Degustabox Breakfast Club (August) box

White shirts are ironed, pencils are sharpened, in the morning you start panicking because you forgot how to do up a tie. Yes, the school is back. And to help you focus at school or work, you need a good breakfast.
Breakfast Club is the theme for latest Degustabox.
This food box arrives every month and is full of foodie surprises. This monthly food and drink subscription box is an excellent way to discover products which have only just appeared in the shops or those which might have been around for while, but you haven't had a chance to try them yet.

Thanks to Degustabox, I have found new favourites to add to our shopping list, including some products which I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise.

Each time the box arrives, it's a total surprise. You get a good selection of foods and drinks.

If you haven't tried Degustabox subscription box yet and would like to have a go, I have a whopping £7 off discount from your first box (and you can unsubscribe any time) - just use a code 8EVI8 when you place an order.

What did we receive in the August Degustabox? Let's have a look.

Cereals are a great addition to your diet, and you cannot go wrong with a tasty selection from Dorset Cereals.
Dorset Cereals Spectacular Grains Raspberries & Apple with toasted spelt & popped buckwheat (3.49) is one of 3 flavours from Spectacular Grains range.
Nutritional information: 172kcal and 7.9g of sugar per 45g portion
Ingredients include grains (68%) [wholegrain toasted wheat flakes, toasted sweetened malted barley flakes, toasted sweetened malted spelt flakes, wholegrain malted oat flakes, wholegrain barley flakes, popped buckwheat, sultanas, dried apple slices and freeze dried raspberries, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and more.
This is a delicious combination of flavours and textures.
You will receive one of three flavours in your Degustabox.

If you are running out of time in the morning and cannot have breakfast at the table, don't skip it, just grab a cereal bar instead.
Boka Cereal Bars (£0.75) are perfect on-the-go meals. They are unique in having four green traffic lights - they are low in fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt, they are under 100kcal each and taste lovely.
Pop one in a school lunch box or sports bag fora healthy snack.

You will receive two flavours of the Boka bar. We got Choco Mallow (96kcal) and Apple Cinnamon (88kcal).

LioBites Smoothie Bites (£1.99) are new, healthy fruit crisps. They are made from fresh fruit, picked in season, blended and freeze dried to create crunchy bites.
We received Mango, Banana & Passion Fruit Smoothie Bites + Mango& Coconut Smoothie Bites. Both varieties are delicious.
These 100% natural fruit crisps provide1 of 5 a day, and contain no added sugar. They are gluten free and vegan, high in fibre, retain all vitamins.
Nutritional information: 49.5kcal and 14.67g sugar per 18g bag
And if you love baking, these snacks are suitable for home baking and cake decorations.
You can also add Liobites to your breakfast cereal.

If you can't function without a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, open a tin of Illy Instant Coffee (£5.85).
Discover the unique 100% Arabica Illy blend, with its smooth and well balanced taste. It has distinct sweet floral and fruity notes with caramel, toast and chocolate.

Good Hemp Unsweetened Dairy Free Drink (£1.60) is a dairy free alternative to milk that's nutritious and kind to animals. Made from organic hemp seeds, Good Hemp is 100% natural, vegan friendly, free from GMOs, dairy and lactose, gluten, soya and nuts.
I haven't yet tried this plant-based drink, but it's supposed to be good with cereals, hot drinks and smoothies.
Nutritional information: 53kcal per 250ml. It's a good source of Calcium and Vitamin D2.

John West Infusions Tuna Fillets (£2.29) are a range of tender succulent tuna fillets, delicately cut from the highest quality part of the fish and marinated to keep them tender.
Infused in oil that's a perfect salad dressing and available in three flavours: Chilli & Garlic, Basil and Lemon & Thyme (you will receive one of the flavours).

This tinned tuna will make a great base for a salad: add a bit of rocket, olives and diced potatoes or pasta shapes for an easy and tasty lunch. Or top up a baked potato.

