Redwood Christmas Products

Those lovely Redwood people sent me a fantastic parcel of their Christmas goodies to try. Truth is, they sent them ages ago but I was busy with MoFo for a while, and then I was going to wait until I tried everything, but it’ll end up being after Christmas if I do that, so I’m going to do what I’ve tried so far.

Salmon Slices. I was very nervous about this because although I really like the Redwood tuna, some of the fishy things they’ve released in the past have not been to my taste. I needn’t have worried though because I loved these. There’s only a very faint fishy taste; the predominant flavour is smoky. I loved them on a sandwich with vegan cream cheese, dill and cucumber, and I also enjoyed leftovers on a bagel with vegan cream cheese. Yum.

Beef Pasties. I made a mistake with these because it took me a while to realise that they started off frozen, so I had them out of the freezer for a bit during which time the pastry got a bit soggy. So they didn’t look the nicest thing when they came out of the oven but they tasted very good with mashed potatoes and gravy and I bet they’d be great with chips. I would have preferred a slightly higher filling to pastry ratio but I enjoyed them.

Sausage rolls. These were quite nice but very small and again quite heavy on pastry (not necessarily a bad thing). I enjoyed them but there is another well known vegan sausage roll that I prefer.

Chicken tikka pieces. These are not the type of thing I would normally buy but they did come in very handy for a quick meal with pilau rice and spinach/green coffee curry mix. Tasty and with a good texture but I would usually prefer to make my own seitan and choose the spices. Useful for a busy festive period though, they’d also work well stuffed in a chapatti with raita.

Gammon Roast. This was lovely. It is a very long time since I had gammon but I remember it being very salty and so was this, which I love. It stayed very moist while cooking. I had it with creamed leeks and roast potatoes and am looking forward to leftovers in a sandwich, but it would be equally good diced into a pasta dish, sliced on to pizza or even served with a dreaded pineapple ring.

Sage, onion and cranberry bites. I was sort of putting off trying these because I don’t traditionally like fruit with savoury food, and they looked a bit dry in the packet but they were actually very nice. The cranberry is just a background flavour. I had them with the gammon and roast potatoes described above but I could see them working quite well served on sticks if you are a Christmas buffet type person.

All in all, I have enjoyed what I have tried from this range. I like how Redwood keep trying new things although it can be annoying when you get to love something and they stop making it. I just wish they could find a way to break the supermarket Quorn and Cauldron Foods monopoly.

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