Waitrose Christmas Caramelised Salted Nut Mix

I made a stupid mistake not photographing the see through packaging of this nut mix before I started eating. Silly me, I failed to get a good pack shot. I have eaten everything: all of the nuts and most of the flavour dust caught in the corners, and there’s nothing left but an empty packet which doesn’t look particularly sexy.

Damn. 

Still, this is quite a nice nut mix, easy to eat (or even scoff - I might have scoffed), although I don’t think almonds and cashews genuinely count as a mix. I should think you would need at least three of something to qualify as a mix. The Chef, slightly baffled when I asked if you need three of something to make a mix, vaguely agrees with me.

Once upon a time, a dear friend who was living in Morocco, made the horrid mistake of very kindly bringing me a bagful of fresh almonds. Freshly picked from Moroccan nut orchards, and to my way of thinking, absolutely horrible. I don’t like almonds. I don’t like almond flavour. The almond drink orgeat, so popular in the Regency, fills me with horror. And I think marzipan, famously made with almonds, tastes very nasty indeed.

But an almond, especially selected by Mr Waitrose to be caramelised and/or salted is extremely tasty.

Although I do prefer the cashews. 

So, rather a nice “mix” of caramelised salted nuts.

M&S Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Hmmn… the chocolate coating on these pretzels is slightly sweeter than I expected, and the pretzel taste disappointingly fugitive. Really not enough crunch and definitely not enough salt.

If I were given the chance, I think I would adjust the sweet/salt ratio. Quite tasty, but I don’t think I would buy another packet.

The Chef liked his pretzels better than I did. He likes milk chocolate. But he agrees that there really isn’t enough saltiness.

Extremely handsome lime green and shocking pink packaging though. Very nice.

M&S Hand Cooked Hot Honey Pigs in Blankets Crisps

So, Pigs in Blankets? To be honest I had never heard of pigs in blankets until I was quite grown up. At Christmas my family had miniature (cocktail) sausages with the chicken (not turkey), and rolled up bacon. But not bacon rolled around sausages. I didn’t even know it was a thing. 

Anyway, this M&S crisp tastes nothing like sausages, nothing like bacon, and I would hazard, nothing like pigs in blankets.

But could this be the fault of the hot honey? This crisp doesn’t taste of honey either. Perhaps that’s because the oak smoked sugar is interfering. But it does feature a big hit of something hot. I expect that’s the chilli.

I definitely wouldn’t bother to buy these crisps again.

However, Cliffs of Moher Taste Tester came round to help built my Christmas tree, and after complaining that she really didn’t care for M&S crisps, graciously agreed to try this one. Apparently they don’t have pigs in blankets in Ireland, or at least not where she was brought up, but not to worry because she surprised herself by rather enjoying these crisps. A bit like smoky bacon she thought. Which explains a lot as I have never liked smoky bacon crisps and avoid them if I can. 

Anyway, quite a lot of the packet got eaten fairly enthusiastically. So I guess that counts as a sign of approval.

But what a waste of a potentially good flavour. Basically, to me, these fine cut crisps taste mostly of the something hot and, prompted by Cliffs of Moher, smoky bacon. And I’m not really very impressed by Marks & Spencer’s Christmas packaging either.