Marks and Spencer food..

[CurlewKate]

I posed a while ago that I was doing a neighbour’s shopping for a while and she only uses M&S. I’m on my own at the moment, and she told me to shop for myself as well, which I was very excited about-I though posh convenience food would be great in this heat. But I’m actually very disappointed- it all seems a bit bland and samey. So far the things I’ve liked best are some Eton Mess cronuts-sadly I can’t live on them , much though I’d like to! And some delicious blood orange and passionfruit cordial. Oh, and a crab linguini (once I added some chilli and lemon juice) What’s your favorite M&S ready meal?

That will probably be because of the chicken. It's a pain to import dairy items and meat into the EU and the fact it's a salad may that it can't take the wait.

I buy the following a lot from M&S:

• High protein ready meals.
• Seafood
• Thai ready meals
• Oranges
• Strawberries
• Pancakes and scones.
• Truffle cheeses
• Frozen potatoes or potato mix.
• Frozen pastries.
• Meat, including steak and preprepared meat.
• Soup.

I agree about the super nutty salad.... it's gorgeous! As is the butternut and goats cheese salad, they are my go to quick lunches from M&S because I find all of their packaged sandwiches disappointing.

I really like the cheese selection at M&S and they do 5 for £4 of the mini cheeses so I can buy myself individual portions of stilton and brie to save me eating an entire wedge to myself 🤣.

Their sour cream and chive dip is excellent, as are some of their crisps and chocolate.

They do a really nice sliced fruit and treacle loaf and their granola squares are amazing

The rest I think is pretty average! But the ready meals seem popular with elderly shoppers as others have said.

Oh and also the chocolate button shortbread is ELITE!

@TheFlis I love that dressing too! I keep meaning to reverse engineer it but keep forgetting.

Besides that salad, I also like their strawberries. They’re consistently the best ones in my area both in and out of season. The same goes for the clementines too.

In terms of cold cuts, the porchetta and the cotto vignolo ham are excellent. Regarding hummus, the bowl with the black label is excellent and much more authentic. It has a nice pool of extra virgin olive oil and extra chickpeas on top.

The 3 raw chicken legs (drumstick and thigh) for only £1.50 are also an excellent value. A few weeks back I got them on yellow sticker clearance for only 75p and swiped up three packages.

@JingsMahBucket Me too but when I looked up the ingredients one of the main ingredients was Apple concentrate and I wasn’t sure where to start with that 🤣

I am currently only eating plant based. It is really irritating that unlike every other shop they don't put all their plant based stuff together and you have to hunt around the store. I have given up with them because of this and just buy the Ready meals and extremely chocolatey biscuits for my Mum who likes the brand name

The strawberries are good.

In terms of ready meals, they seem to change the recipes and not in a good way. Their 'best ever' lasagne used to be lovely, but recently it has been awful - greasy & sloppy. The gastropub cottage pie used to be nice, but I haven't had it for a while.
They used to have a lovely paella which had butterbeans in, then they changed the recipe (not very nice) and I haven't seen it for ages. I'm also not keen on the Tom Kerridge range

I'm not well off by any means, but I'd rather go to Waitrose because their ready meals are more consistent & far nicer

M&S keep discontinuing everything I love (most recently chicken karaage)

The King Cherries are on their way though. I checked this morning and the sign was there although the shelf was bare this time.

I second the Gastrpub chicken Kyivs. I get the pizza deal with potato skins and halloumi fries.

I'm going today to buy an emergency treat package for my mum. I'll get fruit salad with jelly, lemon drizzle cake, naked chicken burrito salad and the ginger Kombucha.

The Big Daddy pistachio bar is gorgeous.

My son is GF and I think they are great for not adding a random bit of gluten into a meal/ product that doesn't need it, so I like them for that. They also include their GF breaded chicken products into the multi-buy offer rather than just charging me twice the price for them, which is nice.

M&S food is nothing like the quality it used to be, I remember it was an absolute treat to do a shop there but now it’s nothing particularly special at all.

Buy all my fruit from there

The pastrami dip is amazing

So much salt, fat and sugar for such little flavour. And now just ridiculously priced. Give me Waitrose any day.

This is my favourite too, lovely little chilli kick to it. I haven't had it for ages, but this might be a weekend treat for me 😊

My mum buys their very small ready meals, things like cottage pie, because she won't cook for only herself (fair enough, I wouldn't either) and she has a very small appetite. They serve a purpose and she's eating something reasonably substantial.

I buy gold teabags and lots of basics like baked beans, ketchup, plain biscuits from M&S. They're the same price as Tesco, where I do most of the shopping, but they're much tastier than Tesco own brand. Their cakes tend to be nicer than other supermarkets' too.

ETA - so thinking about it, I use it more for basic items these days than seeing it as a treat shop like I used to. Interesting, I hadn't noticed that until now

Love their super green salad and the mandarin jelly pudding thing. The sultana cookies are really good too.
im not a huge fan of the ready meals, but the spinach and ricotta cannelloni is nice.

Their little packs of prawns with chilli are nice to add at the end of making spaghetti & tomato sauce. Their fishcakes are good - I think even their basic ones are forty per cent fish and I think but not sure dairy-free - as are dusted haddock and plaice. Also like their tins of 'matured' anchovies. Baked beans. Bargain mixed eggs. I'm not so keen on their ready meals which are too complicated for my poor stomach.

The iced fruit buns are delicious. Yesterday M&S had run out of the standard product, so I bought the gluten-free ones and they were even better.

ETA - so thinking about it, I use it more for basic items these days than seeing it as a treat shop like I used to.

Me too.

We've got a foodhall in the middle of town, so I do go there a bit rather than trek to the out of town supermarket. I particularly like their salads/picnic selection and often treat myself to the ones which are part of their 3 for £8 promotion for a weekend treat. I sometimes buy their meat as I can fool myself that their welfare standards are higher than other supermarkets, whilst still being cheaper than the real butchers. And their jazz apples are consistently reliably crunchy!

@RainbowZebraWarrior so someone else was buying it, I bloody loved it!
We had it in every shop

Iced fruit buns, and creamed spinach. Not together.
Anything with a yellow sticker on it as a treat.

I bought four packs a week as it was my absolute favourite easy lunch ir dinner with rice. I'm so annoyed as the salt and pepper chicken isn't really anything like it. Waitrose also used to do it, but changed it. They profess to have changed it back but it's crap. I'm going to look up a recipe.

@TheFlis 😂 oh gosh, I haven’t even gotten that far!

And yes to using M & S for some good basics as well. I buy sardines in extra virgin olive oil and their canned baked beans on a regular basis. We also use their compost bags. Quite a few of their basic items I would rather pay a few pence more than going for the other supermarkets’ choices.