Review: Press’d Coffee – proper coffee in a squeeze!

I was sent a couple of little bottles of Press’d Coffee to try out. Pressd Coffees are little (48ml) bottles of 100% coffee concentrate. It looks like a syrup but without the sweetness. Each bottle contains enough for 16 cups of coffee and tastes like good quality filter coffee, not powdery instant.

I’m not entirely sure I could effectively function without coffee. It gets me going in the morning when I need to get cracking, and gives me a boost during the mid-afternoon slump. I am a coffee snob, I like the proper filtered stuff, thick black and strong, unapologetically tainted with milk and sugar. I don’t always feel I can justify making an entire 4 cup cafetiere just for me. Apart from the fact I always make way too much, there’s faffy washing up to take care of too.

Coffee Review: Press'd Coffee - proper coffee in a squeeze!

Press’d Coffee is made from 100% Arabica beans from Columbia and is available in three varieties-
– Original Columbian
– Vanilla Coffee
– Caramel Coffee

I was sent the Original Columbian and the Vanilla Coffee to try, so I took them to the Alpine Tea Room in Didsbury to try with my friend Lou who owns the cafe, like me he likes a decent brew, I trust his opinion and it was an excuse to go out and drink coffee with a friend.

Coffee Review: Press'd Coffee - proper coffee in a squeeze!

We tried both coffees black with no sugar, as nature intended. The Original Columbian delivered a rich coffee hit, deep and pure and an all round winner. Once we added milk and sugar the coffee mellowed slightly and turned into a nice afternoon brew.

The Vanilla Coffee for me didn’t really suit being drunk black, with milk and sugar added it brought out the rich vanilla flavours and made it a very enjoyable drink. I don’t normally go for flavoured coffees, but I could make the exception for this I think.

Lou agreed that the coffee was good, and worked out that at £2.99 a bottle it was just 18p per cup, which isn’t bad. The little bottles would be really handy to take out and about with you, to have at work, or in meetings, or take on holiday, or just to have at home, like me.

Press’d Coffee is available from Ocado.

Note: I was sent these samples for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Dear son, on your 5th birthday…

Dear Ben,

I’m writing this here because you know what your dad is like for putting things in a safe place and then losing them forever. I’m sorry, I’m going to get all squishy about you now, I’m not sorry actually, because you should never be sorry for loving someone.

Dear Ben, today you are five years old. In your head you’re a big boy now, able to do everything yourself, apart from dealing with buttons, zips and fiddly yoghurt pot lids. I look back over the last five years and see what an incredible feat of development childhood is, how you’ve gone from completely dependant on me for everything, to where you are now, shouting at me because you can’t get into your pudding quickly enough.

You are awesome. You take so much of life in your stride. For most of what you can remember of your life I’ve been “poorly” or in chronic pain as the doctors call it. You can’t remember me chasing you around, swinging you over my head, rolling around giggling with you. I can.

I don’t think you mind (yet) that I can’t do those things any more, and you help me out, taking my shoes off, doing my bending and lifting for me, fetching and carrying for me. You’re a star. At five years old people think you shouldn’t have to “care” for someone else, but caring for other humans we love is part of life and part of loving someone. Selflessness seems to be an increasingly rare quality, and my son, you have it in spades.

You are so full of love for everyone, you tell me you try and play with everyone in your class so no one feels left out, that you love everyone in your family best, and that you love dogs. Really love dogs. It’s a very good thing to love dogs Ben, dogs will be your best friend for life if you let them, you’re never lonely if you have a dog.

I can’t believe that you’re five now. Just like I won’t believe it when you’re 10, or 18 or 21 or buying your first house. Time is a horrible thing, it moves too fast when you want to grab it and hold it to your chest, like a tiny little baby, or a five year old boy, or a grown up lad with his first broken heart.

Time ticks on, runs away from you, the trick is to make the best of each moment, you might not get it right, but good enough with no real harm done is often the best you can hope for. Life is far too short to be unhappy, so be happy and if something is stopping you from being happy, change it.

Ben, you fill my heart with so much love and happiness, your dad too. I hope you have a brilliant birthday, that you like your new bike and all of your presents, and that you enjoy having all the people who love you best around you on your special day. Keep being brilliant Ben, because you are.

Love you to the moon and back!

