Knorr - A tasty short cut. Review.

Recently I was asked if I'd like to try some Knorr stockpots and gravy pots for review. I've been meaning to try them since they were launched but always gone for the cheaper supermarket own brand instead.

I honestly didn't think there would be much if any difference between supermarket own and Knorr so I was pleasantly surprised when it came to reviewing them.

I tend to use stockpots for loads of things, not just the usual such as for gravy or sauce but for going into my risotto's or cous cous (so much nicer than using plain boiling water).

I tried out the chicken stock pot in a Saffron risotto simply by making up a pint of chicken stock using the Knorr stockpot and adding a small pinch of Saffron to the stock, letting the flavours infuse together before adding to the Arborio rice.

A beautiful flavour combination! The chicken stock smells and tastes just like roast chicken, without the fuss of boiling the bones and reducing down the liquid. Bliss!

I then turned my attention to the vegetable stock cubes. I had roasted a large gammon joint which was being used to make many different meals. One of which was a 'diet friendly' Carbonara. I fried some sliced mushrooms in some Frylight (low cal cooking spray) and chucked in some of the sliced chopped gammon. Next I added 300ml of vegetable stock and simmered until the liquid had reduced by half.
The reason I added stock to my Carbonara was due to me using soft cheese spread in place of cream as is traditional which I find needs a little liquid to stop it becoming dry.
Next I added two egg yolks mixed with 200g extra light soft cheese and added some (cooked) pasta and garden peas.
Heat it all through until the egg is set and enjoy!

Also using the gammon roast, I made littlest baker a traditional roast gammon dinner and made up a gravy pot as a quick, tasty alternative to gravy granules (which I really prefer not to use if I can help it.) A roast dinner with the trimmings made quickly using micro steam veg pouches, my Airfryer for some of the best home roast potatoes I've had in years! and a Knorr gravy pot for the gravy. So simple yet so good! 

Sweetpea pantry - making baking easy, delicious and fun. Review

It's been a few weeks now since I visited the Cake and Bake show London with the littlest baker and my mother in law. We went on a Saturday which was a sell out and wow was it busy! We could hardly move for people though I did manage to squeeze up to a few stalls to get a better look at the wares and pick up some samples and ideas. There were some really delicious looking and tasting products for sale as well as baking celebs meandering around happily signing autographs and posing for pics. All in all a great day, I will definitely be back for 2014!

One of the things I picked up to try whilst I was there was Sweetpea Pantry's Grainy Brainy Pancakes mix.
Sweetpea Pantry is all about making baking with kids easy, delicious, fun and wholesome. They provide all the necessary dry ingredients in a mix with instructions on how to help your little one create their very own baked goods.

Littlest baker absolutely LOVES breakfast, it is by far her favourite meal of the day. So what better time to try the Grainy brainy pancakes than for a yummy Saturday morning breakfast? 

It couldn't have been more simple, all that I needed to add to the ingredients was 1 egg and 1 cup of milk.
After that it was pretty much all up to the Littlest Baker, until it came to the cooking part.
The pancake batter was mixed together in no time, meaning that for a little one with a short attention span the work was done and the pancakes ready in all of about 10 minutes.

   

One pack of the mix (there's 2 in the box) made around 8 decent sized pancakes which fed the three of us well.
Littlest Baker had hers with some maple syrup and cinnamon sprinkled over them, I had maple syrup and banana just to make it a touch more filling. Though as the mix has no sugar added it is perfectly possible to make the pancakes savoury by adding cheese and ham perhaps for a lunch box treat or brunch.

Ready to tuck in!

What helps to make these mixes from Sweetpea Pantry so special is that they have no added sugar or salt, they are gluten free, contain wholegrains and have nothing artificial. So that also means no guilt from me for giving Littlest Baker pancakes for breakfast. 

I'm off now to look at the Sweetpea Pantry website to see what we can try next.

Asda's new Chosen by Kids range - Review

Asda are bringing out some innovative new products and re launching some of their older products under their new Chosen By Kids range.

The range will feature a huge 180 products spanning across all meals of the day. The entire Chosen by Kids range has been tasted by kids and approved by mums.

To mark the launch of their Chosen by kids range Asda held a special event for bloggers and their little ones to give us an exclusive insight into how the tasting process works and have a sneak preview of some of the food in the range.

