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By an astonishing coincidence, from the same day's newspaper was this

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...99a1eec89a.jpg

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https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...aab455805e.jpg

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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...p-ten-13550370 Article from todays Daily Mirror,

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Ooo. Jaffa cakes. Cheese and onion crisps. :wub:

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MIL went to Sobeys the other day - stocked up on Campbells soups @ 2/$1. Came back with 36 for $18. :lol:
Her receipt showed over $90 saved off normal prices and her bill was $140. 40% savings.:thumbup:

It wasn't even a targeted shop, they just had some unexpected deals at that store.

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If you like salsa or dipping sauces the Dollar Tree (mine, anyway) has Stubb's Green Chili and Sweet Black Pepper 'anytime sauces' (comes from Texas) for $1.25. I don't know what it is in the grocery store but it has to be $3 or $4 and it's really good. I probably bought too many but I'll give a couple away. Buy 1 of each and try it then decide. Best before date is Apr 2019 iirc but it's probably got 6 months more at least. There must have been a store go bankrupt or a shipment been refused somewhere. When they had the Herdez salsa from Mexico they had it for a year or more but you never know.
https://www.stubbsbbq.com/product/gr...ytime-sauce-2/

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We're still enjoying your salsa verde mixed with mayo suggestion. Heavenly on spuds. :thumbup:

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A long time ago I did let out how to make ersatz tartar sauce for fish, using mayo or salad dressing and green relish, with or without a squeeze of lemon. I think the salsa and mayo is your creation.

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Definitely your suggestion but it may be that you didn't actually try it yourself and I was the guinea pig :lol:
I had been looking for a sauce made by Maille that I used to buy UK side. From memory it was green pepper sauce, something like that, but not a mustard. Then it disappeared from the shelves but Sainsburys did their own version and it was good.

In Longueuil - Montreal's south shore - I found the Maille version in the Metro supermarket shortly before we moved here (2005) but I've never seen it among the Maille products since, nor is there any sign of it on the Maille website.

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Doesn't look like there's a Dollar Tree in Moncton.

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No, just Dollarama and Great Canadian Dollar Store

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I stand corrected, though it was more of a question and as you say not something I've ever made.
https://britishexpats.com/forum/mapl.../#post11628236

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Groceries are getting stupidly expensive.

If on sale, cheaper to buy frozen then trying to make something from scratch. I don't like beans or potatoes so not my cup of tea, can't make those taste good....lol

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Spray a non stick frypan with an oil spray, or use a couple of tablespoons of oil from nuts or seeds (olive, sunflower etc). Saute some onions until they're soft. Parboil or microwave some spuds until nearly cooked. Slice up the spuds and add them to the frypan with a little water and salt (or use chicken or vegetable stock). Simmer until the spuds are cooked right through. Delicious!

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Parboil spuds with a little salt until a skewer/knife goes through them but they're not mushy. Cut into chips. Put chips on an oven tray sprayed with oil, or mix chips on the tray with a couple of tablespoons of oil. Bake until crisp, turning once or twice. Also delish!

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Cook spuds until soft. Mash well with a little butter. Pipe or spoon small mounds onto a sprayed or greased oven tray. Bake in a pre-heated oven until golden on the outside. Yum!

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Or, if you don't like potatoes, you can have something else. There are probably people out there who don't like fries but eat them just for the sea salt, malted vinegar, and ketchup... but I don't think there are too many. I knew a lady who was a vegetarian but still liked bbq'd hotdogs in the summer. She said, "The wieners themselves are disgusting, but they're the perfect vehicle for mustard and fried onions."
Yesterday's holiday purchase was a ring of maple-walnut sausage from Ukranian Co-op, only available at Christmas.

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Wonder why she didn't just use 'meat substitute' hotdogs? Have seen a couple of instances like this, one was a house guest who very firmly told me she was strictly vegetarian, so I spent ages looking up recipes and buying ingredients for vege meals. Was running these by her the day she arrived to make sure they were ok for her, when she told me in a very off-hand way that she does eat chicken and fish :blink:

Another house guest (at another time) was lactose-intolerant, so I did the right thing and got in lactose free 'dairy' products. We were out for a stroll and passed an ice-cream van - she bought a whopping great double scoop. Flipping hell people, eat what you like but don't stuff me around.

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Because she liked food, and that stuff is terrible. People don't try to pass meat off as a vegetable, and they shouldn't try the reverse. Those cured Chinese sausages that contain only fat, salt, sugar, and alcohol are super tasty, and unhealthy as anything, but Mongolians slice them up and put them in salad. Like their soups and stews, they make a fairly robust salad. :lol:

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Weiners can't be called food ;)

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I have raw onions in mine but it's really the ketchup and mustard together that make them good.
Aside from Belgian biscuits, xmas cake bricks and holly decorations on Sobeys Eclairs, there's really not much in the way of different stuff appearing at xmas here. Even the Vachon yule logs are missing this year. :lol: No different pates, other than foie gras.

