Sainsburys On the Go Chocolate Hazelnut Pretzel Pouch

Sainsburys recently revamped their food to go/lunchtime offering and seemed to have outraged a lot of customers by taking out a lot of their products from the meal deal. However, the good news is they've launched lots of new products as well with some of them looking pretty good. One thing that caught my eye on the checkout were these little dried fruit/ nut type pouches. There were lots of different varieties at 50p which seemed pretty reasonable and it looks like Sainsburys are trying to copy Graze.

I picked up one of the more treaty options with this chocolate hazelnut pretzel pouch. It's a mix of raisins, little chocolate pellets, caramelised hazelnut pieces and broken bits of salty pretzel. Pouring it out there was a decent distribution of the elements although the raisins didn't really work with the other elements for me and kind of felt like they were cheap filler.

Individually all the pieces are nice but it's better when you mix and match the elements - the chocolate working well with either the saltiness of the pretzel, which is a combination I love and also good with the caramelised hazelnut for a contrast in texture. These three elements also work well as a trio,

Overall it's a nice mix and good to see supermarket healthy snacks at an affordable price but it's not as good as Graze. Whilst it's a delicious mix, Graze do way more innovative and delicious combos and there's two minor things which didn't work for me. 1. The raisins didn't really go with the rest of the elements even though they were nice. 2. The hazelnut pieces were way too small and often didn't really get noticed. I would have preferred half hazelnuts at the very least.

I would buy this range again but Graze would be my preferred option.

Price: 50p
Bought at: Sainsburys
Nutrition per pouch: 114 calories, 4.8g fat, 1.8g sat fat, 11.4g sugars, 0.13g salt

Score: 7/10

Quality Street New Honeycomb Crunch Review

So Nestle have caused quite the social media meltdown by ditching the toffee deluxe from Quality Street and replacing it with the new honeycomb crunch. Views have been divisive with some outraged their favourite sweet has gone whilst others seem glad to see the toffee deluxe binned. Whether I liked the new honeycomb crunch or not, surely it had to be better than toffee deluxe. There are way too many toffees in Quality Street already and in our house are left lingering well into January with their hard, chewy texture that threatens to pull your teeth out.

I'll admit I haven't bought Quality Street for a while now - like Cadbury quality (ironically) keeps getting stripped out with more sugar and more vegetable fats and less proper chocolate. It's hard to tell whether this is about costcutting or not (it probably is) although surely toffees are pretty cheap seeing as they're pure sugar.

Whilst I wouldn't buy a tub of Quality Street just to try a new flavour, Nestle have also launched it as a chocolate bar form. It's essentially four of the honeycomb crunches welded together. The first thing that annoyed me is their recommended serving size of 2 pieces or half a bar for 100 calories. Really?! Who's going to eat half of this and then save the other half - plus eating the whole thing for 200 calories is still a slightly less than normal amount of calories for a chocolate bar.

It smelt quite sweet and when I cut in and saw how few honeycomb pieces there were in it, I thought it would be a let down. However, I have to say I actually really enjoyed this.

Don't get me wrong, it's not proper chocolate and I'd far rather have some Hotel Chocolat or something a bit more premium but for what it is, it's really rather tasty. Silky smooth and creamily thick with a light creamy inside filling there's just enough honeycomb for a flavour burst and texture without getting into that overly sweet territory of Cadbury Crunchie.

Definitely a far better choice than a toffee deluxe and actually probably one of the best Quality Street out of the whole mix I think. I may even get a tub this Christmas

Bought at: Asda
Nutrition per half bar: 100 calories
Score: 8/10

Munch Vegan Falafel and Houmous Sandwich

I do try and eat more plant based / veggie options nowadays so whilst needing an on the go lunch at a train station the other day I picked up this vegan sandwich from WHSmith - a sweet potato falafel and houmous sandwich as part of a meal deal along with a Nakd bar and Smart Water.

To be honest it didn't look that exciting even from the pack but then none of the options in WHSmith looked inviting - very much prepackaged, generic, bland beige food. It is frustrating that some places haven't woken up to the fact that people want fresh, healthy options.

Unfortunately, this was an extremely bland, dry and boring sandwich as I feared. There wasn't enough filling to counteract the extremely dry, bland bread which was a real chore to eat. The falafel were brittle and too crumbly and again overly dry and the little blobs of homous didn't help make this any more moist.

There was barely any salad filling and it just felt a chore to eat - a huge wedge of dry, brown carohydrate. It's hard to get people to eat healthily if this is all you can offer them and it also was pretty salty to boot. Thank goodness I had a cherry bakewell Nakd bar afterwards for some taste and flavour.

Bought at: WHSmith
Nutrition per pack: 394 calories, 8.6g fat, 1.2 sat fat, 6.6g sugars, 1.5g salt

Score: 4/10

Marks and Spencer Red Velvet Cake

I must admit I still don't really fully understand red velvet cake's appeal or even what it is - am I wrong in just thinking it's basically a chocolate cake with some red dye and a cream cheese topping? Someone please enlighten me. But there were cakes in the office today and seeing as I got there too late for any carrot cake, which would have been my preferred option, I tried the new M&S red velvet cake.

It looks attractive and I guess what you would want from a red velvet cake and came out of the box undamaged easily and without all the frosting coming away. It cuts nicely into slices and feels very moist with a good wodge of cream cheese icing filling and on the top.

