New Covent Garden Soup: Carrot and Coriander

Fresh tasting soup.  You can taste the sweetness of the carrots and I just love coriander.  Some finely grated carrots adds to the touch.  99p a carton.

New Covent Garden Soup: Carrot and Coriander

Sweet Potatoes

£0.89 a kg.  I paid £1.19 for 4 sweet potatoes weighing in at 1.334 kg.

Try them baked

New Covent Garden Soup: Plum Tomato and Basil

99p a carton.  Serves 2 as a main or 3 as a starter.  See my first soup post here.

The best tomato soup there is!  Generous chunks of tasty tomatoes and there is no need for dairy to add deliciousness.  This product is dairy-free and vegan.  It is slightly sweet.  The only negative is that this product will stain so be careful!  Not environmentally friendly but it's good to bin it in a bag first (trying to wash the carton will just stain your brush/cloth so don't bother).

I'd happily pay full price for this but since I know it will be on offer, I just wait.

Floralys Tissues

45p for a box of white tissues.  150 x 2-ply.
I compare this product with Tesco Value Tissues.  The only difference is the price.  My brother recommended Tesco Value Tissues at 18p a box.  I normally just use loo roll but they're good for keeping in your car.  The Tesco ones have crept up in price from 18p to 36p to 68p!

McVitie's Digestives

On offer price of 69p for a 500g packet.  It's even one of those promotional packs.  A good long life so you know Lidl genuinely have good offers and are not peddling stuff about to go out of date

Try dunking in your tea or hot chocolate.  It's hard to eat just one ey?

Oaklands Celery

59p normal price.  I find the darker the celery, the stronger the flavour.  I personally prefer a lighter colour but this was palatable.  I like celery; it's the crunch factor and as the bag says, it is rather refreshing.  I snap it lengthways in order to destring it.  I dislike stringy celery.

It has taken me (and only me) more than a week to eat this bunch of celery and it is keeping well.  I have not been eating it for every lunch or dinner though.

I have eaten it with houmous, as a side (sans cheese) and as a main Celery Slaw.  I cut the remaining stalks into sticks to snack on.

Meadowfresh Houmous

This 300g tub was 95p.  I usually get Tesco or Waitrose brand once in a blue moon.  When I tried Lidl's Meadowfresh brand, I thought it was a bit sour.  I jazzed it up with plenty of freshly ground black pepper (imo, the best thing to complement your dip) and that magic ingredient; garlic granules!
It was much better.  I had half a tub one day with celery sticks and the next day with some breadsticks.

It was okay.  Nothing special.

New Covent Garden Soup: Winter Vegetable

Covent Garden soups are a classy and delicious brand of fresh soups in cartons found in the fridge.  These are periodically on offer at Lidl at 99p a carton which makes it well worth waiting until it's on offer.

I had this Winter Vegetable soup before so bought it again.  I ate it for lunch today in a hurry but what I remembered was how nice the texture of the sweetcorn was.  It had a bit of bite to it, implying it was fresh.  The soup had a nice consistency (thick) with enough chunky vegetables to satisfy ones appetite.

Floralys Pocket Tissues

Multipack

1 pack

£1.19 for 18 x packets of 10 tissues.  180 individual hankerchiefs at less than a penny a blow or just under 7p a packet.  These are 4 ply so they're strong and not flimsy.  You can afford to keep a packet in each handbag, coat pocket or on the desktop.

A good buy not to be sniffed at.

Vitasia Instant Noodles: Chicken Flavour

18p for a 108g packet.  I bought one packet to try.  It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if it's horrible, it's a waste of money.  "Authentic Oriental Noodles" I looked for information to back up this claim and on the back of the packet after the cooking instructions were "Produced in China".  I'm not too keen on their nutritional information.  It says per 100g cooked weight, why can't they just tell us how many calories per packet cooked?


Niggles aside this item needs some simple preparation.  I chose the lazy method of kettle and microwave.  This also makes it an ideal snack/lunch for work.

Before

After

The soup smelt nice.  There wasn't the usual sesame oil sachet that I had grown accustomed to from other instant noodles brands but no biggie, this is a cheap product after all and if I really wanted some, I have some in my kitchen.  This was chicken flavour and had no chicken in it whatsoever!  Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

The noodles were nice and soft.  It's good food to warm you up.  I was slightly disappointed with the flavour.  It seemed to lack some savouriness.  I then thought, well,  that is what you get for trying to create chicken flavour without any chicken!  I sprinkled some garlic granules that I had in my cupboard.  To me, this was the missing flavour and it improved it immensely!  I didn't resort to the dabs of sesame oil in the end because there was no need.

So, I would definitely buy this product again.  I would happily buy this flavour and try the other ones.  My tip would be to keep some garlic granules handy.

Noblissima Macarons

Coffee, pistachio, strawberry and chocolate £2.99.

I bought these back in November but only got round to eating them in January (if you must know, it was to celebrate Chinese New Year).  My personal favourite was the coffee, they were really good!  You might think at £2.99, it's a bit pricey for those tiny little things but boy were they worth it!  This was my second time eating macarons (or macaroons but I don't want to confuse you with the coconut things that are gluten free).  The first time being Paul (the French family bakery chain, think of a posh Greggs).  They defrosted really well and they weren't soggy at all.  I'd definitely keep an eye out for these and buy 2 next time!

Crusti Croc Peanut Puffs

I think this was left over from the previous weeks' promotion.  Nevertheless I bought it anyway.  I wouldn't normally buy these.  There is something wrong with buying an XXL food item.  A huge 250g was only 99p.
The only corn puffy things I've had are cheesey Wotsits.  My Polish colleague offered me a peanut flavour corn snack (not Crusti Croc, it had light blue packaging) and I enjoyed how crispy and peanutty it tasted.

The texture is lovely and the flavour very pleasing.  These would make a great party snack to share.  A bit worrying that it doesn't have any nutritional information.  I would definitely eat them again but would probably buy them when I know I will share them (they're a bit moreish).  Saying that, I hope they do small individual packs.

Knights Mini Poppadums: Balti Flavour

Part of their weekly leaflet deal.  59p for a 60g packet.  These mini poppadums were very well spiced and a bit on the salty side.  I would class this as medium spiced, it makes your mouth very tingly and thirsty but not quite eye watering.  I would happily try one or two but that is enough.  Because I bought this, I ended up eating the whole packet.  I wouldn't buy this flavour again but would be willing to try the other ones.

Introduction

Hello there! 

There is a gem in town called Lidl.  It is very popular at the weekends but very quiet in the weekday eveninngs (this is when I prefer to pop in).  I enjoy flipping through their special offers leaflet that gets posted through my door.

The best thing about Lidl is the locality and the prices.  Their offers give me a chance to treat myself whilst saving money and trying new things.  I will dedicate this blog to product reviews.

Kit