Maggi Fusian Sticky Hoisin Duck Noodles (£1.39) is a handy kitchen cupboard product for a quick and easy lunch. Sweet soy, oriental spice and roasted duck flavours combined with sunflower oil and veggoes to create a satisfying noodle dish. Ready in just 3-4 minutes, you can eat it as it is, or add to a quick soup with a selection of vegetables of your choice.
Nutritional values: 273kcal and 4.4g of sugar per 1/2 pack.

You will receive either a packet of Maggi Fusian noodles or 2 packets of Maggi 3 Minute noodles.

Maggi 3 Minute Noodles (Chicken flavour) are ready exactly in 3 minutes. And again, either it as a light noodle meal, or use it as a base for a quick soup, with extra added vegetables and herbs.
Nutritional information: 260kcal and 0.5g sugar per serving.

My boys were pleased to see a bag of Rowntree's Randoms 30& Less Sugar (£1.39).

I appreciate that they are free from artificial flavours, colours and sweeteners but I am always worried about the sugar content. Kudos to Rowntree's for reducing the sugar in their popular Randoms.

Gunna Craft Soft Drinks (£1.09) is a new range of lower sugar soft drinks. You will receive two of four flavours.

The Original is a sparkling blend of natural gingers and cola tonic.
It offers a great taste, and is lower in sugar.
This recipe was inspired by the visit to Cape Town, where Steelworks is famed for its uniquely refreshing taste and natural flavours.
Nutritional information: no artificial colours or preservatives,; 73kcal and 16.2g of sugar per 330ml.

And finally the product of the month - Crooked Beverage Co. Alcoholic Soda (£2). You will receive one of three flavours, for example, we got Mother Moon/ Peach & Pomegranate. It sounds really good - a refreshing, sparkling, alcoholic malted soda made with natural fruit flavours,fruit juice and a lightly hopped finish.
Nutritional values: less than 5g of sugar and 46kcal per 100ml. Made with natural ingredients, without any nasties.

Disclosure: We receive Degustabox monthly for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are our own.

Her name was Rose by Claire Allan

Her name was Rose by Claire Allan has been promoted on social media as the must-read summer psychological thriller. The hashtags on Insta and Twitter were trending. Marian Keyes called it amazing.
I was delighted to win a copy of the book in the Instagram giveaway. If I didn't win, I'm sure I'd have bought it after seeing all the hype on social media. There are over 500 posts on Insta with hashtag #hernamewasrose.

The novel starts with a gruesome scene of a young mother being run over. Emily who was just a few steps behind the victim, is convinced the hit-and-run was meant for her. After splitting up with an abusive boyfriend several years before, she is paranoid about him taking revenge on her.
Shocked, Emily flees the scene, without informing the police that she was a witness.

Once the news hit the tabloids and social media, Emily feels drawn into the drama. She easily finds the Facebook page of the killed mother and becomes obsessed with the minutae of Rose's everyday life. She studies her photos, she reads the condolences written by her friends and husband. She becomes a morbid voyeur, and even attends the funeral of the woman whom she never knew.

Rose's online persona seems like a shining star of perfection: a beautiful home, a handsome husband and a very cute baby. All beaming smiles and sickly-sweet hashtags #feelingblessed and all that.

Maybe we were supposed to feel sympathy for Emily who has mental health issues, but I found her so annoying, that I'm afraid my compassion for her was spread very thinly. Her stalkerish obsession with Rose and her "perfect" family is bordering on criminal.
You have to be extremely immature to take everything you see online at face value.

