honour the sandwich's name sake!

Munchie stuff