What food did you buy this Christmas that you liked/disliked?

[Madeyoulook]

Liked:
Morrisons turkey joint with stuffing - very nice and the right amount
Tesco veg - all fine

Disliked:
Tesco finest Belgian chocolate log - sweet and dry
Tesco finest small Christmas pudding - too many nuts
Tesco pate with apple chutney - nothing special
Tesco party food eg sausage rolls, spring rolls - very basic, wouldn’t buy again

Seems like it! I can imagine the cost of everything will be hitting them hard. Raising their prices steeply could have priced customers out, so they’ve reduced the cost of making things instead and unfortunately customers seem to be noticing!

M&S do have form for making bewilderingly awful decisions without properly consulting its actual customer base.

Our ‘miss’ was some ‘Extra Special’ stuffing that DS bought at Tesco. It was the pork, apple, honey and sage one and apparently was far too sweet and sickly 🤮 and is still sitting in the fridge.

Eventually I will feed it to our neighbourhood corvids, I expect.

@ZeViteVitchofCwismas thank you - they look amazing! Much more my kind of thing. Will try to order some next time we are in the U.K. We used to buy from Nomnom in Wales but they have sadly gone out of business.

The ironic thing is we are on the Franco-Swiss border and there is no shortage of artisan chocolate shops! I miss things like fondant creams though, which are not such a thing here.

M&S mince pies in the all-cardboard packaging (I'm specifying those ones because apparently other ones were better).

No alcohol in the filling, they really seem not much mince pies without that little "kick", it's part of the flavour IMO. I have a couple of boxes of them, too. I'll probably give them to someone. 🙁

I wish I'd bought more ready made
My home made roasties didn't crisp in olive and rapeseed oil
Got Aldi mini steak baked and spring rolls as nibbles - they were good
Missed out on local cheese wheel but will get this next year

Miss Tesco mini lobster Mac and cheese and mini scallops wrapped in bacon. Expensive and tasteless. Hit Lidl frozen giant prawns.

Another miss from me: Aldi white chocolate coins. Tasted one and they were like dog chocolate. I know Aldi and Lidl are often really good with chocolate so that was surprising.

Misses: Aldi special mini mince pies, too much pastry hardly any quite bland filling.
Aldi special stollen bites, dry as he'll
Wins: 9yr Dd is mildly obsessed with Xmas cake and out of the 3 we've had (yes 3 Xmas cakes in December) sainsbury was the winner.

Pringles. They have a really odd, nasty greasy taste now. I'm wondering if it's to do with the oil they're using because of all the issues.

Aldi chocolate coins may taste like dog chocolate but they're still better than the Fortnum and Mason Chocolate Coins!!

😢 I bought them as a one off treat and had to empty the pretty tin and replace them with the Aldi coins.

That's interesting, we didn't like it. Did you oven bake it @DazzlePaintedBattlePants ? I'd like to try it again and I'm thinking that might be better

Hit - Tesco finest cheese selection (the one on its own slate) - the cheeses are delicious and the soft ones not rubbery/bland as they sometimes are on the selection boards.

Hit - Tesco finest mince pies - couldn't fault them.

Meh - Lidl 3 bird roast. We used to have the '3 game roast' but they weren't doing them this year. This was very big but 90% of the meat was turkey so it was bland and quite dry. Perhaps to compensate, it was extremely garlicky - and I say this as someone who will eat roasted garlic cloves whole!

Miss - Tesco Finest Yule log - very dry.

@familyissues12345 Yep, just whacked it in a dish and stuck it in. My oven was on slightly lower than the packet said for other stuff, so I think it got an extra 5 mins or so.

I usually make my own but this was much better (and also I wasn’t left with a mountain of the stuff)

Fortnum and Mason Beef Wellington was gorgeous, as was their Christmas Coal.
M&S parsnips with honey mustard were rank. All tough and stringy. They have been reduced in Ocado for the last 2 weeks. I can see why.

Hits
M&S food to order was all good, including Turkey crown with bacon and stuffing, sugar baked gammon, stuffing balls and pigs in blankets
M&S mini toad in the holes & wrapped prawns (party food)
Lyre’s non alcoholic Italian Orange. Lovely with tonic & ice
Sainsburys Lebkuchen
Sainsburys shortbread

Misses
M&S party food mini crumpets with ham hock & cheese. Too sloppy.
Waitrose Lebkuchen
Sainsburys non alcoholic fruit punch. Tasted weird & was thrown away

M&s

Sausage wreath- absolutely delicious and everybody commented on how the filling was just delicious.

Helter skelter cake- mediocre sponge tbh but it looked nice.

Cornish cruncher- delicious!

Dauphinois- barely eaten. Just not a fan at all.

Shin of beef- absolutely divine, firm favourite here.

Cracking chocolate log- dry and prefer the lidl I've I was given from a friend

Sainsbury

Quattro cheese bake.- nice but prefer the Cornish cruncher

Sticky port baking Camembert- gorgeous!

Cauliflower cheese- I cooked my sainsbos festive spiced steak bacon and crumbled it on top and it was a highlight of our Xmas Eve.

Praline forest - OH MY GOD. I actually caved in and opened this on Christmas Eve. Then I hid it in the shed and went back several times until I had finished it by Christmas night. Best thing I've ever ever tasted in my life.

Aldi

Extra special quiches were lovely. Normally not a fan as the pastry is claggy but these were grand

Praline forest - OH MY GOD. I actually caved in and opened this on Christmas Eve. Then I hid it in the shed and went back several times until I had finished it by Christmas night. Best thing I've ever ever tasted in my life

Oooh what is ( or was ) the Praline Forest and where from (asking for a friend .....).

Ah , ignore me a bit , I see it was Sainsbury (but still need to know what it was )
<hopeful face>

Deliciousness. I swear to god I could eat one every single day. Just absolute perfection and I wish they did it every week but it's probably a good thing they don't 😂

@familyissues12345
i oven baked mine using the timings on the pack and it was gorgeous. I did microwave a bit of leftover on Boxing Day and it was revolting cooked that way.

My M&S turkey crown was awful! I didn’t realise it was an already basted one (never buy these) and it had such an awful texture/taste. Also very off putting we’re the holes where they’d obviously injected the baste which when cooked, looked like worm holes in the flesh. Was very offputting.

Adding to my miss list tonight - M&S raspberry panacotta

M&S has been such an unexpected disappointment, almost every item, this year.

What was wrong with it? They made such a big deal about it on the inside M&S program

Rare for me to criticise a snack, but M&S Habanero tortillas. Absolutely horrible.

When I've had it before from M&S it was the raspberry and processco panacotta and it had more flavour from the processco (which is strange as I don't like processco). This year the panacotta was thicker, creamy and just.....tasteless - no hints of vanilla or any other flavour coming through.

So it relied on the raspberry sauce to lift it. We weren't keen on the raspberry sauce, too jammy, processed tasting.

Less than half of it has been eaten, it was ok with the chocolate pine cones instead of cream, but unlikely the rest will be eaten here.