Food is one of my three favourite F words. For that reason you’ll find it features quite frequently on my social media channels (see icons in the sidebar) and from time to time it filters through on to my blog as well.

I was offered a trial of  Degustabox a monthly food box; most bloggers get excited by a beauty box subscription, for me it’s the foodie equivalent. Each month you get a box of 10-15 surprise products, most of which are new to the market…it costs less than half of the retail value. The subscription costs £12.99 a month including p&p which really is quite a bargain- in my box one of the products alone retailed at £4! I of course took up the offer and shortly the January box arrived at my door.

You can see full details of January’s Box here but here are my thoughts of the products that arrived:

Go! Kombucha China White tea certainly looked interesting. I consider myself adventerous when it comes to food- there isn’t much I won’t try, however when it comes to drinks I’m a bit of a scaredy cat and try as I might I couldn’t bring myself to try this. I’m sure Kombucha is lovely stuff, but I don’t think it is for me.

Quinola Express Pearl & Black was the perfect base for lunch time salads. Using half a sachet at a time I first tried it warm with chicken and some finely chopped salad vegetables and then the next day I had it cold, straight from the packet, this time with some tofu and raw vegetables. I’m a big fan of this and will be adding it to my food shop from time to time.

Dorset Cereals Berry Granola was fantastic. I’ve featured the brand on the blog before and I’ve made it quite clear I loved it. This has kept me snacking for a few days now, I don’t like cereals with milk but give me a bowl of this and an episode of Breaking Bad and I’m good.

Goody Good Stuff make good sweets. Fact. I first tried them a couple of years ago and they’ve replaced my beloved Haribo as my gummy sweet of choice. I prefer the idea of sweets without gelatin despite no longer being a vegetarian and these are also all natural and free of many allergens. I was sent the tropical fruit and sour mix & match, I’m a lover of sour sweets and these were brilliant- they didn’t let my tastebuds down.

Amys Kitchen is another brand I was previously familiar with and buy where possible. I hadn’t try their chunky tomato soup before- I’m not a fan of tomato soup, I think I’ll be passing this on to my Dad who does like tomato but I can vouch for Amys soups in general.

Maggi’s range of flavourings for chicken are brilliant. Such a quick and easy way to jazz up and otherwise fairly boring meal. Again, I haven’t tried these yet- I’ve been off my feet and not able to cook but I am really looking forward to trying the sticky BBQ variety.

Jules Destrooper make good biscuits, they really do. It may or may not have escaped my twitter followers notice but I am a bit of a biscuit addict. These didn’t last long at all and will be repurchased asap.

Zico make coconut water. My previous experiences of coconut water have not been positive so I was hesitant to try this. After mustering up some courage I took a sip and can confirm I’m still not the hugest of fans, but with it’s chocolate flavouring I could drink this again.

Last but not least was the Garofalo pasta, I don’t eat much pasta but this looks incredibly tasty. Again it hasn’t been sampled yet, but I think I’ll be rusting up some kind of spaghetti feast as soon as possible.

So, there are my thoughts on my first ever Degusta Box. Despite not liking some of the products personally I still highly recommend it to any foodie out there. I loved the element of surprise and it was a good excuse to try new things. I’m looking forward to trying more in the future!

Have you ever subscribed to Degusta Box? How did you find it worked for you?

Way back before Christmas I had a package arrive from Pidy, a manufacturer of ready to fill pastry cases and veggie cups. I had the best of intentions to get a post up before the festive season ended but with one thing and another I failed.

Still, this didn’t work out so badly as one afternoon, craving something sweet yet light I pulled out the box of pastry spoonettes and got to work.

With January being the month of resolve I decided I wanted to make something on the lighter side. In the end I cooked up a punnet of fresh apricots in the microwave (using this recipe as a base) and let them cool. Once cool I placed a teaspoon of fruit in each case for a sweet but not naughty little snack plate. Of course if you wanted to make these more virtuous you could use a natural sweetener in place of sugar but I personally prefer the taste of the sugar. You could also add some greek or plain yoghurt to these for more texture and taste but I think they work perfectly as they are. I’ll be making these again, perhaps next time with plums or berries…or a selection of whatever is in the fruitbowl. Cooked fruits are a family favourite and although soft fruits work best, apple and pear are great as well as many of the dried fruits available (try prunes, I promise they’re good!)

Each pastry case contains only 16 calories so each spoon probably comes to less than 50 depending on what else you add. The contrast of the crispy pastry and the soft, sweet fruit works perfectly…a bit of a deconstructed jam tart perhaps? You can also warm the cases through in the oven but I decided to skip that step.

I am yet to come up with fillings for the rest of the range I was sent, which included a pack of Beetroot Veggie cups for which I am thinking houmus or something similar. At the moment the cases are available to order from Amazon but I expect it won’t be long before they roll out elsewhere.

What would you have filled them with? And what suggestions do you have for the Beetroot Cups?

Thanks to food PR agency CLIP Creative and PR for the samples