Another Halo Top offering this week…
I’m a big fan of salted caramel in general but this ice cream was extra especially good – sweet, smooth and with a strong caramel taste. We’ve not had it very often this year (Halo Top is slightly pricy so is an occasional treat) but it’s on my list for one of the first to have again in spring 2022.
It’s another ‘birthday cake’ flavoured ice cream!
This one is a little cloyingly sweet, but I prefer it to both editions of the Asda version I tried before – the plain texture suits me better than the slightly strange ‘bits’ in the Asda one.
Halo Top is probably my favourite lower-calorie ice cream brand. There’ll be a few flavours of it in this series!
This one is a bit of an odd entry…
…because we’ve had two varieties of it this year – they’ve seemingly changed the recipe. The first variety contained actual chunks of cake within the ice cream. Geth was a big fan of that one but I wasn’t so keen – I didn’t like the soggy texture of the cake chunks. They then switched to a variety that didn’t have the cake but had chewy candy sprinkles in it instead. The taste of the actual ice cream hasn’t changed – it’s nice, but a little too sweet for me. There are other flavours of Asda ice cream that I much prefer.
I’m finally getting round to logging this year’s food collection! I probably won’t get it finished until we’re into 2022 though…
A quick note about why I do these yearly food logging series: it encourages me to try new things. I have various issues around food tastes and textures and am very much of the ‘I know what I like and it’s not much’ school. I don’t consider this a bad thing, but I do like to search for possible new favourites in a ‘safe’ way (i.e. food type I know I generally like, particular version I’ve not had before).
2021 was all about the ice cream. This was actually because 2020 was all about the ice cream and for 2021 I decided to make it official. I waited until spring as it’s very much a seasonal food for me, but there were still a lot I ended up trying this year!
The first one I tried was this vegan chocolate one from Jude’s. As it’s vegan, it’s made with coconut milk – which I wasn’t sure about when I first had it, because I’m not a big fan of coconut and it meant that it didn’t melt in the way I expected – but I had it a few more times during the summer and it ended up growing on me. I quite like it now!
I know I said I’d start the next food log series this week but I’ve decided to have a week’s break before we move onto the 2021 series. This week is all about Sunday’s cakes, anyway!
This is the last pesto from 2020. Next week I’ll be starting my 2021 food series. Very nearly caught up!
(Another ’empty jar’ photo. Clearly I was hungry enough to forget to take a picture before I cracked the jar open!)
This pesto had a good taste but the texture was a little on the wet side for my liking. Still a nice option!
Coincidentally for the day I am ending my pesto series, I have been inspired by a cookery show I was watching earlier today to try making my own pesto soon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make something I like more than my favourite jarred versions, but I’m going to give it a good go!
Another pesto variety from Gomo, which I tried shortly after the pesto alla genovese.
This was slightly too oil-heavy to be perfect for me, but it had a nice strong taste. I’m a lot less fussy about red pesto than green pesto and find they always taste lovely to me.
One last pesto from last year to log next week! And then we’ll be catching up with this year’s food reviews…
I have never met a pesto alla genovese I didn’t love!
Um, until I tried this Gomo version, that is.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not horrible – but it was just a bit too rich for my palate, and didn’t seem to have that nice sharpness that the best varieties do.
I’ll log another Gomo pesto next week that I enjoyed a bit more!
Another inclusive option in Sacla’s tomato pesto range!
This one is fairly similar in strength to the vegetarian version I logged last week, but has a slightly different taste due to its lack of dairy ingredients. It’s nice but not quite as flavourful as I would like. However I’m not the target audience, and it’s great that vegans have a red pesto option as well!
Back to the basil stuff next week…