Myself and Littlest baker were invited up to Asda's home office (Asda house) in Leeds to be a part of this special event. Leeds is a fair trek from Bedford so our hopes were high of having a good time at Asda house.

Upon arrival we were immediately immersed into the Chosen by kids range as Asda house had a 'monster makeover' in their hub. Complete with the Chosen by kids cheeky monster characters milling around having photo ops and laughs with the mums and little ones.

Littlest baker meeting Trixta

We were walked through the area to explore the breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacking ranges and briefed about the range in general by Product development director Gail Paddy. 

Breakfast

Lunchtime

Dinner

After being shown the meal range by Gail we were taken away into a separate room and given an opportunity to try out some of the new products and even rate them using special 'yum' or 'yuk' paddles.

Among the items we tried were Cheesy pasta shapes, which had a definite 'yum' paddle held up by Littlest baker, a squeezy yogurt pouch, another 'yum' paddle and Monster feet which Littlest baker was a bit undecided about. 

Littlest baker was very happy with the squeezy yogurt.

Every product has been tried and tested by kids, who enjoy the taste and then approved by mums. The mums approval comes from the point of view of nutrition, convenience and appeal.

Many of the products contain hidden vegetables and fruit taking some of the guilt out of giving your kids a convenience food knowing they will still be getting their vitamins. With Monster Mash, which is a mix of mash potato, peas and broccoli, or the carrot and Potato waffles. 

The Chosen by kids range has been designed to be a solution for mums juggling different family mealtimes with after school activities or working late, without breaking the bank as the prices start as low as 58p (Instant porridge pots). Incidentally the instant porridge pots needn't be a worry with the heat burning little hands as Asda have developed a thermal packaging that stays cool to protect them. 

Snacks are also covered with options such as Mini Fruit Bags (five for £2) or Jelly with real fruit pieces, or Lime flavoured raisins ('yum' vote from Littlest baker). 

Littlest baker was impressed with the range of products available and I'm sure with the kids going back to school really soon I will be featuring some of the products in her lunch boxes and after school when time is a premium due to after school activities.  I especially think she wants to try the Meatballs and Spaghetti that we saw on the Dinner table in the hub, it looked the perfect size for her appetite.

All set for going back to school.

How your weeks meals could be planned using Asda's new range.

Cappuccino pots

I've recently been trying out recipes using gelatine with varying results. I've tried marshmallow, which worked alright but was a bit too wet and sticky. It seems quite hard to find a really good marshmallow recipe, which is a shame. So after the disappointing results I had with marshmallow I turned my attention to cheesecake, which actually turned out fine, just needs a little bit of tweaking with the flavours then I will blog about it.

I then got looking through a recipe book I have for the slimming group I belong to and found a dessert recipe which makes a coffee mousse. This is my own twist on that recipe.

Ingredients:

2 tsp powdered gelatine

5 level tbsp low fat crème fraiche

5 tbsp fat free natural yogurt (I used 0% Greek yogurt)

2 tbsp v strong filter coffee or espresso

3 tbsp sweetener (I used 1 tsp liquid sweetener)

2 large egg whites

10ml Tia Maria (optional)

2 tsp cocoa powder

Method:

Pour 2 tbsp of boiling water into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatine in. Mix well until the gelatine is dissolved and put to one side until needed.

In a separate bowl mix together the crème fraiche, yogurt, cocoa powder, coffee, Tia Maria (if using) and sweetener. 

Whisk the egg whites until stiff, I used my Russell Hobbs Kitchen machine for this but you could do it by hand if you don't have an electric whisk.

Mix the gelatine into the coffee mixture and carefully fold the egg white into it, being careful not to knock the air out of it.

All that's left is to divide the mix into your chosen serving pots or glasses and leave to set for around 2 hours. 

I served mine in some vintage tea cups that I bought recently, though this dessert is so versatile that it could be served in most things, I think Martini glasses or espresso cups would look really good with this.

This is a fantastic dessert to have in your repertoire for something a bit fancy for a weekend pudding or tarted up a bit with some chocolate or Baileys served along side at a dinner party.  

Lollibopping with the littlest baker

It's summer time and that means festival season is well under way. The festival scene has really come into its own in the last 10 years with more and more festivals popping up each year for just about every conceivable member of society.

