Get the violins out please…I was supposed to have lunch with Theo Randall the other week to talk about the launch of Ask Italian’s new 2013 menu with Italian inspired dishes created by Theo Randall and Jeena Rodrigues but unfortunately my daughter got chicken pox so I couldn’t attend. Booooo!

I have however been sent the photos from the event along with lots of very mouthwatering dishes to make you drool.

These dough balls have been stuffed with either Pancetta or Cheese and Chilli

A customer favourite Fettuccine Bolognese stays on the menu. Classic bolognese  is served with fettuccine pasta just like they do in Rome.

There are 118 Ask Italian restaurants in the UK, you can find out where they are here and I am very pleased to see that most of their pizzas can be made with a gluten free base and a lot of the pasta dishes can be made with gluten free fusilli pasta!

There is an Ask Italian cookbook, edited by Carla Capalba with special recipes by Theo Randall, that can purchased in the restaurants at £10, £4 of each sale will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity to help fund the dining rooms, play areas and kitchen within the hospital’s new Surgery Centre, due to open in 2017.

Ask Italian have kindly given me £20 of Ask Italian vouchers and one of their Ask Italian Cookbooks to give away to one lucky reader. To be in with a chance of winning this prize please answer the following question;

Which of the following dishes would you associate with Italian food?

• a) Sticky toffee pudding
• b) Spaghetti Carbonara
• c) Chicken Tikka Masala

1. For one extra entry into the random draw please like my Facebook page HERE
2. For one extra entry Tweet the following; “Win!Win!Win! Vouchers to Ask Italian with @cherishedbyme http://bit.ly/10Mf6WF “

Please let me know in the comments section below if you have liked my Facebook page or Tweeted the above for a maximum of two extra entries. You must also leave your answer to the question in the comments section below.

The competition closes at midnight 31st May 2013, the winner will be chosen at random, Judge’s decision is final and only only to UK residents, sorry!

I am always looking for snacks to fill up my sixteen year old son who cannot eat gluten or dairy, especially ones that are easy to take to school to keep his energy levels up during the day. It is also very hard to find things that he will actually eat…you all know how awkward teenagers can be, he won’t eat oats (GF ones of course) nuts, dried fruit or even any cake with fruit in it which all makes it even harder.

So I was asked to try out The Nutribox which is  “A box full of delicious nutritious snacks, all made with gluten free ingredients and delivered free to your door monthly” Their mission is to provide healthier alternatives to the traditional snack and that the snacks are made in such a way as to make sure the ingredients maintain a high proportion of nutrients. There is also a vegan version that can be ordered. There are two boxes to choose from The Nutribox or the Nutribox Mini, prices start from £10.95 per month.

The box I was sent came with nine different snacks including dry fruits and nuts, chocolate and other treats made from raw fruit and nuts. Unfortunately for my son there was not enough treats in the box that he will actually eat however much I protested, luckily for me that means I have been chief taste tester. I am impressed, they are all very tasty healthy-ish snacks. I say healthy-ish because if you are watching your weight they are quite high in calories but then so is a bar of chocolate. The difference is these snacks also have some nutritional benefit from the ingredients they are made from. So they have their place as an occasional treat with some added extras. The snacks are delivered in a handy size cardboard box that fits through the letterbox which avoids those dreadful days when you have to wait in all day for a delivery.

I think The Nutribox is a good way of trying out new products and although the cost may seem a little high per month when you work out the cost per item sent it is actually a really good deal.

I have a code to give the first ten people to ask for it which gives you 35% off your first box. Please leave your email in the comment section below if you would like me to send it to you.

Perfect for those hot summer days I have heard we are not going to be getting this year, however it will be strawberry season very soon and this makes the perfect summer dessert especially after a BBQ. The sponge is fatless and can be adapted in many ways so a good recipe to keep . It is perfect for unexpected guests as can be whipped up in minutes and filled with jam alone.

