Day 2 – “What?! There’s only one chip in my chocolate chip cookies!”

We are now deep into our TV experiment. Here are our food diaries from that all important second day of eating ONLY Tesco Value products. We are aware that today is Pancake Day but we have decided to celebrate next Tuesday as we really did not want to use TV Caged Eggs (they alarming don’t offer a Free Range option. Naughty Tesco!)

Keli

I decided to spice up my breakfast and try out the TV Fromage Frais. The Brown Toast was the same, and actually seemed to be thinner and paperyer than yesterday (even though it claims to be medium sliced!) However I am happy to report a major success with the yoghurts. These taste the same as the leading brand and according to the label are free from artificial ingredients and favours ect ect. Finally a TV product that I can really enjoy! Lunch was again a Bagel but I decided to try the Cheese and Onion Crisps – I was feeling adventurous after the resounding success of the yogs. Unfortunately my positivity was dashed after trying these. Firstly the bag was so small it does not count as a food. Secondly I could not tell what “flavour” they were, could have been pickled egg to me. Which brings me onto the final point – the smell, this caused the person sat next to me to say out loud; “eww what is that smell”. Enough said.  After last night’s epic failure of a dinner I decided to ditch the jarred sauces and make something from scratch using some TV veggies. I went for classic British Mash with a homemade Onion and Mushroom Gravy. This was actually really good and tasted exactly as it would if I had used my regular products. For snacks throughout the day I was not feeling particularly healthy so I opted for TV Chocolate Chip Cookies. The actual biscuit bit was nice, tasted just like the top brand equivalent yet there was a major flaw with these chocolate chip biscuits; a distinct lack of chocolate chips.  On average I found 2 per biscuit, and you of course needed a microscope to see these and the taste buds of a Catfish (FYI they have taste buds covering their entire bodies!) to even notice them. Overall an improvement with breakfast and dinner, but the score has been brought down a lot by those “Cheese and Onion”  Crisps and “Chocolate Chip” cookies, so I give today 3/5.

Val

After yesterday, I have to be completely honest, I wasn't feeling as excited about my meals as I normally do! Nevertheless, today's food actually proved to be quite successful (or perhaps it's because my expectations weren't as high!) I started with my Wheat Biscuits for breakfast which were, as described yesterday, alright. For lunch, I had a very nice P&J sandwich - the Peanut Butter and Jam is really quite good (then again, how can you really muck up peanut butter?!) I accompanied my sandwich with the Tesco Value Double Strength Lemon Squash which was actually quite tasty. It was very sweet - and the bottle looks more like something that contains liquid to clean your toilet with than something to drink -  but I'd definitely buy it again! Considering how delicious the "Salt & Vinegar crisps" were yesterday, I chose not to have a snack today, and figured the smaller lunch would build up my appetite and maybe make dinner taste better!

Now I don't know if it was my semi-starvation at lunch, or that my menu choice for dinner tonight was just better, but whatever it was, my dinner was GOOD! I had two large Jacket Potatoes with Baked Beans on top! The potatoes were really delicious - they cooked in the right amount of time, and tasted like all other potatoes I've had before. However, the winner for today has to be the baked beans. I literally couldn't "taste the difference" between the usual choice of Heinz and the TV version. So maybe it doesn't "always have to be Heinz"! All in all, I'd give today an impressive 4/5!

Our Ratings

Fromage Fraise- Buy

Potatoes – Buy

Baked Beans - Buy

Double Strength Lemon Squash – Buy

Mushrooms – Buy

Onions - Buy

Chocolate Chip Cookies – Try, if you don’t really like chocolate in your choc chip cookies!

Cheese and Onion Crisps – Avoid

Day 1 - "This pasta sauce tastes like sugared water!"

As many of our readers will know,  we are one day into our TV (Tesco Value) experiment. This means everything we eat has to be a Tesco Value product. We will be detailing out how the experiment is going each night. As we eat different bits and pieces we will do our own food diaries – although some nights (to be even more economical) we will club together and eat the same TV dinner.

