Family Friendly Fridays: Chicken Chow Mein

One of my favourite blogs is Fabulicious Food and each month they host a Family Friendly Friday challenge, which I love to read because it gives me ideas to compose my weekly meal plans with. So thanks for your work Ren in hosting, and thanks to the other bloggers for your entries.

Here's my entry:

Chicken Chow Mein

It's very rare in our household that we get a dish that everyone loves; I usually can only please a few people at a time. But when I make this I know that that every last bit will get eaten. So here's my recipe:

• 3 blocks Sharwood’s Medium Egg Noodles
• 1 tablespoon oil for frying
• 4 chicken breasts sliced into thin strips
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 pepper chopped
• 100g beansprouts
• 3 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Firstly, I mix the soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil together. Then I fry the onion and peppers in a small amount of sunflower oil for a few minutes before I put the chicken in, as my children like them to be really wilted (if you like them firmer though just put them in the same time as the chicken. Lastly I add the beansprouts and add the mixture of the sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil and fry until everything is heated right through. Finally cook noodles, drain and mix together.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!!

Tea Time Treats: Saffron Scones with Rose Petal Jam

This month I am very excited to be taking part in a wonderful monthly blogging challenge and baking event that is set by Karen from Lavender and Lovage (go have a read, you will enjoy) and Kate from What Kate Baked - each one taking turns to host on alternate months.

Here's the info taken from the Lavender and Lovage blog:

This monthly challenge covers one of our most delightful and eternally popular British institutions, Tea Time. Not just cakes and scones either, but pies and more filling supper dishes come under this culinary umbrella, from afternoon teas of delicate and elegant bakes to the more rustic and filling pleasures of high tea and farmhouse suppers, it’s all showcased in this exciting new blogging event. All teatime treats, whether sweet or savoury, breads, scones, sandwiches, pies, pasties, cakes, tarts, desserts, conserves or biscuits (plus many, many more!) will be featured over the coming months. Each monthly challenge will suggest and involve a certain style of bake or popular teatime ingredient, and Karen and Kate will be following the seasons with an eye on many popular feasts and festivals throughout the year.

So what's this month's challenge I hear you ask! Well, it's the humble scone! Whenever I have thought of scones before I just think clotted cream and jam, I never really think of the hundreds of variations to them. Anyway, with challenge set, I thought about what my entry would be. An important factor in deciding though was that I had just ordered a secret ingredient from the internet, Rose Petal Preserve, after reading a wonderful recipe using it over at one of my other favourite blogs Chez Maximka, and I was keen to find other recipes for it. So after trawling the internet I found a recipe called 'Saffron Scones with Rose Petal Jam'. I guess the Rose Petal Jam from Forage Foods would work with any scones, but I was interested to see whether this was a more appropriate flavour combination.

So here's my entry:

Saffron Scones with Rose Petal Jam

The recipe's here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1372306/Recipe-Saffron-scones-rose-petal-jam.html

I made some small alterations:

30 saffron filaments

250g plain flour

50g icing sugar

1 heaped tsp baking power

a pinch of salt

60g unsalted butter chilled and diced

1 medium egg beaten

Grind the saffron filaments, blend with a tablespoon of boiling water and set aside for a few minutes.

Sift the flour, icing sugar and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor and add the salt. Add the butter and whiz to crumbs, incorporate the egg, the saffron infusion and just enough milk to bring the dough together. You can also make the dough by hand.

Roll the dough about 1.5cm thick on a lightly floured work surface and cut scones using fluted cutters (4cm-6cm), rolling the dough only twice. Arrange these spaced well apart on a baking tray and leave to rest for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Brush the tops
of the scones with milk and bake for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool.

To serve, slit the scones and spread with clotted cream and jam. Serve scattered with rose petals, if wished. The scones are best eaten warm or fresh on the day of making, in which case cover and set aside in a cool place.

VERDICT: The recipe was easy enough to follow, although I think the scones could do with being slightly thicker, but you live and learn. The saffron flavour was very subtle but it complemented the Rose Petal jam perfectly and I felt that I was eating something suitable for a queen.

The best bit about this challenge for me has been the gorgeous smell wafting from my kitchen, the fact that my little boy enjoyed helping me make the scones and of course slathering on the clotted cream and Rose Petal Jam with a self-satisfied smile at having produced such wonderful scones. The Rose Petal Jam from Forage Fine Foods is divine!

Delicate and light with a floral edge!