Not sure I've had those. Some meat substitutes are better than others. No surprise there I suppose. The Yves brand here is quite good for "ground meat" but their veggie burgers, like many, are acceptable if you have a meat version with it or baked beans to help with the dryness.

I used to buy Sosmix back in England. That was quite good but really needed frying. There was a ready made vegetarian meatloaf :lol: that was pretty good.

We're not allowed Quorn here which is a shame.

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To be honest I've never eaten any of them, I'm a carnivore through and through. If it was a choice between a hotdog and a meat substitute though, I'd probably take the latter. At least I could be pretty sure there were no pig's snouts and cow eyes in there :lol:

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Me too. My stepdaughter really should be a vegetarian - she has all the other 'stereotypical' attributes normally associated - but she just likes the taste of meat too much.

However, occasionally I do feel that sometimes we've had too much red meat. Just having the veg doesn't seem right so a good meat substitute would be useful. Of course there's always pasta and seafood. A spagbol made with the Yves stuff is very good.

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The beyond meat brand (other then A&W) not sure its available in Canada, is pretty good for being a non-meat product. Better then what the typical non-meat products taste like.

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There is assimilation into aspects of Canadian culture but noticing Vachon yule logs and their presence or absence is taking it too far :thumbsup:

https://themanatee.net/vachon-yule-l...-obesity-rate/

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I can take them or leave them but I heard on CBC about the shortage. A couple of days later I went googling to show the MIL and I found that Manatee piece. :rofl:

Their presence isn't normally hard to notice though as the boxes were always piled high, a big red block that could hardly be avoided. :(

I read they've been on the black market :blink: for $30 instead of $7.

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The real reason the Vachon name is famous is because of Mad Dog Vachon the wrestler and Rogie Vachon the NHL goalie.

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I had never heard of these Vachon logs, weird there would be a shortage of them.

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I think this article sums it up. Not healthy but very popular in Quebec and generally more francophone areas of eastern Ontario and NB. The logs come out at Christmas time and I recall mega sized ones at the Costco near my house at Christmas time and they carry the logs at my local RCSS.

https://www.vancourier.com/entertain...-jos-1.1323386

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So what sort of cakey things do you have out west at Christmas?

(obviously none in Oink's place)

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2 that come to mind are fruit cake and some sort of cake that comes in a box that I could not name. I see these on store shelves.

Box of cake kind of like this.

https://www.olioandolive.com/Fraccar...aropandoro.htm

Not saying these logs dont exist here, I just can't recall ever seeing them and until today never heard of them myself.

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That is pannetone cake an Italian speciality available usually at Christmastime.

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Dark and light, yes. It doesn't really pass for Christmas cake that I'm used to.
I came close to ordering a Marks and Spencer xmas cake from Toronto but because of the Canada Post backlog they were using UPS only and I wasn't willing to pay the massive mark up.

Any Stollen cake in your parts? Sobeys does it here. I'd rather have that than the Yule logs.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...f804bf6d56.jpg

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I get my morning coffee every day on the way to work from a lovely German couple. They have stollen that she's made in the display case and every morning I'm very tempted to buy one. However I am not able to eat all those yummy things this year so it would just be a waste of money :(

If I'd known you like Christmas cake I could have sent you one of the ones I made earlier this year. It's my grandmother's recipe and it's delicious. I used the recipe for a wedding cake a couple of years ago and the mother of the bride still raves about how good it tasted. Next year I'll ship one over.

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Yes they are around too. I dont buy Christmas cakes none of them are appealing to me.

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My mum used to make one and hers was different to my grans which was quite different. When my mum stopped making them, we made do with the M&S ones and they were pretty good.

I always liked my slice cut into fingers with just a little marzipan on the tip of each finger. Went lovely with a cup of tea and one of the few times I drank tea. good with coffee too of course.

Nice offer, thank you. :thumbup:

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..with real marzipan and royal icing ?

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Christmas cake yes. Wedding cake was marzipan and fondant with gum paste flowers. About 120 hand made gum paste flowers!

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😍

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Was at a small grocery chain yesterday, got some beef, label says 100% grass fed Australian beef, what gets me is it was cheaper then BC grass fed beef, you would think the BC meat would be lower considering it doesn't need to travel nearly as far

Not a store I normally go to since its geared towards hipsters with money but had a gift card, don't usually buy such fancy meat either,