Fresh cream & Strawberry swiss roll

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

12 mins

Total time

32 mins

 

Perfect for afternoon tea

Author: Cherished By Me

Recipe type: Dessert, Afternoon tea, Cakes, Summer desserts

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs at room temperature
• 125g caster sugar
• 125g plain flour
• 1 tbsp warm water
• 150ml double cream
• 4 tbsp strawberry jam
• 150g chopped strawberries

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180º fan/ gas mark 6
2. Grease and line a swiss roll tin 30x25cm
3. Beat the eggs and caster sugar in a mixer or with an electric whisk for at least 10 minutes. The mixture will triple in volume and be thick and very pale in colour.
4. Divide the flour into three parts and fold in the sifted flour very gently a part at a time.
5. Fold in the warm water.
6. Pour the mixture into the swiss roll tin and bake for 10-12 minutes.
7. Place a piece of greaseproof paper on to your work surface and sprinkle with sugar, turn out the swiss roll onto the sugared paper and remove the greaseproof paper from the back of the cooked sponge.
8. Cover the swiss roll with a damp tea towel and allow the swiss roll to cool.
9. In the meantime heat the jam in the microwave for a few seconds at a time to get a softer consistency. If necessary add a few drops of water to the jam.
10. Whip the double cream, it can’t be too soft or it will flop out of the swiss roll but you don’t want it too thick either.
11. Uncover the cooled swiss roll and spread the jam over the surface.
12. Cover the jam with the whipped cream leaving a small gap around the edges.
13. Sprinkle the chopped strawberries onto the cream.
14. Using the greaseproof paper to help you get a tight roll start rolling from the short sides and keep pushing the roll over until the join ends up underneath.
15. Transfer to a serving plate, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

Notes

This is a fatless sponge which is very versatile, using only jam it becomes a dairy free recipe, it can be filled with lemon curd, chocolate spread etc etc.. If filling with jam or similar this can be done more or less straight away once the swiss roll is cool enough to handle. You then have a lovely warm jam filled swiss roll!

3.1.09

We don’t tend to have crisps or savoury snacks in the house very often, I am not an advocate of bags of crisps in packed lunches, but I do believe in ‘everything in moderation’. All too often I have seen children deprived of something then go completely over the top when faced with a biscuit or a chocolate snack so I am always on the look out for different snacks for treats and was very happy to try out Walker’s Hoops and Crosses; baked corn snacks in the shape of noughts and crosses.

Each pack contains 85 kcal, 3.8g of fat, of which 0.3g saturates. The salt content per bag is 0.27g, protein 1.3 g and fibre 1.1g. The snacks are a source of wholegrain and do not contain any artificial preservatives or colourings. They are suitable for vegetarians and come in three flavours; Roast Beef, Prawn Cocktail and Salt and Vinegar.

We were sent a bag of Roast Beef flavour Hoops and Crosses, not a flavour I would usually buy and I didn’t think I would like them, and I certainly didn’t think the children would. M had a few friends round for tea last week so I thought I would test them out on these little people ages ranging from 5- 10 years of age…plus me. Verdict: Overall they loved them, four out of the five children couldn’t get enough of them although I thought there was actually a generous amount to go around five children in just one packet and I too was very pleasantly surprised, I really liked them. One child didn’t like them but then he is really fussy about crisps in general anyway (my child I hasten to add)

These snacks are definitely something I would buy for picnics and occasional treats, and I will even be buying this flavour again as it was such a hit with the children. I am happy with the calorie and salt content and would recommend Walkers Baked Hoops and Crosses for the occasional treat.

Disclosure : I have been remunerated for this review but it has not changed or affected my opinions.

Someone pointed out the other day that we must have a birthday here nearly every month, in actual fact it is only five months of the year, each child having their own special birthday month but it does however amount to a lot of birthday cake. My poor second boy who has coeliac disease has been having trouble with dairy products too so this was the first year that I have had to make a gluten and dairy free cake. It’s very simple recipe though with no special expensive ingredients or flash techniques so I thought I would share in case anyone else would like to use the recipe. Of course if you don’t want to make this gluten or dairy free use normal self raising flour and butter or margarine.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Celebration Cake- Gluten & Dairy Free (if you want)

 

Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

 

A gluten and dairy free celebration cake

Author: CherishedByMe

Recipe type: Cake, Traybake, Gluten free, Dairy Free

Serves: 20

Ingredients

• 450g self raising gluten free flour
• 350g dairy free margarine
• 350g caster sugar
• 4 duck eggs , you can use hens eggs but duck eggs are good for gluten free baking
• 1 tsp gluten free baking baking
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 120 ml dairy free milk, I use almond milk