It's sweet, really quite sweet but not overly so. Maybe a little too sweet for my cake preferences as someone who would rather have something like banana bread or carrot cake but I think for most people it would be nicely sweet. The cake is really moist and not in the least dry and the generous sticky creamy icing helps this even further. I find it hard to describe the flavour of this as it's not overly chocolatey in the same way a good chocolate cake but I did enjoy the cream cheese frosting, which although sweet has a nice tangy, yogurty flavour to it.

Having never really eaten much red velvet I'm reluctant to say it's a great one in case there are bette qualified experts who would shout me down but overall it's a very nice cake. Light and fluffy with a rich tang that works well with the sugary hit.

From: Marks and Spencer
Score: 8/10

Whitworths Full of Super Cayenne Chilli Flaxseed Crisps

Always on the look out for healthy snacks, I was really delighted to see these new flaxseed crisps from Whitworths. I've always associated Whitworths with cake ingredients, dried fruit and sugar rather than health but they've launched a new Full of Super range composing of raw bars, maca-roons and these flaxseed crisps.

I like flaxseed anyway and add it to my porridge every morning so was intrigued to try a crisp version as I enjoy other health crisps like kale crisps or chickpea flour crisps. My Sainsburys had both the garlic and herb flavour and these cayenne chilli ones which I went for as I like a bit of heat.

These are a genuinely healthy proposition. They're dairy free, gluten free and wheat free, soy free and suitable for vegans. Just look at the ingredients below - it's genuine whole foods.

Flaxseeds (50%), buckwheat (19%), sunflower seeds, quinoa (4%), dried red peppers, dried onion, sea salt, spices (1%) [ground ginger, ground cayenne chilli pepper (0.5%), turmeric], chia seeds (0.3%), dried garlic

Nutritionally this makes them really pretty good.  8g carbs per pack vs 6g protein and 6g fibre and with no added sugar. Flaxseed are also a really good source of omega 3 and each pack of these contains a whopping 3.9g

Pouring them out, they are nice perfect little discs sprinkled with lots of seeds. Whilst these do taste a little wholefood-ey and maybe wouldn't appeal to everyone, I thought they were really delicious and very moreish. A good crunchy texture, similar to seeded crackers with a nice good hit of spicy cayenne spice made for a really tasty snack. I said I was going to split this 35g bag into two servings but I easily ended up scoffing the lot, they were that moreish with a nice savoury flavour.

My only criticism is they are expensive. They were £1 on promotion at Sainsburys but even this is pricey for a single bag of crisps yet alone the £1.50 full price. Considering healthier options are becoming more mainstream and there are affordable options out there like Nakd which aren't inaccessible, I do feel these are overrpriced. But like I said I really enjoyed them so would probably buy them again at some point.

Price: £1.50
Bought at: Sainsburys
Nutrition pr bag: 171 calories, 11g fat, 1.2g sat fat, 8.3 carbs, 0.9g sugars, 6.3g fibre, 6.4g protein, 0.5g salt

Score: 8/10

Whittards Gingerbread Coffee Syrup

Too soon for something quite Christmassy? I love gingerbread and am already counting down the days until the gingerbread lattes grace the coffee shops again. However, on a recent trip to Whittards, amongst their other delights (they were sampling a peanut butter hot chocolate, which was amazing) I spied their own gingerbread coffee syrup.

At £4 a bottle it's not cheap and pricier than Monin but worth noting that this is the first coffee syrup I've seen that isn't made with sugar but with fruit extract instead (which yes is a form of sugar but at least a natural one). It's simply fruit extract, flavouring and concentrated lemon juice).

The golden glow of the bottle looks warming and wintery cosy alone but the smell when you open it, is even more beautiful. Spicy, sweet - it's smells like Christmas and made me excited for it already and cosy afternoons in front of the fire.

I added one spoon to my latte (with a little Nakd nibble on the side) and it was perfect - as good as any Costa gingerbread latte with a warming, rich spicy scent that added a touch of sweetness withot tasting too sugary or syrupy. It's warming and comforting and just an absolute treat. I might even try adding to porridge and seeing what that's like. My mouth is watering at the thought already. Worth every penny.

Price: £4.00
Bought at: Whittards
Nutrition per 10g: 29 calories, 5.6g sugars

Score: 9/10

Aldi Greek Style Rhubarb and Fiery Ginger Yogurt

As you've probably seen I've been reviewing a lot of Aldi yogurts recently. I'm pretty hooked on the Domio yogurts and was pretty impressed with their Greek yogurt. In my recent trip I also picked up this new range of Greek style yogurts they've launched. They had an apple and cinnamon one which looked nice too but I love rhubarb and I love ginger so I couldn't not get this.

Opening up the tub, I could detect a faint sweet rhubarb scent and it looked a pretty pink colour. Giving it a swirl and dolloping some out, it had a nice thick texture. It's not as thick as actual Greek yogurt but certainly at least comparable to any branded Greek style yogurt and some people will prefer this texture as it's not solid but instead still slightly runny albeit with a very rich, creamy, thick texture. It's certainly a good deal thicker than something like an Activia yogurt.

It's defnitely not a health yogurt by any means with 21g sugar per 150g serving (third of a pot) or 14g per sugar but it does taste very good. It's a sweet rhubarb flavour that works well with the creamy, indulgent texture with a good hit of ginger, which add a nice spicy afterhint that perfectly works with rhubarb.

There's also lots of nice chunk of rhubarb dotted throughout which add extra bursts of juicy sweetness. It's not something I would serve for breakfast due to the sugar content and I would like to see it lowered but it's a delicious, sweet treat and one I would buy again.

Bought at: Aldi
Nutrition per 150g/ third of a pot: 208 calories, 11g fat, 21g sugars

Score: 7.5/10