Mummy xxx

5th birthday

Having a handmade Christmas – Christmas Ink Stamps

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noted that this year I’ve decided to make my own Christmas cards. It’s something I’m doing because it’s a bit nicer to get a handmade card, it’ll save us a few pennies and it’s just a nice calming thing to do of an evening.

To give my cards the final finishing touch I have had a couple of ink stamps made up by Stamptastic. The first stamp is for cards and other handmade gifts and says “Lovingly handmade by the Arschavir Family”, and the other, which is for gift tags and such like says “To…Merry Christmas love from The Arschavir Family”.

Each stamp costs £15, which if you make a lot of handmade cards and gifts will be well worth it. The stamps themselves have lovely crisp detailing and are nice and chunky to hold and stamp with.

I am planning to buy some brown parcel labels and stamp those with the gift tag stamp, I always find gift tags a bit faffy but essential and I think the stamp will give a good finish to a nicely wrapped gift.

The ink pads come in a range of colours and cost just £3.50, and will last a long time, only needing a little spritz with water if they start to dry out a little.

Christmas Ink Stamps

The stamps came from Stamptastic who have an online shop with everything you need for your personalised ink stamps, the designs are crisp, attractive and interesting. They have quite a few different Christmas designs to choose from, so if you enjoy crafting, or want to save yourself the hassle of writing out gift tags, or need an attractive address stamp or similar, have a look at what Stamptastic have to offer.

I’m really pleased with my ink stamps and I think they give my Christmas cards and gifts the final flourish they deserve.

Note: I was given the stamps and ink pads free of charge for review purposes. All images and opinions are my own.

My Sunday Photo 8.11.15

Okay, okay, maybe this isn’t the best picture I’ve ever taken, but it’s one which will always remind me of our first visit to our local firework display. For 15 minutes before the start he stood with his fingers in his ears, nervous, unsure. But then the display started and although the fingers firmly stayed in his ears, he loved the ones which went Whhizzzz and liked the BANGS and the million thousand sparkly stars in the sky. He’s asked to watch the fireworks each night since. I’m calling that a success!

Curry Night with Co-operative Food

Cooking and eating are important activities in our house, my Dad (now known as Grandad) comes round for his tea at least once a week, it’s our way of ensuring that he eats a decent home-cooked meal regularly and it’s an excuse for us to have a “gravy dinner” with extra veg or something similar. Sometimes when I’m just too busy to cook we’ll get a takeaway, or get some ready meals in.

As a family we all love curry, after all it is the national dish! The problem with curry is that we all like different things, the small boy loves chicken korma, hubs likes a lamb rogan josh, Grandad likes a chicken tikka marsala and I’m a vegetable biryani kind of girl. It’s impossible to cook a curry we will all be happy with, takeaways or ready meals are where it’s at. I had noticed in my local Co-op that they’d recently launched a new range of curries, so we jumped at the chance of trying them when we were asked to have our own curry night at home.

co-op curry

We were sent the Co-op Loved by us Chicken Tikka Masala and pilau rice (500g £3.59), the Co-op Loved by us Chicken Karahi and pilau rice (500g £3.59) and the Co-op Loved by us Bengali Vegetable Masala Curry with pilau rice (500g £3.59) to try. These curries are individually priced or are available in a 2 for £6 offer.

The new range of 12 curries from Co-operative Food has been created by chef, Pratap Chinna who has over 35 years experience as a chef and has been creating exotic recipes for retailers for the last five years.

My first impression was that they smelt delicious, the Chicken Kahari one especially filled the kitchen with a lovely, mouth-watering smell which has the boys running to the table for their tea. The meals are very generously portioned, I was unable to finish mine it was so big, it’s a good sized meal for a good sized appetite.

We served our curries with naan bread and poppadoms, because no curry is complete without them. Hubs had the chicken kahari which he really enjoyed, it looked and smelt good, with big chunks of chicken and lots of sauce, he said he’d definitely have it again. The packet said medium and it had a kick of heat and was the hottest of the three curries we tried.

co-op curry

Grandad had the chicken tikka masala, again this was a good sized portion which he struggled to finish, it had a good creamy sauce and nice chunks of chicken, he enjoyed it and said he’d eat it again (which is massive praise from my Dad).

I had the Bengali Vegetable Masala Curry which was full of lots of different vegetables, the sauce was spicier than I was expecting but it was flavoursome and very filling.