I remember the days of being excited about going to festivals, a day or if you're really lucky a whole weekend spent with your mates in a mud sodden field (Great British weather) listening to some of your favourite bands and maybe some more obscure ones thrown in for good measure. Going home exhausted and exhilarated with some great memories of a day well spent.

Move on to me now being 30(!) and a married mum of one and those days seem behind me for now. This festival season there was just one festival that I was excited to visit and that was Lollibop!

Lollibop is a festival all about children. Littlest baker was just so excited to be having a day out in London and going somewhere that was all about her! 

We didn't manage to see everything and do everything as there was just so much that trying to do it all would have been akin to a military manoeuvre and when you have a 5 year old in tow sometimes its easier to just go with the flow.

We did however get to watch the fabulous Katie - CBeebies I can cook live on the cooking stage. She wasn't cooking, but at 8 months pregnant did a magnificent job of entertaining her audience with singing, dancing and jokes. Littlest baker made her way to the front of the stage and got stuck in with joining in with the action. 

We even managed to squeeze in a photo with Peppa Pig and the Cloud babies! 

We watched the cast of The West End show Peter Pan (starring Stacey Solomon) on the main stage whilst we sat and ate our lunch. 

The whole thing was a star filled extravangza - Dick and Dom were on the main stage following the Peter Pan songs, Sid and Andy (CBeebies presenters) were in a smaller tent. There were lots of photo opportunities with Mr Men, Postman pat, Shaun the sheep and even Justin Fletcher was there!

What was brilliant about the festival was that all of this and the rest including face painting was included in the ticket. So often you take your child for a day out, pay the entry fee to wherever it is and get hit for everything else they want to do once you're in. How refreshing that this wasn't the case at Lollibop. The food stalls were reasonably priced, we got a toastie for littlest baker at £2.50, there was also a Paella stall, hot dogs, burgers, churros (which I may have treated myself to) and some clever person had thought about what kids really like to eat and had a Fish finger butty stand.

Yes! She is 'feeding' a pineapple, I didn't get it either! 

As you can imagine there were plenty of stalls all giving out free samples/money off vouchers to advertise their business - pretty much all of them relating to children of varying ages. There were of course the odd stall aiming themselves at the grown ups, we are after all the ones controlling the purse strings. I did get a few bloggers samples from some of these stalls which will be reviewed in a seperate post.

As you would expect the sponsors and partners of the festival were well represented across the park with the one standing out the most in my opinion being Chobani who seemed to be everywhere I looked. Lots of their posts were being handed out and I bagged myself a few which made a handy breakfast to keep me fuelled for the busy day after the early start I'd had. I'm sure the presence Chobani had a the festival can only help them with their move towards UK yoghurt market dominance!

Thanks to Chobani for allowing myself and littlest baker to be your guests at the festival, we had a great day with lots for the Littlest baker to tell her friends about the day she went to her first festival.

                                         

Going Krazy at lunchtime with Warburtons! - Sponsored

Warburtons have been going Krazy at lunchtime over the last few weeks with short videos of  (possibly the first?) Facebook game show. The game shows which are fun to watch, show two families pitted against each other in the Warburtons Krazy Kitchen trying to make their lunch whilst ignoring unusual and humorous (think giant yellow chickens being chased by an angry farmer) distractions going on around them.
 I love the videos, they're fun and remind me of the game shows of the 80's (Finders Keepers, Fun House ringing any bells?). Kind of sounds like my home! 2 cats and a hungry 5 year old are always a recipe for fun in the kitchen!

Warburtons sent me a hamper asking me to have a go at a recipe that could be fun and a bit Krazy. I had some Square(ish) wraps and Sandwich thins along with some other ingredients such as avocado, lime, jalapeños, red onion, light Mayo, re fried beans and chicken breast.

I immediately thought about Mexican as that's where most of the ingredients were pointing. I made a Chicken, lettuce, caramelised red onion and Mayo wrap using the square(ish) wrap.

To make the wrap a bit more fun I thought about making it a sharing lunchtime meal and made some chips for dipping into the re fried beans and guacamole that I'd made by cutting one of the wraps into quarters and cutting the quarters into triangles. These were then fried lightly in an oiled pan until brown. They didn't crisp up like tortillas but were really soft and more-ish and went brilliantly with the dips. Myself and hubby particularly enjoyed this one, the prop Sombrero I was sent with my hamper made a cute little hat for the guacamole dip.