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/ Gas mark 4 / 160º Fan oven
2. Grease and line two traybake tins (or do one half at a time) 30″X 23″ tin in size
3. I use an all in one method, so put all the ingredients into a food processor or mixer and beat for at least two minutes making sure you scrape down the bowl at least once to ensure everything gets mixed in.
4. Divide the mixture into two and pour into each traybake tin.
5. Bake for approximately 30 minutes until the cakes are cooked, when you insert a skewer in the middle it should come out clean.
6. Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. This cake is very moist and soft so care must be taken when doing this.
7. Once cold the cakes can be sandwiched together with dairy free buttercream; make with dairy free margarine, icing sugar, vanilla extract and a few drops of water, and add a layer of jam before sandwiching them together.
8. Decorate with ready to roll sugarpaste icing. You will need about 1kg to cover a cake this size.
9. Use any offcuts to decorate the cake to your heart’s content.

Notes

Gluten and dairy free cake which can be halved if you want something smaller and the ingredients can be changed to make this with gluten and dairy containing ingredients

3.1.09

I want a job at Moshi Monsters HQ because they have a milkshake bar, cocktail bar, real live Moshi Monsters dancing around, a photo booth, a stall covered in sweets. You can colour pictures on the walls, whoosh down a slide to get downstairs, have your Tarot cards read, go to work wearing silly hats and dressed as a Moshi Monster….sounds great doesn’t it! Pretty pretty please?

Happy 5th Birthday Moshi Monsters.

I do like a nut… but I also thought they contained a billion calories so I didn’t eat them very often.

A few almond facts that I’ve found out

Did you know that almonds are high in;

• Protein
• Fibre
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Vitamin E
• Potassium
• Flavonoids
• B vitamins
• and many other health boosting benefits including stabilising blood sugars, weight loss and lowering blood cholesterol

Yes almonds are high in fat but lucky for us they are healthy fats, ones according to research we should eat more of.

I have been taking part in a challenge involving eating 28g of almonds daily for 21 days to see if it has any effect on me.

The biggest benefit I have found so far is that when I feel hungry, if I snack on a packet of almonds instead of reaching for a chocolate bar or biscuits, the almonds are just as satisfying, if not more, and my hunger is quashed for hours. This has got to be far far better for me than the chocolate or biscuits or cake.

I have also been suffering with extremely dry skin since the beginning of the year. I have been doing several things to try and improve this including eating almonds daily so I can’t say whether it’s a combination of these that have helped my skin but it is certainly a lot better than it was. We all know that good fats and vitamins help the skin and 28g of almonds each day provides 35% of your recommended daily value of vitamin E.

A recommended serving size is 28g or about 23 almonds and this contains 160 calories, not the lowest of calorie snacks but an acceptable one.  There are however a lot more calories in a bar of chocolate along with saturated fats so if almonds are used to replace regular high calorie snacks there has got to be benefits.

I have found putting the almonds in a pretty little tin tricks my brain into thinking they are my special treat and they have been perfect for that late afternoon slump especially when I have to sit in the car for hours waiting for the girls to do their dance lessons. Before it was quite easy to go out without any food, feel really hungry and pop over to the shop for a bar of chocolate. Now I feel full up snacking on the almonds. I have been encouraging my fourteen year old daughter to reach for a packet of these too instead of a bag of crisps which can be high in saturated fat.

I prefer to have my almonds as a snack (I pretend they’re my little sweets, delicious) but there are many ways to add a handful of almonds to your daily diet, there are lots of ideas on the Almond Board’s website including salads, muffins, truffles and dips.

This is definitely something I am going to try and keep on with and also encourage my children to do on a regular basis. Personally I think it would be beneficial for us to incorporate almonds into our diet regularly but perhaps not every single day. I think we will rotate this with other healthy snacks to gain maximum benefit from a variety of vitamins and minerals etc.

Disclaimer: California Almonds has asked me to take part in the Snack Happy Challenge. They have provided me with all I need to complete the challenge. For more information about healthy snacking please visit www.AlmondBoard.co.uk

Other information :

Four Great Health Benefits of Raw Almonds

Cholesterol: Top Five Foods to Lower your Numbers

Get ready for your Haven character break with a yummy home-made character cake

Baking is a great way to have fun with your kids and you can get ready for a May bank holiday by baking your own character cake at home. For this year’s May bank holiday Haven is sharing five simple recipes for the Haven characters’ favourite cakes that will get you and your little ones up and baking in no time!

