What Aldi is missing for me

I have a love affair with Aldi. Ever since I turned my back on Asda and started trying out Aldi I've been hooked. What once was a £60-70 weekly shop has turned into trolley of food costing a maximum of £50.

This hasn't reduced solely to the cheap prices Aldi offer, it is also because the supermarket doesn't have as much junk food on offer readily available to put in your trolley. You are able to get in and out without being distracted by offers such as 'buy one get one free' or the advertising for the newest chocolate bar you need to try. For some people, the lack of this stuff may but them off but for me, it makes shopping so much simpler and quicker!

Don't get me wrong, I do love a good nosy at the Special Buys and I often have to tell myself I have no need for a drill set or an extra casserole dish... But overall it's a lot more stripped back and that's what you need when you do the weekly food shop. When I go shopping I make a list, get the items on my list and then get out. 

Most of the food I want to buy I can get in Aldi. I buy a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat which is all great quality at Aldi. I also stock up on my cupboard basics such as cans of chopped tomatoes, beans and nuts. There are still a few items that I'd love Aldi to start stocking so I can do my whole shop in one place.

Wholemeal pasta - I don't eat white pasta any more so it's a real shame that I can't pick up brown pasta from Aldi! Wholemeal pasta is becoming more popular with the likes of Asda and Tesco stocking it, so hopefully, Aldi can follow suit. 

Wholemeal wraps - I do love a white wrap but I know that wholemeal is better for you, so I wish Aldi would bring these to store!

Ricotta - Although they do have a large cheese selection, they don't seem to have ricotta. I like to use this when making pasta so it's annoying when I have to go elsewhere to pick this up.

Quark - A relatively new item in supermarkets but I'd love if Aldi could start stocking this.

Guacamole - Yes yes it's easy enough to make your own but it would be so much easier to be able to pick up a pot of this dip as a quick fix! Aldi's hummus is one of my favourites so I'm sure if they started doing guacamole this would be just as good.

Bread with a longer shelf life - Not really a product, but more of a request. The bread Aldi seems to stock goes off the next day which doesn't really work when there are only two people living in the household. We can't get through bread that quick. Maybe give us a few extra days?

Apart from these few items, I'm an Aldi convert and my weekly shop is made cheaper and is full of better quality products for it.

Do you like Aldi? What items do you wish they'd stock?

Living North Christmas Fair at Newcastle Racecourse

When Halloween and Bonfire night are out of the way, it is time to focus on the build-up to Christmas. Recently I've seen upcoming Christmas Fair events popping up here there and everywhere. It seems that everyone with a decent venue wants to get in on the festive spirit. When I was browsing twitter one day I came across a link for Living North's Christmas Fair at Newcastle Racecourse. Although it cost £8 for a ticket (or £6 if you order online before) I thought this would be a good event to attend as it is a well-known magazine that is organising it.

We arrived at about 10.30am on Saturday and it was already starting to get really busy. There was a map in the guide so that you could find out what was available to see and where it was. In the racecourse building, there were many sections such as the food hall and floors of stalls for Christmas shopping. Lots of great small companies had piled into the fair to sell what they had on offer and promote the great businesses in the North. I even found Middlesbrough's own Lots of Loveliness with a stall packed full of people! They were loving her stock, so was I, I picked up a candle and some gingerbread men present tags. In the food hall, there were lots of lovely local food producers selling everything from pies, chutneys and bread, to flavoured fortune cookies, gourmet marshmallows and massive slabs of cake. I love finding local foodies that I can promote through my blog as I love showing off the North of England and the amazing businesses here on our doorstep. Overall the event was good, packed with stalls and small businesses but I had two gripes about the day. Firstly there wasn't enough good quality food to eat on the day. Considering the amazing local businesses they had drafted in for the other parts of the day it would have been nice to see some local food vendors. The only food was available from the racecourse itself which was expensive and didn't look appetising. Then there was the amount of people. Now don't get me wrong I know I probably went on the busiest day but I almost feel there should have been a cap on the number of people that were allowed in. It was so hard to look at anything in the stalls for the number of people already crammed into it. Then there was the hassle of trying to walk through the aisles, you either got stuck behind someone in the middle of the aisle trying to look at a stall or people just stopping to have a general chat. I get very raged in these situations so I can tell you I wasn't very happy. One more thing that bugged me on the day was that when I got my email through for the tickets it said that because the weekend would be so busy, pushchairs and buggies wouldn't be allowed in and yet I saw plenty of people with these on the day. It reduces the space in the aisles more and then I felt bad for the people who'd obviously got this memo and were carrying around their young babies. They may as well have brought their buggy! This was a great event with some amazing things to buy. I picked up quite a bit of stuff, that I plan to put in a separate post, so I was very happy that I went because I discovered more local shops that I'd love to visit in the future. If Living North could just have a look at food and the number of people I'd definitely be grappling to get back next year. P.s the York version of this is on 14th-16th November at York Racecourse.