Keli

So today I ate for my breakfast a classic – Toast and Jam. The Tesco Value Wholewheat Brown Bread was actually alright. The Strawberry Jam was sugary and synthetic tasting but I kind of liked it! All around generally fine, we will see how sick I get of this in a few days time. Lunch was a buttered bagel. Pretty basic and boring but this was my choice as I was in such a rush to prepare my lunch – tomorrow I am going to try their crisps (although I’ve been warned they taste like sawdust). I had dinner with Val, we shared massive plates (as you can see in the picture) of Cheesy Tomato Pasta using penne, pasta sauce and cheddar cheese. We drank apple juice and had some green olives on the side. Now the Penne was fine, as was the apple juice- neither of us could tell much difference (if any at all). The Tomato Pasta Sauce however was probably one of the most unpleasant things I have eaten, ever! It tasted like sugared water! Not tomatoes. Not herbs. Not even a sauce of any kind. But like syrup- and really bad tasting syrup. The cheese too was not much of a hit - it tasted like grated, unsalted butter! I then had a Chocolate Mouse for a snack afterwards. Now if anybody has ever eaten cocoa powder neat you have pretty much tasted a TV Choc Mouse, as this is basically what I thought it tasted like. So far I rate the day’s food overall 2/5 – on the plus, I did my food shopping for at least 4 days for £5!

Val –

Right, so I started the day with three Wheat Biscuits which is basically Tesco’s really bland way of describing Wheatabix. They were actually alright - not as good as Wheatabix, as they don’t really have a very distinct flavour, but more, a distinct texture. For lunch, I had an extremely satisfying P&J sandwich! The Strawberry Jam was surprisingly good, and though the Peanut Butter could have been better, it was much better than I was expecting. The White Bread that I had it with however, was not very nice. It kind of crumbled and then dissolved in my mouth, rather than…well…breaking down in the way other bread does. I accompanied my already very healthy lunch, with a mid-afternoon snack of a packet of TV’s Salt & Vinegar Crisps. They were crap! They were, without a doubt, the WORST crisps I have ever had in my life! They didn’t taste like anything, they can barely be called crisps! Keli described tonight’s dinner that was…an interesting experience. All in all, I think today gets a 2/5, as breakfast was alright, lunch was good, snack was crap, and dinner was, well, like I said, interesting…

Our Ratings

Penne Pasta – Buy

Tomato Pasta Sauce – Avoid (like the plague!)

Green olives - Try

Mild Cheddar – Avoid

Chocolate Mouse – Avoid

Apple Juice – Buy

Brown Bread – Try

Strawberry Jam – Try

Bagels – Try

White bread – Avoid

Peanut butter – Try

Salt and Vinegar Crisps – Avoid!

Tesco Value – Try, buy, or avoid?

As students in the second most expensive city in the World, being broke is a concept we’re all too familiar with. Whether it’s falling victim to London’s high street, or “treating” ourselves to one-too-many meals out, somehow viewing our bank balance is never something we really look forward to!

For Keli and I, this is largely to do with our food shopping. Though we may be willing to compromise on such aspects as: fashion, entertainment and nightlife until we can afford the more luxurious alternatives, food has always been an area where we have been incredulously unyielding.

Nevertheless, over the weekend when Keli and I went for our usual weekly food-shop, a packet of “Tesco Value curry-flavoured noodles” caught our eyes. It was hardly the food’s plain and colourless packaging that grabbed our attention, nor its bottom-shelved placement (that forces buyers to bend down awkwardly to reach it!), but rather its 10p price tag. Now Keli and I have of course seen Tesco Value products numerous times before, but this was the first time that it really made us stop and wonder how much money we could save if we were to purchase Tesco Value products rather than the usual branded items we go for.

In the past, we have avoided Tesco Value products believing that there must be a reason why the prices are so low, although neither of us have tried out a fair amount of Tesco Value products to make such a conclusion. It is for this reason that next week (starting March 7^th); Keli and I are going to embark on a little experiment, and “TV” (Tesco-Value) our food shopping. We’re going to provide detailed shopping lists and menus for the week’s breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and the prices for each item we buy. By the end of the week, we’ll see how much money we save, and if indeed it’s money worth saving! Until then, bon appetit!

Our movie of the weekend

Last weekend, we went to see the latest instalment in the list of 8 romcoms Jennifer Anniston’s has done since 2009 (where she finds the time, we’ll never know!). Now, being the massive JennAnn fans that we are, we were naturally expecting this movie to be a hit (even if the lead male is played by Adam Sandler!), and let us just say now – it did not disappoint!

Adam Sandler plays a plastic surgeon by day, and a chauvinistic Neanderthal who lies to women about being married in order to sleep with them, by night. Nevertheless, eventually his lies get the best of him and he is forced to turn to none other than his loyal assistant (Anniston) to play the role of his soon-to-be-divorced wife.  One thing leads to another and before you know it, he’s taking  his made-over assistant, her two “adorable” children, and his sex-crazed cousin to Hawaii, in the hopes of “sealing-the-deal” with his new young girlfriend (played by Brooklyn Decker – i.e. the 23 year-old Sports Illustrated model whose body makes every woman vow she’ll start taking the stairs!) Jennifer Anniston’s son helps create the awkward tension essential for any successful romcom, whilst her daughter provides several hilarious moments aided by a “British” accent!

