Since DS and their sister company Schar have combined, I have taken the opportunity to give some more of their products a go! I think I had these a few years back, but wasn't too impressed. But I think that was partly down to me over baking!

So I gave them a second go, and I am pleased to say I am much more impressed this time, they are fantastic, I also baked them differently. As I have been taking these to work I have been baking the night before in the oven and then when at work I microwave for a minute or so on a plate with a paper towel on to absorb any condensation, keeping the pastry crisp!

The flavour of this product is lovely, the sausage meat is succulent and flavoursome, with a seasoning that brings the flavour to life. The pastry is quite understated, which I find in terms of gluten free is a good thing, countless times I have had pastry with the oddest aftertaste, which has ruined it's accompaniments. I am pleased that this pastry is just a crisp coating for the sausage meat.

I would certainly buy these again and as they are frozen it allows you to just have them on hand if you need a quick lunch or as Christmas is getting closer, those who drop in and you need to find something to feed them, cut into four or five pieces these could even be part of a buffet!

For around 232 calories I find that these sausage rolls are quite filling and I have either had a side salad or a fruit pot, sometimes even both afterwards! There is 13g fat per roll, but with pastry and sausage meat, this I feel is to be expected. So although quite low in calories, there is a considerable amount of fat. Something which is fine in moderation, just don't make it part of your daily diet!

For two sausage rolls, these retail at £2 per pack, there is always coupons to be found at shows and online, which tends to mean you can buy them in bulk once coupons have been circulated. I had a £2 coupon in the post recently, so you could even get them free! Even if you do not have a coupon, £1 per pre-made sausage roll isn't too bad considering it is a convenience food. Also with these higher price points to gluten free food, I find I tend to eat much healthier too, as I bulk out everything with fruit and veg!

I would love to know what you have tried from Schar, I have to say I have had some of the biscuits and have been very impressed too!


Hannah x

If you were signed up to the DS gluten free mailing list, like myself, you have more than likely had a high value £2 coupon pop through your letter box for Schar. With this coupon they have sent a list of where each product is stocked. I thought I would scan this and post it on my blog for those of you who didn't receive this and would like to find their products!

Also if you get yourself to ASDA with your coupon, you can get a pack of the Chocolix FREE! I in fact got mine in sainsburys as my office is next door and I had a 70p price promise anyway and it would be more than 50p in petrol to get to my local ASDA!

I hope this helps all of you looking for your Schar treats!

Hannah x

Friday night in my eyes is treat night so this means pizza, this week I decided to try Ds's  Gluten Free Bonta D' Italia Salami Pizza. Now the name may be a bit of a mouthful so I am glad that it's not something I'd have to order over the phone!

This pizza retails for £3.25 which is fantastic value and to sweeten the deal the whole thing is only 732 calories, which is half the amount of a dominos pizza, fraction of the price too!

The base is super thin and crispy with a tomato sauce which is topped with cheese and salami. I found that there were patches of my pizza that were not covered in cheese and I would have liked a bit more salami but then again you can't be pleased at the calorie count and then expect more!

The salami had quite a peppery flavour and thick slices but was in no way spicy so I really enjoyed it without wanting to cry! It wasn't greasy either which is one thing that really bothers be about takeaway pizza, particularly when they have pepperoni and salami type toppings. The cheese wasn't too strong but combined with a slightly stronger tomato sauce complimented the flavour of the salami.



























This pizza took quite a while to heat up to the point of getting a bit of colour on the base, much like many other gluten free foods you have to be careful once it has started to colour as it burns quickly!

Overall I really recommend this pizza. The only drawback is the lack of even distribution of toppings as I feel that if it was more evenly spread I wouldn't have thought it was slightly lacking in them! But nevertheless I would still repurchase this pizza as I really enjoyed the flavours and is considerably cheaper than ordering one in. Much less greasy too!

Hannah x

Today I thought I would do something a little different, I was sitting at my desk this afternoon and felt it was time for a naughty snack so I opened my desk draw where I keep my food and it suddenly occurred to me that since I no longer work from home all of us on a gluten free diet must have one of these draws at work, so why not show you what's in mine!

As you can see many products are in the draw awaiting review, some have been recently been reviewed and some are long term favourites and what I feel are essential! so Lets take a look!

Eat Natural Milk Chocolate with Peanuts and Cranberries

These are always in my desk as I find them a staple, I do prefer the dark chocolate with raisins and macadamias  but they were out of stock so I had to settle for these ones! They are good too but as a dark chocolate lover they can compare to my favourites. 

A kiwi spoon and knife

well this talks for itself really!

Whitworths Sweetened Cranberries

I have a few bags of these dotted around, I find them a great low calorie snack as a bag is 100 Calories and I can't even manage to get through a third at a time, I would recommend finding unsweetended ones but that can be quite tricky so I normally settle for sweetened. 

We Love Cake Cherry Bakewell Tart

I had two of these but the first one was eaten a few days ago, this one is sitting in my desk ready to be reviewed, so I need to resist temptation and not eat it until I have taken photos!

Natures Path Choco-Knobbly Crispy Rice Bites

I used to live on the fruity version of these, particularly when I was on holiday! But I think they are no longer produced as I have not found any in months, so I picked up a box of the chocolate ones, these are in my desk as a light snack but I will be reviewing these at some point in the future.

Prewetts Milk Chocolate Digestives

These are purely in my desk for review purposes as a biscuit is quick and easy to try at work, I also brought these in my lunch break so I thought I would just keep them here as I have an obscene amount of biscuits at home.

