Anyone who has cats will verify the truth of the saying “Dogs have owners, cats have staff”, and they can be pretty particular about how their staff behave into the bargain. I am servant to two cats, a bad tempered and grouchy, but still somehow lovable, mother, known simply as Mamacat, and her sweet natured, shy and incredibly dim daughter, Mau.

This weekend they took part in a trial, with three cat foods lined up for their delectation.

From left they are:

1. Burgess Supa Cat (Rabbit & Chicken Flavour) - a good value premium cat food we occasionally buy in Newry, which happened to be around. I don’t think its available in the Republic of Ireland.

2. Lidl’s Opticat (Flavour not stated) - the premium cat food from Lidl, since I know from experience they won’t touch Coshida, the cheaper option, at all.

3. Whiskas (Tuna Flavour) - Probably the market leader and easily the most expensive of the three.

First up to taste was Mau, who seemed surprised to see three bowls and had a sniff at them all before choosing where to start. Supa Cat it was.

Later she was joined by Mamacat, who always gets first pick and again went for Supa Cat, so like the dutiful daughter she is, Mau moved aside and went to the Whiskas bowl instead.

At that point I left to go to Podcamp Kilkenny (of which more later). By the time I returned in the late night it was pretty clear what the their opinion of Opticat was:

They had eaten some though, so it’s not like they found it entirely inedible, and by morning it too was almost gone.

So will I buy Opticat again? Yes, I will. It may not be the favoured food of my cats but they ate it. It’s very well priced and looking at the ingredients and nutritional information on the packs is easily on a par with the others and may actually be slightly better.

Notice the Whiskas bowl - most of those left behind are the green pieces. They always leave a lot of these. According to the pack these contain 4% peas. I don’t have any idea why you’d want to feed peas or any other veg to cats - they are carnivores, don’t need them and generally speaking don’t like them. But then they don’t buy the food, the packs are designed to appeal to their devoted servents.

Back to Podcamp, which was where I spent Saturday. This was a really great event, lots of interesting talks and even more interesting people to meet. John Keyes did a very thorough round up of the day and seems to have attended most of the same talks as I did, so I won’t repeat that all here.

Darragh caught me on the hop in his talk about blogging when he brought this humble blog up for discussion, but it was all good and in fact a few people there, and in conversations later, had very interesting ideas about where this blog should (or could) go in the future. Mmm.

Later had a very pleasant evening on the town in Paris Texas and Tynans pubs in Kilkenny, with most convivial company and lots of lively chat. Hats off to Ken, Bernie, Krishna and all others involved in organising the event, they did a great job.

Tags: Cat food, Kilkenny, Podcamp
Posted in Taste Test | 4 Comments »

If you’re looking for ‘experts’ to taste test chocolate, where better to go than the school gate? After all everyone knows that it’s a scientific fact that women not only want but actually need chocolate. Or at least if it isn’t it should be.

They may not be nerdy connoisseurs, but if the mummies say it’s yummy, that’s good enough for me. So the other day when doing the school pick up, I brought along bags containing small pieces of these three high cocoa chocolates, marked simply A, B and C, and held an impromptu tasting session.

Fifteen people tasted, thirteen mummies, one teacher (who is also a mummy!) and one daddy, and this is how it came out.

Chocolate A: Green & Black 70%

Price: €2.90 for 100g

This came last. I admit I was surprised as I like it and often buy it. Others were equally surprised when it was revealed which was which.

The one person who liked it best liked it a lot but several people had a “yuck” or “This tastes weird” reaction - which nobody had to either of the other two.

Origin: No country specified, but website states cocoa beans mostly come from Belize and the Dominican Republic

Organic? Yes Fair Trade? No

Cocoa Beans: Trinitario.

Ingredients: Organic Cocoa Mass, Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Organic Vanilla Extract.

Nutrition (per 100g): 551 kcal; Protein: 9.3g; Carbohydrate: 36g; Fat: 41.1g.

Chocolate B: Lidl’s 70% Ecuador Chocolate

Price: €1.49 for 100g

This was the favourite one for six people. Several people asked for second samples in order to finally decide between this one and C - or at least that’s why they said they wanted more!

Whatever about it’s popularity with these tasters, there is no doubt that Lidl shoppers love this chocolate. It is recently often sold out and when a box is opened it disappears very, very fast.

Origin: Los Rios, Ecuador.

Organic? No Fair Trade? No

Cocoa Beans: Arriba.

Ingredients: Cocoa Mass, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifying agent: Soya Lecithin, vanilla.

Nutrition (per 100g): 533 kcal; Protein: 7.6g; Carbohydrate: 31g; Fat: 42g.

Chocolate C: Lidl’s Fair Trade Dark Choclate (70%)

Price: €1.49 for 100g

The narrow but decisive winner, with eight people choosing it as the tastiest. Most of those who found it hard to choose between B and C, and took a second taste of each, plumped in the end for this one.

This was the only chocolate of the three that anyone described as tasting creamy, which strikes me as odd as it’s got the lowest fat content and is the only one with no vanilla, so I’d have expected it to be the most ‘dark’ tasting.

Origin: Ghana.

Organic? No Fair Trade? Yes

Cocoa Beans: Not Specified.

Ingredients: Cocoa Mass, Cane Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin.

Nutrition (per 100g): 525 kcal; Protein: 7.7g; Carbohydrate: 33.1g; Fat: 40.2g.

Which one is my favourite? I like them all but probably would go with the majority and pick the Lidl Fair Trade. But my favourite chocolate of all remains the ultra dark 85% cocoa from Green & Black.

