Sainsbury's Basics good/bad items

1carminestocky

wannabe_sybil wrote: »

One of the few home made gifts I can do for my sister in law is home made chilli vodka - though I am a little heavy handed on the chillies

Also fresh ginger chopped up with a little sugar added - positively medicinal - drink with ginger ale and caution.

I have had a bad experience with their value rice. It smelled extremely odd, tasted peculiar and is currently being ignored by the birds.

I'm surprised at that, TBH. We've used that ever since we started shopping at Sainsbugs and wouldn't spend any more on rice ever again. Although we don't boil it for as long as it states on the packaging. I wonder if your bag was 'off'? Anyone else had a bad experience with the rice?

wannabe_sybil

Please forgive if fragmented - little bear is supervising.

babs2008 - I put four chillies, home grown ones, in a half bottle of vodka, chopped up, keeping the seeds in and leaving for at least three months. Regrettably it was over strong, and even my chilli loving, hardened, fire eating sister in law said that it 'blew her head off' and she could only use it for cooking. I think I over did it So I would recommend that perhaps just one whole chilli, pricked with a pin or similar, for a month.

1carminestocky - I think I may have had a bad batch, to be honest, because I put the rice out for the birds. It appears to be mainly untouched, except there seem to be a quantity of dead slugs in the pile. It isn't really much of a recommendation - our rice kills slugs!

I do think that the basics are brilliant, and this is the only fail so far.

Sol00

How good is the Basics vodka?

wannabe_sybil

Basics vodka - I think it depends on what you use it for. I suspect it is brilliant at toffee vodka, and brilliant at chilli vodka. It is 37.5% proof so can probably get you tipsy effectively, but I have never tasted it where taste and smoothness was a factor. I don't drink that much.

1carminestocky

I remember Martin conducting blind taste tests on 2 people who wouldn't touch cheap spirits on a recent Tonight programme and the results surprised the 'testees' greatly. Sort of proved that they were normally 'reviewing' visually but once the vision was taken away they actually preferred the cheap stuff...the VERY cheap stuff in some cases.

DearyMe22

Basics Fish Fingers have gone from 49p to 69p a 33% increase :mad:

I can recommend their frozen fish in white sauce. 4 generous pieces £2.49.

A good tip if you buy a lot of basics stuff and shop online is to just type 'basics' into the grocery search. This will bring up every basic product available, of which there are hundreds !

mardatha

I just discovered the chocolate and the teabags - absolutle amazing ! Plus we got a trifle for £1.

1carminestocky

mardatha wrote: »

I just discovered the chocolate and the teabags - absolutle amazing ! Plus we got a trifle for £1.

I've gotten quite addicted to this stuff . The princely sum of 27p and I can't tell the difference between it and Milky Bar. And a quarter of the price!

1carminestocky

DearyMe22 wrote: »

Basics Fish Fingers have gone from 49p to 69p a 33% increase :mad:

I can recommend their frozen fish in white sauce. 4 generous pieces £2.49.

A good tip if you buy a lot of basics stuff and shop online is to just type 'basics' into the grocery search. This will bring up every basic product available, of which there are hundreds !

It's down to £1.99 until 26/5/09! May have to partake. Thanks.

shoperholicnot

tonight i managed to get the last couple of jars of curry sauce..had it on some chips and its really nice!!! cant believe its only 8p a jar!