As well as the price and the portion size, what I also liked about them was their calorie counts – ok so the cream-based chicken tikka marsala was 702 calories for the whole ready meal, that’s probably a lot less than a takeaway,the chicken kahari was a decent 583 calories which makes that a pretty healthy option for a meal, and my vegetable marsala was just 449 calories. They’re not made to be low-fat or low calorie, but if you’re keeping tabs on that kind of thing I thought these were pretty good calorie-wise.

We’re giving Co-op curry the thumbs up!

Kate & Mim Mim – A Christmas Wish DVD

Christmas seems terrifyingly close this year, the big day is thundering ever closer, but I’m pleased to say that I have started my Christmas shopping, whether I’ll ever finish it is another thing altogether. One thing we always get are Christmas DVDs, they’re a nice thing to watch as a family and a nice thing to give as a gift too. CBeebies fans will no doubt be excited by the Kate & Mim Mim – A Christmas Wish DVD which is released on 9th November.

For those not in the know, Kate is a feisty, imaginative 5-year-old girl and Mim-Mim is her purple toy bunny. Whenever she has a problem to tackle or a puzzle to solve, Kate and her purple playmate Mim-Mim twirl off to the magical land of Mimiloo where she and her friends can be anyone and do anything.

Kate & Mim Mim - A Christmas Wish

The Kate & Mim Mim – A Christmas Wish DVD contains 7 episodes as well as an exclusive music video, this festive DVD makes the ideal Christmas gift for any Kate & Mim Mim fan. It is 88 minutes long and was a popular pick for the small boy who watched it all the way through, which takes some doing for an easily distracted boy.

The DVD contains the following festive episodes –

Kittens & Mittens
While Kate and Mom are looking after a box of kittens, the box tips and they run all over the house. In Mimiloo, a flurry of mitty kats have overtaken Lily and Boomer’s house! Kate cleverly spots something they can use to round up the mitty kats and lead them home to the Winter Waterfalls.

Snow Bowling
Kate wants to build a snow fort, but there isn’t enough snow in the yard. In Mimiloo, Kate and her friends go snow bowling in the Winter Waterfalls. They use snowballs as bowling balls and snowmen for the pins. But when the gang slides down into an ice cave, Kate will have to think creatively to get them out!

A Storybook Ending
The storybook Mum is reading to Kate is missing its last page! In Mimiloo, Boomer can’t sleep because he’s lost his favourite book so Kate and Mim-Mim team up with their friends to act out the story. Mim-Mim doesn’t like being the big bad boogideebear and creates a clever new ending to the story.

Chilly the Snowman
Kate’s sad because her snowman is melting! In Mimiloo, it’s a sweltering hot day so Kate, Mim-Mim and their friends head to the Winter Waterfalls to cool down – only to find that all the ice is melting! To re-freeze the waterfalls, Kate will have to find Chilly, the snowman who keeps the Winter Waterfalls cold, snowy and frozen.

Twinkle Twinkle
Kate sees a falling star shoot across the sky and wonders where it landed. In Mimiloo, Kate, Mim-Mim and their friends find the fallen star in the Forever Forest. It’s just a baby, so they must find a way to reunite it with its mama in the nighttime sky.

A Wish for Christmas (double length episode)
It’s a stormy Christmas Eve and Kate worries that Dad won’t get home in time to put the star on the Christmas tree. In Mimiloo, Kate tells her friends all about Christmas, and everyone is excited to send a wish to Santa Claus. But when a blizzard stops their letters in their tracks, it looks like Christmas will be ruined!

Lighter Than Air
While playing catch in the backyard, Kate’s ball goes over the hedge, and Kate is too small to climb over. In Mimiloo, Mim-Mim accidentally squishes one of Gobble’s pumpkins, which makes him wish he was lighter. Using one of Tack’s inventions, he becomes the weight of a balloon! But when the gang runs into trouble, only heavy Mim-Mim can help.

The Kate & Mim-Mim – A Christmas Wish [DVD] is available from a range of retailers including Amazon and has an RRP of £7.99 making it a great stocking filler!

Note: We were sent a review copy of the DVD free of charge in return for this write up. All opinions are our own.

Unboxing my Degustabox October 2015

A couple of days ago we received our Degustabox, a box of interesting food and drinks, this month there were slightly fewer sweet treats and drinks than in previous months, but there were plenty of interesting things to munch on, you can watch me unbox my October 2015 Degustabox below….

