Month / January 2013

by jo

Review – Nordic Berries

Gleaner Trolls have the best vision in the village—only they have the unique ability to see which cloudberries are ripe and ready to pick, and which need a few more days of sunshine. Every day at twilight, Gleaner Trolls gather ripe cloudberries along the banks of the Norwegian fjords to make Nordic Berries. Nordic Berries multivitamin captures the delicious sweet-and-sour citrus taste of cloudberries, and makes an ideal companion to any of our fish oils.

Nordic Berries Multivitamin Gummies

We’ve been fairly rubbish at making sure H takes the vitamins she needs to – although she does eat a LOT of fruit and quite a lot of vegetables so is getting plenty of goodness from that. Nonetheless, vitamins are a good thing to take and need to be considered – and when we were offered Nordic Berries Multivitamin Treats to try, we jumped at the chance.

These berries resemble jelly tots – but bigger. They’ve got a sour taste to them, and have plenty of goodness in them too (see below). The thing that swung it for me is that H doesn’t see them as some boring vitamin she has to take – she sees them as a sweet that tastes nice that she enjoys – so much so she asks me for them!

Now, the packaging doesn’t say they’re vegetarian or vegan – BUT – they don’t contain gelatin. I’ve been vegetarian for almost thirty years now, and I don’t know any alternative names that would indicate they contain animal products (so I’m going to get clarification). They’re also allergen free.

They also provide 100% of the daily value of the most essential nutrients—including zinc and vitamins A, B, C, D3, and E – you take four a day with food.

The berries are suitable for age 2 and up – suitable for adults and children.

Each tub contains 120 berries which is 30 days supply and costs around £12. For more information please head here.

Nordic Berries Multivitamin Gummies

We were sent a tub for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own

by jo

Activity – Painting Stones

I don’t know about you, but every time we go anywhere H comes home with pockets full of stones. We were at home on Wednesday, our last day of the holidays before nursery and work kicked in again, so decided to do a spot of painting.

Painting stones, that is. It’s a really simple idea, messy enough it’s fun and allows your child (or you) to get creative.

I used watercolour paints (the ones in tubes) as they seem to take a better colour on the stones and wash off your hands easily. We did some one-colour ones, and some dual colour, and even a ladybird which was fun. (the large black one with red spots is H’s seal)

We’ve run out of our paints now, so I’ve more on order arriving next week, so here’s what we did the other day – and even better, we both worked on all of the stones. Now H has a train set to play with, we decided she should paint some stones golden, for the ‘Gold Rock’ station – now I’ve just got to build a station…

Painting Stones

by jo

Easy Quesadillas

This recipe is a so-obvious-I-can’t-believe-we-haven’t-done-this-before one.

You need :

Tortillas (we used the Weight Watchers ones, 3 points each, though 5 points for two which was good)
cheese (I had a WW cheese slice – 1 point)

Whichever vegetables you want (we did a red and yellow pepper)

splash of oil

Spray the oil in your pan and cook the vegetables a tiny bit – add spice here if you want some.

Get your tortilla – put the cheese on it, then when the pepper is cooked add that.

Put a second tortilla on top

Weight Watchers Friendly Quesadillas

Place into oven, which should be on a low heat – enough to melt cheese and warm the tortilla, and leave in there for five minutes

Take out, and slice into four or six pieces. Eat straight away. If you want to add some cream to it, Quark is a good substitute and is low points too.

Yum! They’re a slightly more interesting variation on toasties too.

by jo

Weight Watchers Weekly Challenge 1 – Sort Your Fridge

As a Weight Watchers blogger ambassador with badge, I’ll be getting weekly challenges – I won’t have to do them all, but if I can, I’ll try. Week one is a nice simple one – Sort Your Fridge.

My Fridge

I’ve found that a few of my friends who’ve followed my journey so far have wanted to think about starting Weight Watchers – and asked for advice – especially after Christmas when we’ve got tons of cakes, chocolate and biscuits around that need to be eaten (especially those fresh ones). So, the challenge involves us checking our fridge to see what we’ve got that have high ProPoints value (PPV) and either portion control them, or find things to substitute them with once they’re gone. I would say that having already done WeightWatchers for three months, that the portion control is our way – though actually we were pretty good over Christmas. However, there are things which aren’t so friendly…

Hummous (good for a few more days yet), passata (ditto), cheese (needs to be used up) and loads and loads of vegetables. There are potatoes in the cupboard too.