When you combine this with Jennifer Anniston in a bikini (wow!), a “who knew?” six-pack from Sandler, grabbing a coconut by the butt cheeks, and giving CPR to a goat, it leaves you with a hilarious and surprisingly unpredictable film that we will definitely be getting when it comes out on DVD!

Please Forgive Us

Ok, so a massive apology is in order. We have been absent from the blogging world since last December and that really feels like a long long time ago!


Sadly we have become massively bogged down with our universities studies and have been having a pretty stressful time.


However, that does not mean that we have had our hands glued to our laptops this entire time. Luckily, we have had a few spare hours to enjoy being students in London. Over the next few weeks check back to see what we have been up to during this very long (again we are sorry) absence.


Val and Keli x

I'm a little bit country...

So, as we mentioned in our last post, this weekend we took a trip over to the English countryside to clear our minds from coursework deadlines, dissertation drafts, and the steady stream of rejections that goes hand in hand with the daunting application process. It was really nice to escape the hustle and bustle of London life, to the tranquil and quaint settings of British suburbia.

So what did we get up to in our mini get-away to the Cotswolds? Well, we experienced a "lantern parade"  (yes it's as wild as it sounds!) where the townsfolk design paper lanterns in all different shapes and sizes and walk down the cobble-stoned streets showing off their creations. We also enjoyed some fine mulled wine, "saucisson" (because the word "sausage" simply isn't sophisticated enough for the French), and chunky potato wedges all bought at the German Christmas market set up to coincide with the parade. Generally, we just took in the scenery that was particularly beautiful blanketed in a thin layer of snow, and relaxed, taking advantage of the rare comfort of a heated house and plenty of home cooked meals!

All in all, it was a great weekend away, but we're glad we're back in the City, and looking forward to heading home to the family in a few weeks for Christmas hols!

Our Movie Of The Weekend

It was so chilly towards the end of last week, and what with our weekend break to the Cotswold’s organised, Val and I decided to stay in last night Friday night. Not happy with the choices available on the small screen, and after already catching up on Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, etc.  in the week, we decided to check out new releases on DVD.  After the success of UK dance flick, Streetdance UK, we thought we would give the US their turn with the third instalment of the hugely successful dance series: Step Up. Now, based on the previous blogs we’ve posted about our choice in movies, you will probably not be too shocked to hear that we absolutely loved it!

However, we loved it in a different way to Streetdance.  America’s Step Up 3 did, if we are being totally honest with you, have a lot of gimmicks and some moments that were cringier than the birds and bees talk with your dad (our flatmates who are less enthusiastic about dance flicks left us after only 15 minutes!). But then that’s because you have to look through and beyond the cheese (which they couldn’t!), and take it on the chin, in order to enjoy the breath-taking dance routines that occur for the full 2 hours. Yes, we know the script could never be described as particularly original and, no, the acting most certainly won’t be winning an Oscar any time soon (a Rotten Tomato perhaps!), yet none of this seems to matter as soon as you become mesmerised by the outstandingly talented cast of young dancers.

Like all good dance movies, the music is as amazing as the moves showcased. The generous array of genres, including: rap, hip hop and funky house, means that you’ll be heading to Itunes to download the soundtrack almost instantaneously! The tracks however, although being well-known in America, don’t get the considerable air play they deserve here.  Step Up 3, isn’t simply a film about “dance”, but rather the different ways in which the body can move, stringing one movement from another in a unique stream of slick choreography. A wide range of fantastic body-art is featured in the film, such as: parkour, martial arts, popping, locking, and crunking.  It also has a much cooler vibe than any dance film we’ve seen before it, as despite the rather lame-sounding “world battles” (like club dance-offs, only on steroids!), it is the best one we’ve seen.  And just so you know, we have seen EVERY dance flick there is…. at least twice!

Sorry Streetdance but as much as we loved you it’s time for you to move over for the real McCoy. Yes, the cowboys across the pond have trumped us again!  We advise you to grab a copy of Step Up 3 now in time to earn some moves for New Year’s Eve!

Oh, and perhaps even more excitingly - a work out/teach yourself DVD is due out at the end of December, also perfectly in time for New Year’s.  We have already ordered ours in tune with our New Year’s resolutions to get amazing abs, so watch out for news of amazing dancers hitting London on the 31st!  Wahoo!