Rory the Tiger’s orange and black stripey cake

Rory’s a big guy that always like to surprise his friends and play pranks – and he especially loves surprising his friends with his special tiger cake that has tiger stripes on the inside as well!

Simply separate your cake mixture into two and add cocoa powder to one half to make it dark. Then add both mixtures to a baking tin and draw a fork through it to create a marbled appearance. Once cooked and cut your cake will look like it has stripes just like Rory the Tiger! You could even add orange food colouring to the light half of the mixture and decorate it with orange and black icing.

Rory’s character breaks are from Mon 6th – Fri 10th May.

Greedy the Gorilla’s banana chocolate fudge cake

In true gorilla style, no Greedy the Gorilla character cake would be complete without a gorilla’s favourite ingredient – bananas! Combine mashed bananas with your chocolate cake mixture to make a delicious gorilla cake that all your cheeky monkeys will enjoy. Top with chocolate fudge icing and this will be a hard cake to resist!

Greedy’s character breaks are from Mon 3rd – Fri 7th June.

Polly’s very own strawberry cake

Polly’s favourite cake is a simple but delicious strawberry cake. Polly’s everyone’s best friend so when she hosts a picnic, she loves to cook up some tasty treats that all her friends will enjoy. Her strawberry cake has a layer of strawberry jam between two layers of pink sponge and if her sweet tooth is feeling extra sweet, she decorates it with strawberry flavour icing and freshly picked strawberries.

Polly’s character breaks are from Mon 8th- Fri 12th July.

Anxious the Elephant’s yummy peanut butter cake

Anxious the Elephant may be a shy one, but he’s never shy when it comes to asking for a second helping of his favourite peanut butter cake. Simply spoon three tablespoons of peanut butter into your usual sponge mixture and once cooked, spoon some dulce de leche (a thick, spoonable caramel sauce) between the two layers. Cover with a chocolate topping and decorate with chopped peanuts. Yum!

Anxious’ character breaks are from Mon 16th – Fri 20th Sept.

Bradley the Bear’s three-layer jungle cake

Bradley the Bear thinks of himself as a hero bear – out to protect the rest of his gang and make sure they behave themselves. He also loves going out exploring with his magnifying glass so his favourite cake is without a doubt a jungle cake as it’s the perfect place to explore. Make your own three-layer jungle cake by covering one layer with tiger print icing, the next with zebra print icing and the third with leopard print icing.

Bradley’s character breaks are from Mon 7th – Fri 11th Oct.

Get the little ones involved and start baking. If you need more details on how the cakes should look go to www.haven.com and check them out.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored guest post

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky to attend an afternoon tea event with Holly Willoughby hosting as she talked about how she uses her Windows Phone to stay on top of her hectic life as a working mum.

What is a Windows Phone do I hear you asking?

Well they come in all shapes and sizes but have the same features including; Live Tiles,  People Hub, Kids corner, Rooms and Sky Drive.

Live Tiles give you automatic updates on what you want to know is happening in ‘your world’ for example Facebook, Twitter, your diary. These can all be ‘pined’ onto your home screen for easy and quick access and viewing. The tiles can be moved, made bigger or smaller depending on priority in your life. The tile colours can also be changed to customise your phone…I am sure you can guess my favourite colour from the photo of my home screen. As you can see I have a big tile for easy access to the flashlight which I use a lot and I have extra big tiles, which you can’t see in the photo, for my messages and my phone calls. I have much smaller tiles for Facebook and Internet explorer because I don’t use them quite so often. I like playing around with the tiles and changing what I have on my home screen but of course there is also easy access for anything else that you want to use on the phone with just a scroll across the screen.

Another huge element of the Windows Phone is the Kids Corner. This is a brilliant feature that lets you control what your child has access to by giving them their ‘own’ section of the phone. This is a section where you decide which apps to have on it and from there the child cannot make any phone calls, update your twitter status or send any emails for you. Unless of course you want them to. So for instance in my Kids corner I only have games that I am happy for my five year old to play on. Even better a lot of the games and apps are free!

I have to admit to being slightly apprehensive about how to get easy access to photos taken on my phone without the faff of plugging it into my computer. However I am pleased to say there is Sky Drive which will copy all your photos automatically into a file which can be accessed from your computer. So, in the terrible event of losing or breaking your phone before you get home, you can rest assured that your photos are at least safe. It is very easy to download the photos to my computer from Sky Drive. Sky Drive isn’t just for your photos either, it stores videos, documents and notes too.