Tags: Chocolate, Taste Test
Posted in Chocolate, Taste Test | 11 Comments »

I don’t buy frozen veg much and in particular dislike frozen broccoli, which always seems to have a weird and vaguely plasticy texture.

However, having seen these on the stranger’s shopping list I posted last week (of which more below), and because the pack looked kind of inviting, I thought I’d give these a whirl in the interests of research.

They are part of a Lidl range of microwavable vegetable products, some of which include pasta and none of which I’ve previously tried.

We had them for dinner last night, along with home made beefburgers in mushroom sauce, and they were really pretty good.

The broccoli had a good bite to it and none of the texture I so dislike, the sugar snap peas were crisp and the peas were small and sweet, petit pois like. Everything tasted really fresh and there was plenty in the pack for two decent portions.

My one quibble, and it’s a major one, is with the glaze.

Not with the flavour, in fact you’d hardly know it was there and since I took the veg out with a slotted spoon most of it remained in the dish anyway. It’s the ingredient list that bothers me. Aside from the Broccoli, peas and sugar snaps we get:

Palm Oil, Butter, Parsley, water, salt, seasoning (hydolised soya protein, salt, palm oil, sunflower oil), sugar, pea flour, pea flour, mustard flour, spices, carrots, celery, yeast powder.

This lot actually makes up 6% of the package content.

These sort of microwavable veg products are marketed as being healthy and this range in particular is heavily promoted in the Health Eating leaflet that Lidl produced recently. I’m sorry but not only does this contain fats, which most people would not expect, but the trend towards putting sugar in anything and everything is one that in particular drives me mad. Is all that stuff really nessesary?

I suppose it’s a case of buyer beware and remembering always to read the small print.

So would I buy this again? Oddly enough, in spite of my misgivings, I might. While 99% of the time I prefer to use fresh veg, it is handy to have a backup in the freezer and they were very tasty.

Now, a change of topic.

Last week I posted a shopping list I found discarded in a trolley and asked you to guess the price.

Here’s the list again, with prices.

The total cost was €103.02.

Everyone guessed too low except Wendy who was a bit too high.

So it seems that while in some cases Lidl give us more then we expect, in other cases they give us less.

Tags: Frozen Food, Shopping Basket, Vegetables
Posted in Shopping Baskets, Taste Test | 4 Comments »

…the conversation flowed, the wine flowed, the evening went by in what seemed like minutes and everyone got a real kick out of thinking and talking about the six wines we tasted.

I’ve never organised a wine tasting before but I’ll definitely do it again.

I am in the process of collating all the results, but I can tell you there was one real gem found, a couple of duds identified and nobody correctly picked the one wine that wasn’t from Lidl as being the joker in the pack.

I’d intended to take a lot more photographs (and better ones) than I did, but the time passed so quickly that I never quite got around to it. But here are some pics of the food, which all came from Lidl.

The nuts on the bottom right were made using Deborah’s recipe and they were yummy - make these!

The Lidl tapas, which are part of the Iberian food promotion currently going on, were very good too - the bacon wrapped figs and bacon wrapped cheese were definitely the most moreish, the Paprika kebabs were the best of that range, but they were all tasty.

In addition we had chorizo (2 varieties, each served both plain and crisped), olives, salted almonds, Deb’s nuts, various cheeses and dips, tortillas, melon, bread and towards the end of the evening little squares of dark chocolate with coffee and tea.

I spent around €40 on food and there were easily nibbles enough for 8 people. Everyone brought a bottle of their choice from Lidl, I brought the joker and selected from the Lidl ones to choose what we’d taste.

If last night showed me one things it’s that even if you are really hard up, you still can host a great party for 8 people - it’ll cost less than €50, it won’t seem at all mean and it will be a lot of fun.

If you do decide to give it a go you are welcome to use (or adapt) the wine tasting sheet (MS Word Format) I put together for the evening.

There are gazillions of these around the Internet, many created by wine experts. Mine may not meet with their approval, but it made it really easy and hassle free for people who are just wine drinkers, not wine experts, to rate and comment on the wines.

Tomorrow I’ll start putting up the results - leaving the best wine till last in true Biblical tradition!

Tags: Nuts, Tapas, Wine, Wine Tasting
Posted in Taste Test, Wine | 5 Comments »

I remember years ago, and I mean maybe 25 years ago or more, being at some do or other where beautiful salmon sandwiches were served, fresh tasty salmon, soft bread, a little mayo. Perfect. But one women cast her’s aside with a disgusted snort: “I don’t know what rubbish they have in those but it certainly isn’t John West Red!“.

We’ve come a long way in Ireland from the days when salmon more or less always came in a tin, its quality judged by the depth of its colour.

I’m a pretty dedicated consumer of many of Lidl’s frozen fish offerings, but although I’ve been told by several people that the Admiral range of tinned fish was also excellent, almost as good as fresh, I’d never tried any. So last week I bought a tin for the first time, specifically the ‘Nature’ (ie unflavoured) Salmon, which cost €2.39.

The tin looked promising with a nice looking piece of salmon pictured on it. When I opened it though, it was a different story.

A greyish looking and very unappetising chunk of fish lay in a cloudy brine inside. Ok, I thought, maybe grey salmon is good. It’s probably just the effect of the brine and it means there is no dye or anything, which is a plus.

So into a bowl it went with some mayo, chopped scallions, a squeeze of lemon and a shake of paprika. Much better. Now it at least looked edible, even tasty. I tucked in……..

It certainly isn’t John West Red. The dog really, really liked it. I won’t be buying it again.

Tags: Fish, Salmon, Taste Test
Posted in Taste Test | 4 Comments »