So. What works well with those last few Christmas bits? Soup, of course!

Soup veg

Here’s the recipe :

Leek (two) (0 PPV)
Butternut Squash (half) (0 PPV)
Courgette (one) (0 PPV)
Sprouts (five – one was a bit yucky on the picture) (0 PPV)
Broccoli (two sections) (0 PPV)
one low salt stock cube (1 PPV)

cheese to splosh in there once cooked (3 PPV)

Sprouts

Mars Galaxy ‘A Gift For You’ Chocolate for afterwards (5 PPV) (well the chocolate isn’t going to eat itself, is it?)

Wash and chop all the vegetables. Stick everything in your soup maker, and add water up to the maximum. Leave until ready – when ready open lid and add cheese to let it melt a bit.

Result? This : Christmas Vegetable Soup

So I ate the Mars Galaxy bar, which has taken me to the maximum for my points today – a grand total of 29. I should have broken it in half and shared it with Shaun. (he’d agree with that).

Anyway, if you take away the chocolate, then the soup comes to around 4 PPV, which divided into our portion sizes I reckon would come in at 2 points. However, I had bread with it. I didn’t have any WeightWatchers bread in the house (I’d normally have a WW bread roll with soup – 3PPV) so used my home-made, which has now taken me six points over my daily allowance. Sob! If only I hadn’t had that chocolate..

So yes, we’ll be living on vegetable soups and stews for the forseeable future which is absolutely fine by me…

I’ve been given six months of Weight Watchers membership and various goodies to try, all opinions are my own.

by jo

Achica Love

We were introduced to Achica a few months ago by Rachel, and I was immediately drawn to the things they have for offer. We rent (rather than own) our house, and always have done (though all furniture is our own) – which means when we move we have a mish-mash of things which don’t quite match, which I like to think has some kind of charm.

Which is where Achica comes in – they have loads of homeware items, and what with the new year being here I’ve been browsing and dreaming of my ideal bedroom and living areas – after all, our decor is neutral with only our various settees and beds that don’t quite match – I feel like we need some colour!

So I had one of those imaginary spending things I do from time to time – have you ever done that? You browse online, add all the things you want to your shopping cart, but don’t check out… sort of like you’re spending, and then you’re left admiring a hefty shop which you have to sadly let go.

I chose some really nice things and got a bit excited by it all!

I’m a sucker for spots and stripes, and this jumped out at me – it’s grown up without being too grown up – it sits with what I like (and what Shaun has to put up with!) and is still quite grown up looking – a Mocha and Cream super king size duvet set. Mmmmm.

Achica Mocha and Stripe Super King Size Duvet

Our two settees don’t match at all – they’re from different places, so I tend to cover them with a throw or two to blend them in a bit – however, one thing you can never slack off on is bright colourful cushions – you need something that jumps out a bit, fits in with our style (or lack of) and looks good. In fact, the only downside is that it is dry clean only, so will be kept well away from the three-year old…

Achica Spot Cushion

Finally, way back when H was born, she was sent a gorgeous quilt cover/throw for her bed for when she gets older – it’ll be perfect for the summertime, and is almost identical to this cushion I spotted. We didn’t get a pillowcase to match (though to be fair, I think a cushion would suit it better than a pillowcase), but I can see this on H’s bed with the other cover – while I look on jealously at how lovely it looks.

Extra bonus – it’s machine washable, so perfect for the three-year old! (then again, maybe I should just keep it for myself…)

Achica Patchwork Cushion

Now, earlier I did say about a hefty shop that I’d be doing, adding these to my shopping cart – but actually, all of these come in at £46.98!! Which when you consider most super king size duvet sets can cost more than that, is a really good bargain.

So I window shopped a bit more and drooled over the Pantone dining things on offer, dreamed about them a bit but knew as we bought new plates not that long ago that it’d be silly to buy more. Well, maybe just a Tangerine Tango cup… swoon…

What I like about Achica are the brands they offer – and the discounts. I don’t like paying full price for something if I feel it’s a lot of money – whereas with Achica I feel like I’m buying good quality goods at a fantastic price. This must therefore mean that I win!

I received a voucher for this feature, all opinions are my own.