I would also like to mention ‘Rooms’. This is something that I really like the sound of but unfortunately none of my family have a windows phone so I couldn’t test it out but I can see it could also be brilliant to use with work colleagues for projects. These are private ‘rooms’ with information that can be shared among friends, or spouses, or children such as a shopping list, or a calendar, or even chats. I can see this becoming an invaluable device.

So, would I recommend a Windows Phone? Yes most definitely, I am very impressed as are my children and family. I have had to fight them all off for the phone which I think says it all…

As part of his blog tour I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to ask Ned Vizzini some questions about his new book ‘House of Secrets’. A fast moving fantastical story about three children taken on an adventure involving a book with dark power, warriors, a giant, pirates and witches. I’d highly recommend the book.

• Did you write the story with a film in mind?
I know that since House of Secrets came from an idea Chris Columbus had, everyone thinks we wrote the book to be a movie. But that’s not the case!
If anything, it’s the opposite. House of Secrets is an opportunity for Chris and myself to do things in a book that are too expensive for film—so we let our imaginations run wild to come up with the pirates, giants, and warriors of the story.

• Would you like to see the book turned into a film? There is so much in the book that is visually appealing, I could picture it all so clearly, lots of colours too with the forest, the sea, dragonflies, lightening, ice…
Thank you, that is very poetic of you! “The forest, the sea, dragonflies…” You make the book sound beautiful!

It would be great for House of Secrets to become a film but I don’t want to push it. Right now it’s a book and I have to be thinking about books two and three.

• What age is the book aimed at and if turned into a film what age would you like to see it made for? The book is quite creepy and gruesome in places.

The book is for 7- to 12-year-olds. I think the film could target the same audience. I know that the book has some violent and creepy things in it but all the books I loved when I was a kid had that stuff. The movies did too!

• There are strong characters in the book with quite specific skills and weaknesses. If you were casting for a film who would you like to see playing;

− Cordelia
Chloë Grace Moretz

− Brendan
Asa Butterfield

− Eleanor
Dana DeVestern from It’s Kind of a Funny Story

− Dahlia
Lin Shaye from Insidious

− Kristoff
Tom Hiddleston

− Slayne
Russel Crowe

− Will Draper
Daniel Radcliffe

− Penelope Hope
Morgan Smith Goodwin from the American Wendy’s Ads

− Captain Sangray
The Undertaker from all the best wrestling matches of all time

• I particularly liked the chapters when the house was floating, and then when it was being pulled by the Moray. I could really imagine it and think it would make great scenes in a film. Would this be filmed in the sea or computer generated?

I suspect that given the amount of action that takes place on the Moray (the pirate ship) in the book, you would need to have an actual pirate ship in the film. Luckily right now there’s one available in the United States for £51,000!

• Is there any music in particular that you think would be suitable to use for the film?

It’d be great if there was one scene where the Walkers were sneaking up on an enemy, and the guitar lick from “Barnburner” by Mongrel was playing. You can’t beat that one.

• Did you or Chris Columbus base any of the characters on yourselves and if so would you like to play that character if the book was made into a film?

Some of the personality traits of characters in House of Secrets—for example, Cordelia Walker’s love of reading, and Brendan Walker’s love of old-school video games—were based on my personality traits. And Brendan and Eleanor are names of Chris’ actual kids!

But no, I wouldn’t want a cameo in the film. I don’t do great on camera. I have a crooked mouth. Actually my whole face is kind of crooked.

• Would you like to play a behind the camera part in the filming of the book or would you rather wait to see the finished ‘product’

I’d be interested in writing the movie and getting production experience, not in actually manning a camera.

• Are there any characters that you feel couldn’t possibly be played by actors because you have such a strong picture of them in your mind?

Well, it would be hard for anyone but Mick Jagger to play Fat Jagger the colossus!

Ned Vizzini is the bestselling author of the acclaimed young-adult books The Other Normals, It’s Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah…. In television, he has written for ABC’s Last Resort and MTV’s Teen Wolf. His essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, the Daily Beast,and Salon. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets. His work has been translated into ten languages. He lives in Los Angeles.