Rose Petal Preserve is available from www.foragefinefoods.co.uk

WE LOVE: Verbaudet Rockies Bedding

Do you ever get fed up of character bedding? I know I do! In the last few years we have had Go Go Crazy Bones, Moshi Monsters, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario. I didn't realise how busy the duvet covers made the room. So much goes on in a child's bedroom visually; that the last thing you want to be doing is adding a myriad different focal points. I fell in love with this duvet cover when I laid my eyes on it from Vertbaudet. The neutral colours combined with shades of blue made it perfect for my boys and added a calming element to the room. The design with the digger in the Canadian Rockies looks fairly timeless and I believe it would appeal to quite a wide age range. If they get fed up of the Canadian Rockies design however, they can turn it over and use the pale blue side.

Design wise, the duvet has quite a unique element which the above photo doesn't show, that is that it has a flap at the bottom which hangs over at the bottom of the bed to make things look very neat.

The duvet is composed of pure cotton so is incredibly cool and soft to the touch, which definitely helps achieve a good night's sleep.

We've also been giving this duvet a good workout as for the last 7 weeks we have been coping with whooping cough, which has involved lots of vomiting. So the duvet has required to be washed at least 3 times. There's no need to worry about washing it either as it can be washed at up to 60 degrees C.

Also available is a lovely range of matching cushions and a bedspread.

For more info please visit http://www.vertbaudet.co.uk

Review: Very Lazy Red Thai Curry Cooking Concentrate

I'M BACK!! It's been a while since I picked up this blog, but what prompted me to write was that I had a Tweet from a very lovely company @VeryLazyFood thanking me for following them on Twitter. I replied stating that I hadn't tried their products but that they looked wonderful! I then had a lovely message from them saying that if I gave them my address they would pop one in the post for me to try. I thought that this was such a lovely gesture from them that I felt compelled to pick up my blog again and write up my experience using the Very Lazy Cooking Concentrate.

REVIEW: I was sent the Very Lazy Red Thai Curry to test out; this probably would have been the last one I would have picked given the choice. I've made my own Thai Curries in the past and they have always turned out too sweet and watery for my liking. But after opening the jar, all my senses were totally won over. The ginger, red chillies, coconut and red peppers hit my nostrils and the smell was so vibrant and fresh smelling that it actually made my mouth water. It is fair to say that this has never happened to me before when opening a jar of cooking sauce; this is why I usually prefer to cook from scratch.

A quick look at the ingredients confirmed my thoughts, the smell radiating from the jar was made up from the actual ingredients rather than E numbers mimicking flavours, smells and colours. Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients: Red peppers, onions, coconut milk,(coconut, water), red wine vinegar, coconut, sugar, vegetable oil, water, lemongrass puree, lime leaves, galangi, garlic puree, ginger puree, cornflour, salt, concentrated lemon juice, red chilli puree, red chilli flakes, red chillies.

As you can see there are absolutely no additives or preservatives at all!

What I really liked about the cooking concentrate was the lovely aroma and the fact that you could make out the ingredients from looking at the sauce.

Coconut, chilli flakes and red pepper were clearly visible and so not only appealed to my nostrils but looked aesthetically pleasing too! The cooking concentrates come in glass jars so are perfect for recycling or using as paint pots, for storage etc.

The instructions were easy to follow. All that was required after stir-frying the chicken was to add in the cooking concentrate and then some coconut milk - so easy! As soon as the cooking concentrate was added, my husband came downstairs to say what a lovely smell was wafting upstairs. Even the children said it smelt nice. As you can see from the above instructions, there are a few variations you can make to the recipe.

This is the completed dish (sorry for the rubbish photo but was being harassed by the children):

The finished result was absolutely divine. The dish managed to combine the sweetness with the chilli perfectly and so the heat and sweetness element mingled to create the perfect flavour. The sauce was lovely and creamy and was quickly devoured by me and my husband. Sadly the children didn't like this dish, but I didn't really expect them to. Anything remotely hot is a big no-no for them and so I will have to test out a few other jars from the Very Lazy to find a true family favourite! But this is perfect for us adults.

Verdict: I can see why Very Lazy is so eager to give out samples! I believe apart from the usual market of people who already buy pre-prepared sauces, they also have a whole new market at their fingertips; people who normally shun pre-prepared cooking sauces. The ingredients are so fresh and unadulterated that they have managed to make a complicated dish an easy thing to accomplish. Priced at £1.92 the jar works out great value for money; not only are you cutting down on your time spent in the kitchen but works out cheaper than if you were to buy all the individual ingredients yourself. The taste of the Red Thai Curry was absolutely amazing, so much so we think Very Lazy should rebrand to:

Score 9/10 (10/10 if only the children could love it as much as we did!)

We absolutely love it!

For more information on the Very Lazy range please visit http://www.verylazy.com/

Or visit them on Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/VeryLazyFood

Littlewoods Advert Christmas Competition Closing date 9TH DEC

In connection with Littlewoods we have some great prizes to give away!