This month the box contained the following goodies…

9Bar – Carob covered healthy snack bars, 5 bars £3.49
Cirio – Classic passata and chopped tomatoes £2,25
Lorina – premium French lemonade with coconut and lime £1.49
The Snack Organisation – Freeze dried apple pieces £1 per pack
The Snack Organisation – Sweet chilli rice crackers £1
Liberation Foods – yummy fairtrade oven baked peanuts £2
Kabuto Noodles – tasty noodles in a pot £1.99
Chip Strips – New style crisps, 2 packs in the box, £2
A full value voucher for President butter

For the Db’s Discoveries this month there were-
Provena – gluten free oat muesli £3.79
Appy Drinks – Juice drinks for kids £1.99

We’ve previously tried the Appy Drinks which were a big hit then and remain so today. The juice boxes contain no added sugar or preservatives and are made from natural ingredients. The small boy loves them and they’re a nice after-school treat.

It was nice to get the passata and chopped tomatoes, both store-cupboard ingredients I usually use a few times a week, but my favourite things in this box were The Snack Organisation sweet chilli rice crackers – really tasty crunchy crackers which are lovely on their own or with dips, and fairly low calorie, I’ll be buying these again!

My other favourites (yes I am a snackaholic) were the Chip Strips, these are really hard to describe, like wafer thin pieces of poppadom but in cheese and barbecue flavours. Both the small boy and his Grandad enjoyed these lovely snapable snacks, though I did wonder if they’d be structurally sound enough to hold big dollops of dip. They didn’t last long though, good snacks never do!

An honourable mention must go to the Liberation Foods fairtrade peanuts. Little 40g packets of peanutty joy. Oven baked and liberally dusted with flavour, these are excellent snacks to munch through while watching TV with a drink.

I am reliably informed that the next Degustabox is a festive box of treats – so I can’t wait for that!

Degustabox October 2015

Grab your discount! If you’d like to try Degustabox for yourself, you can get£6 off your first box with this discount code BLDEG15. You can find out more about Degustabox on their website.

Note: I was sent this Degustabox free of charge for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Our low-key Bonfire Night celebrations

I’ve never been a big fan of Bonfire night, it’s always seemed a bit on the dangerous side for my liking, flying fire which explodes? No thank you very much. In previous years we’ve enjoyed a somewhat low-key, safety concious celebration, but this year we’ve decided to cast all my health and safety fears aside and go to a local display. But that will have to wait until the weekend, on the 5th November itself we’ll be spinning out our usual celebratory fayre.

Food
Hot dogs (or bangers) are the order of the day, always with fried onions and mustard. This is always followed by a thick slice of Parkin and custard.

We also make “sparklers” which are really easy to do, take a breadstick and dip one end in melted chocolate, then dip that in hundreds and thousands. It’s something even little toddlers can do and it’s quick, sticky, chocolatey and fun.

Fireworks
Because of the full horror of 1980s public information films I have a fear of fireworks (and pylons), but I feel I must tip my hat to tradition, so we usually get a packet of sparklers, don full safety gear, including having a bucket of water close by, and we stand in the garden waving our sparklers about. It provides about 4 minutes of fun. Total. But that’s enough dicing with danger for one night.

After we’ve done with our sparklers we tend to press our faces up against the window and watch everyone else’s displays from the safety of our kitchen, earnestly chewing our way through a bag of treacle toffee.

Now the small boy is nearly 5 (how did that happen?) he’s a bit more interested in things like Bonfire Night, we’ll be printing off some of these really handy Bonfire Night activity sheets from Pip Ahoy! to add to the evenings entertainment. There’s a poster to colour in, a spot the difference puzzle and a recipe to make some yummy toffee apples!

Do you have any Bonfire Night traditions?

bonfire night

Review: Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale DVD

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely on the countdown to Christmas now. My head is filled with plots and schemes for making the run up to Christmas a magical one for the small boy and our little family. One of the things we like to do is snuggle up on the sofa and watch Christmassy DVDs together.

As a child I used to love Peter Rabbit, so I was naturally thrilled when he returned to our screens just in time for my son to enjoy it too, Peter Rabbit and Friends is a series we do watch and enjoy together, so I was really pleased to be sent a copy of Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale DVD from Abbey Home Media. The DVD was released on Monday 2nd November and it’s the perfect DVD to watch with your little ones this Christmas.

Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale DVD

This new DVD features Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale and seven other adventurous wintery episodes from Peter, Benjamin, Lilly and friends. Episodes on this festive DVD include –

Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale – When Mr. Bouncer gets too sick to make the important holiday supply delivery, Peter and Benjamin take it upon themselves to brave a blizzard (and Mr. Tod) to get the job done and meet a new friend along the way.

The Tale of the Uninvited Badger – When Tommy Brock decides he’s had enough of the cold, he takes shelter by the fire inside the Bouncer’s Burrow. It’s up to Peter and his friends to devise a way of getting the grumpy badger out and to make sure he doesn’t come back!

The Tale of the Runaway Rabbit – Peter is left to babysit Cotton-tail but can’t resist an exciting event at the Squirrel camp. He brings his sleeping sister along but soon must rescue her when she wakes up and crawls away

The Tale of the Stolen Firewood – When Peter, Lily and Benjamin go out to collect firewood, they soon find that not one but three predators are after some too. Can the rabbits stage a series of daring raids to retrieve it?

The Tale of the Grumpy Owl – When Old Brown takes Peter’s Journal, Peter must choose between saving his most precious possession and saving a friend.

The Tale of the Lucky Four-Leaf Clover – When Benjamin finds a four-leaf clover, Peter tricks him into thinking it brings good luck. It’s harmless fun until Peter’s prank accidentally leads Lily into Mr. Tod’s dangerous clutches!

The Tale of the Big Move – When Lily’s father decides to move the family out of the Lake District, Peter comes up with a clever, but dangerous, plan to change Dr. Bobtail’s mind.

The Tale of the Greedy Fox – When Peter tells an impulsive lie, which leads Jemima Puddle-Duck into Mr. Tod’s clutches, he must act fast to stop her from becoming the fox’s dinner!

With over 100 minutes of animated action, Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale DVD was a real winner for our family, lots of action, lots of adventure and lots of festive fun. For more information about Peter Rabbit and Friends you can join the Peter Rabbit Club on Facebook.

Is it that unusual to be attached to your family car?

I love cars, I’ve always been a bit obsessed with engines. Growing up my Dad would let me help him out, changing the oil, topping up his battery, looking after the family car. I learned lots of practical skills which have stood me in good stead over the years. Sadly (I’m not sad) I never learned to drive. A broken ankle mid way through my lessons stopped me, and by the time I was ok to drive I was at uni and too poor to pick it up again. Now I consider it my gift to the world that I cannot get behind the wheel. I’m still a massive petrol-head despite my lack of licence, so when hubs does anything to do with our family car, I’m all over it.

We’ve had three cars during our life together, the first (and arguably our favourite) was a Citroen Saxo, a nippy little thing we called Harry we inherited from my mother in law. Harry was a belting little car and we drove thousands and thousands of miles together with hardly any problems. Sadly Harry met his end in a crash on the Mancunian Way. Harry was the only fatality, thankfully. We cried when we said goodbye to Harry and still miss him over ten years later.

After Harry came a Citroen C3, it was a slight panic buy. They’d not been available for long and seemed to be a nicely designed car with the mod-cons Harry never had. Whereas Harry was nippy and a lot of fun, Vera was a sensible workhorse. Plodding along the motorway and cornering like an overloaded double decker bus. The Citoren C3 seemed pretty prone to problems. We were never that much in love with Vera and when I got pregnant and we realised we needed a bigger car we were not that sad to see her go. Sorry Vera.

In 2010 we bought our current car, a Citroen C4 (are you sensing a theme here?). We’ve not actually named this car, which is remiss of us. He is a solid workhorse but with Harry’s nippiness and loads of room for all the baby stuff we needed to cart around with us in the early days. He’s a keeper, or at least we’ll keep him until bits start falling off.

I think we’d really struggle without our car. We don’t use it every day any more, but we do use it for big shops and for going on adventures. I am very fond of our car. It’s gone on a million adventures with us with hardly any trouble at all. It was the car we brought our newborn son home from hospital in. We will be sad to see it go when it finally gives up.

Is it so unusual to be so attached to your family car?

Is it that unusual to be attached to your family car?