DS Gluten Free Crispbread

A pack of these are always by my side as these have a good texture, very little tastes and low calorie so they are great for eating cheeses, pates and anything you would put on toast really. 

Mrs Crimbles Original Cheese Crackers

These I recently reviewed here, but this pack in particular stays at work to eat with cheeses and houmous at lunch some days. 

Robinsons Squash'd Orange and Peach

We have bottled water at work so I sometimes give a squeeze of this into the bottle to have something a bit different. I keep it in my desk so I don't lose it on the mess I call my desk!

PG Green Tea Samples

Sample sizes are great for work so I tend to have packs of various mint, green or fruit tea in my desk, you'll never find 'normal' English tea as I cannot stand it!

Peanut Butter

I have a very small love affair issue with peanut butter so I have a tub at all times, I eat it with vegetable batons and the DS crispbreads, its high in protein so it can't be that bad! 

Todays post was a little different but if you're anything like me, it satisfied a bit of nosiness on a monday afternoon! 

Hannah x

As an avid Couponer, I just wanted to give you all a quick heads up on the latest gluten free deals that are about this week!

Lets first look at what I got that everyone should be able to access!

Nakd Bars
You may have seen there is a coupon around for free nakd bars, I only picked up one but in Sainsbury's they are 5 for 4 so you could get a great deal on these. You receive one coupon per email address so as long as you have a few emails you can get as many as you'll like! But as I have TONS of food to get through I only went for one.

Warburtons Thins
These are £2 in Sainsbury's currently so thats a 50p saving but if you still have some coupons from the free from show floating about you are able to get these for £1.50. I've popped mine in the freezer.

Genius cupcakes
On Topcashback currently you are able to get 30p cash back on Genuis cupcakes at Sainsbury's they are currently £1 and if you have a 50p coupon from the free from show that is a mear £1.20 for two cupcakes! That is the best deal of the week I think. Unfortunately I cannot get hold of the lemon cupcakes and I'm getting bored of the chocolate ones as I have to be in the mood for chocolate, so I used my genius coupon on bread!

I then got some other deals by using some price promise's and other store discounts

Warburtons Wraps
I found some of these reduced to £1.49 in Waitrose and picked them up as they were on their best before date (I freeze these anyway). When I got to the till I remembered I still had some 50p off coupons for Warburtons that I was given at the free from show, so I asked the cashier if I could use coupons on reduced items and she said I could so I got the new 4 pack of wraps for 99p!

Ds gluten free Yorkshire puddings
I brought these the same day as the nakd bar, I needed them for my Sunday roast and where I had a £1.74 price promise which was expiring I got my Yorkshire puddings for 21p! Where I use coupons a lot the price promises typically are from items I've used with coupons so I haven't actually paid full price!

I also picked up some Natures Path cereal for £3 retail cost but had a £1 coupon and a Genius loaf for £2.90 retail cost and had a 50p coupon for that too. These are not great deals for these in terms of couponing but I needed them!

Hannah x

Brioche is something I have never had before so when my Mum brought me the DS gluten free Brioche loaf I was not too sure what to do with it, so I decided to have it for breakfast!

This loaf was very sweet as I assume a regular brioche is, this syrupy like sweetness actually makes the cake like bread very moist, which was a complete surprise to me, as we all know dryness and dry texture is normally the aspect that lets a gluten free product down.

I served mine toasted to give it a little crispy crunch and would either eat it straight off the grill or I added some raspberry jam or some Nutella and banana. This made the sweet loaf into an almost dessert for breakfast!

This product is only available in Tesco currently and is £3 a loaf, so average price for a gluten free loaf, the slices are quite small but the flavour is great so I don't mind the compromise too much.

Pros:

• Unusual product to find gluten free.
• The loaf is incredibly moist.
• The taste is lovely and sweet but not over sickly. 
• The product did not go off before I finished it.

Cons:

• £3 is quite a lot for a small loaf, but as the taste is good I can overlook this slightly.
• Tesco are the only stockiest, I order mine online, this way you get more variation.

Overall I would buy this product again but it is not something I would buy regularly, as firstly I think I would get sick of it if I ate it all the time but also the cost plays a part in this, as it's on more of the expensive end of the bread based products as it is quite small in size compared to other £3 loaves. Nevertheless I would 100% recommend it if you wanted a sweet treat as it is delicious, just a little pricey!

Hannah x

I have posted many times about my love of sweet treats I have come across, but today I am going to talk about a savoury snack I am in love with. Believe it or not I actually enjoy savoury food much more than sweet! Crisps are most definitely my downfall as you all know. I just don't find many savoury treats to talk about as many gluten free foods are sweet as they replace the flour!

One of the items in particular which I will be talking about was actually the second gluten free item I ever brought over a year ago, I promise its not the same box! These are the DS gluten free crispbread.

The best way to describe the texture of this product is that they are like a rice crispy version of a Ryvita! They are long and thin, with a crispy dry texture. The dry texture is comparable to a rice cake, which makes them perfect contrast for a rich smooth peanut butter.

I used regular Tesco peanut butter as the less fat/sugar varieties I feel are never quite the same and if I can read and understand all the ingredients on the back I'm happy! So this is what I use, I do not like crunchy but I would assume this would be just a tasty for those who enjoy it!

I normally take two crisp breads and share about a tablespoon of peanut butter between them, you could even add some cucumber on top, trust me, its good!

Why not give it a go!

Hannah x