The prize we are offering to one lucky winner is the following:

Silver Name Plate Necklace

Catalogue number MC5821E

£20

http://www.littlewoods.com/silver-name-plate-necklace/821172476.prd?browseToken=%2fb%2f5%2c5046%2fs%2fbestsellers%2c0%2fr%2f100&trail=4934-5039-5046-5

LEGO Technic Bucket Truck

Catalogue number UE1691F

£50

http://www.littlewoods.com/lego-technic-bucket-truck/979747815.prd?browseToken=%2fb%2f5132%2fs%2fbestsellers%2c0%2fo%2f5%2fr%2f100%2fpromo%2f93600006

So how do I enter? Just become a follower- comment that you are now following me/or are already following me and you are entered in the draw.

For an extra entry tell me what your favourite Christmas Eve tradition is.

Please remember to leave your Twitter name or email address so that I can contact you.

The competition ends midnight on the 9th December.

Review: The Froobles

The Froobles are fruit and vegetable characters that have been brought to life by the magic of children's imaginations. Scenes created by playgroup children provide The Froobles characters with an ever-changing and magical world to explore.

Review: This is a great idea for a book range which gives lots of potential to interesting scenarios and it is an idea which even the smallest of children can relate to. "Imagine if these characters jumped in to your picture" I said to my son and he responded with "I'd paint a park for them to play". So I was aware that this was a book which he clearly understood and so I felt confident that he would understand most of the plot.

This pocket-sized fruity range of books has instantly become a hit in my household. From the minute they arrived my son pulled the books from my hand and immediately started naming each characters fruit, he seemed intrigued with the friendly faces and was enthralled when I announced their names. Before we could start on the book we had to run through the entire back page, which detailed all the characters of the range. The two titles we had to review were 'Tessa Tomato and the rainforest rainbow' and 'Charlie Chilli and the safari song'. The use of alliteration in the titles made these sound instantly more appealing.

The first page we are greeted with is the simple scene which the children have created. I liked the fact that each page was not too busy and contained pictures which really collaborated effectively with the story text. Traditional story telling is also in place with these books as they start with 'One day' which I loved as it reminded me of the wonderful stories I had as a child. Sometimes I feel books try too hard to be modern and fail miserably. This book incorporated modern with old effectively and certainly draws in the reader.

The pictures grab your attention by calling you to assess how they were made; you have fingerprint trees, patterns made with buttons and buttons for eyes and flowers and squiggly lined drawings which are most certainly the 'playgroup children's' drawings.

The characters interact and speak to each other throughout the book which allows you to use your best storytelling skills in putting on various voices which all children love. And the fact that each book seems to have a moral is a lovely aspect too. In the Tessa and Tomato book, we have Tessa realising that although she has missed a rainbow, beautiful colours can be found in everyday things. In Charlie Chilli we have him realising how inconsiderate he has been playing music so loudly.

The size of the books make these very portable for amusing my children whilst out and about and also allows small hands to handle the books with ease and the glossy pages make them feel very durable. On numerous times I have found my son reading these by himself.

Each book also has a sticker page at the back which allows children to continue the theme of the book on a sheet of paper and recreate their own scene which all children will love doing. If you are feeling creative you could even have a go at making up your own story for your child.

All in all, this is a bright and vibrant book collection which has many elements which children will be able to relate to and recognise. Pleasant story plots make children aware of certain emotions and will certainly have them wanting more of these wonderful books.

Retailing at £2.69 these are the perfect buy!

For more info please visit www.topthatpublishing.com or www.froobles.com

Guest Review: AniMagic Benji

From the first moment that she saw Benji, Hannah was won over by his loveable face. Initially she was a little scared of the mechanical noise that he makes as he moves and she preferred to play with him switched off. Happily stroking him as she watched TV, pretending to feed him biscuits and playing "dog families" with him and her teddies.

Three days after he arrived Hannah took Benji with her to her cousins house. When they returned she had overcome her fear/dislike of Benji's noisy mechanics and had fallen for his cheeky nature.

Having been desperate for a pet for quite some time now, Benji is certainly filling a space in her heart, however I am not sure how long this will last as one of the first things that Hannah asked about Benji was, "Why can't Benji walk?" and now four weeks on she is beginning to play with him less than when he first joined us.

The only negative thing that I can say is that Hannah loves to cuddle Benji and when he is switched on this causes his mechanical legs to make a "click click" sound. I am worried that it may break him.

This aside Hannah adores him and he is certainly a very special toy. As first pets go, he is perfect for us. All of the pleasure without the fuss or the worry.

For more info please visit http://www.animagictoys.com/