Littlest baker is away at her Nan and Granddad's being spoilt for the week as it's the school holidays, so she missed out on going Krazy with our lunchtime fun (more for the grown ups!) though she did manage to get in on the fun with her Nan who sent me this cute pic of her enjoying her Nanny's Krazy lunchtime creation. 

 

Even Nanny's dog Jonty got in on the action! I so wanted to try the hat on one of my cats for a picture but I feel that sadly even if I'd bribed them with fish I'd have had no luck. 

Friday 23rd August sees the last instalment of Warburtons Krazy Kitchen Drama Gameshow - why not go take a look and see who shall reign victorious? 

Lunchtime never needs to be boring again!

Low fat, no sugar sponge cake

We're have a tasting session in our group at my slimming club tomorrow. This basically involves members being asked to take along something that we enjoy eating at home that fits in with the plan to inspire others.
I decided to finally brave making some low fat, no sugar cakes for the group tasting session, I've made it before but only for eating at home so it didn't matter too much what it looked like.
Anyway, seeing as the idea of a tasting session is to inspire others I thought it would be good to post the recipe on here to inspire a greater audience and prove that you really can have your cake and eat it!

I followed a really simple sponge recipe for this, substituting the butter for low fat spread and the sugar for sweetener. If you don't want to use the low fat spread or the sweetener just swap them for the full fat versions.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

225g Self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/3 cup Sweetener

225g Low fat spread (I normally use Flora extra light)

1 tbsp Cocoa powder (optional)

For the filling:

1 tub Quark

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp sweetener

3 passion fruits (optional)

Method:

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and sieve in the flour, baking powder and if using it the cocoa powder. 

Add the sweetener and spread.

Mix until combined but don't over mix as that will stretch the gluten in the flour making the cake more dense.

For a big Victoria sponge divide the mix equally between two 8 inch sandwich tins which have been lined with grease proof paper and given a spritz with fry light (use butter to grease the tins if you prefer).

For making the small sponges I used a special 12 cup mini sandwich tin from Lakeland. Just fill each cup around 3/4 of the way up allowing for a bit of rise. 

Gently smooth the surface of the cakes and put in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes. 

The cakes are done when a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Allow them to cool for a few minutes in their tins before carefully removing and cooling completely on a wire rack.

Assembling the cakes:

To assemble the big Victoria sponge mix the quark with the 1 tbsp sweetener and 1/2 tsp vanilla. 

Cut the passion fruits in half and scoop the insides out into a bowl, discard the skin. Blitz the passion fruit seeds and flesh with either a hand blender or food processor until smooth (the seeds will still remain).

Sieve the passion fruit to take the seeds out, leaving the passion fruit purée. 

This bit with the puréeing is optional, you can use the whole passion fruit flesh, I chose not to as I don't like the seeds.

Spread a thick layer of the sweetened quark (about half of the mix) onto the bottom layer of cake and drizzle the passion fruit on top of the quark, leaving about a tablespoon to drizzle on top of the cake if you wish. Put the top layer of cake on and sprinkle with a teaspoon of icing sugar for decoration. 

You might notice in the picture that my big Victoria sponge looks a bit flat, that's nothing to do with the bake and all to do with me using the completely wrong size of cake tin! That will teach me to check these things before rushing ahead with them. 

For the mini sponges the procedure is pretty much the same. Slice the cakes in half and spread the sweetened quark onto the bottom layer. I didn't use any passion fruit on these though if I'd thought ahead I'd have used raspberries kept whole and sandwiched between the two layers with the quark. 

Then sprinkle the cakes with 1/2 tsp icing sugar.

A quick note on Quark - you may have never heard of it and therefore have no idea what it is, or you've heard of it and heard bad stuff about it. 

Quark is a virtually fat free soft cheese, used in baking and cooking. It tastes just like a mild soft cheese so it can be used in dips, cheesecakes, and in this case as a cream substitute when sweetened. Don't be put off by it's weird name or any bad press it may have had. Try it yourself before passing judgement. It's usually found in the cheese isle though can be a bit hard to spot straight away.  

Hopefully I have proved to you that healthy eating and baking do mix. Sometimes a bit of creativity with the ingredients is needed if you want to still feel saintly whilst having an indulgent moment, sometimes just go full fat and eat less! 

Do try these recipes and tell me what you think!