Digressing from the book, just the other day I wasted time on reading a long thread on Twitter about an unrealistic portrayal of a morning routine by one of the London-based Instagrammers. You know, people who call themselves Influencers. The lady in question was sitting on a bed, covered with a bedspread with her own portrait, with framed pictures, standing precariously on the bed. There were lots of helium balloons, a stack of odd pancakes (many people made fun of them, saying they were Mexican flatbreads), and the most ridiculous placement of the Listerine bottle on the bedside table. The Twitter people were merciless. And while quite amusing to read, I just don't quite see what's all the hullabaloo is about. Nobody surely is that naive not to realise that most of Insta photos are staged. And why would you feel inadequate or insecure just because someone's bedroom on Insta looks like that?
Just because I have a mountain of paperbacks as tall as me on the little table, with packs of antacids, some cosmetics and an ipad, next to me, with a big poster of Angry Birds (thank you, Eddie) above the bed, occasional Lego on the carpet and not a single helium balloon in sight, I am not going to feel inadequate because someone made an effort to stage a photo shoot. Of course, my bedroom is not very exciting, unless you count an adventure with mice earlier in summer.
But enough of the Insta artifice and guile.

Let's go back to Rose, Emily and all.

Having escaped an abusive relationship, Emily is very needy and insecure, understandably so, but her desire to ingratiate herself with everyone in her new stage of life is distasteful.

Trying to become a substitute for Rose, in her mistaken belief, more perfect than the original, she even presumes to judge Rose as a mother, without having an ounce of evidence.
Some people are like that, delusional, and would convince themselves of the other's imagined sins. She asks herself, while holding baby Jack in her arms: "If she appreciated him - or did she ever lose her temper? Did she ever get cross when she hadn't had enough sleep and he was cutting teeth? Did she ever look at the stretch marks on her body and think they looked horrid?... Did she ever, even for a moment, regret becoming a mother or wish she could turn back time?" That's rich, coming from a woman who's never had a baby, and only babysat the overall placid toddler once in her life.

Emily is a pathological liar, and her credibility is under question. She is jealous of the dead woman and her supposedly perfect life.

The scenes of domestic violence give an insight in the mind of the abused women, who are vulnerable and who find excuses for their brutal partners. Reading accounts of domestic violence, it is horrifying how easy it is for some people to be manipulative and make you believe it's all your fault somehow, that you make them do that, you push them to behave like that.
The book addresses this and other dark issues.

The plot development was rather predictable, though had an unexpected twist. The epilogue was corny and rather out of place, it didn't fit the genre or thrust of the book.

Saying that I spent half a night yesterday, trying to finish the book, when my family was asleep, and nothing could distract me.

Toffee Marshmallow Crispies #ReadCookEat

School is back tomorrow. To sweeten the bitter pill, Eddie and I made a big batch of Toffee Marshmallow Crispies yesterday.
Having read Jane Linfoot's The Little Cornish Kitchen (<--- click for my book review) I've bookmarked a few food descriptions as an inspiration. If you are a foodie and enjoy baking, you will be drooling over numerous desserts featured in the book, from the pastel-coloured macaroons to a decadent chocolate roulade, from lemon meringues to berry sorbets, from the most delicious Eton Mess with lemon curd to a chocolate mousse cake with strawberries...

As Clemmie, the main heroine of the novel, masters the art of patisserie, the food descriptions become more and more sinful. I swear my waistline was expanding, just reading them.

I fancied making lemon cupcakes with blackberry frosting, but my piping skills are rather lame. I might try the idea one day when I'm feeling brave.

But it's the easy Toffee Marshmallow Crispies that I knew would be a big hit with my guys.
I've googled for a recipe, and found one for Toffeee and Marshmallow Rice Crispies on BBC Good Food.

These sweet treats appear in one of the later scenes in the book:

Jenny's beaming at us. "If you'd like to drink to that with tea back at the house, I've made some of Laura's special toffee crispie".
"You have?" Rob and I both turn together.
I'm thinking of the recipe cards. "With the marshmallows in?"
Another of my childhood favourites.
Jenny nods. "That's the one. It must be fifty years since she gave me that recipe..."
Rob's smiling. "I always licked out the saucepan for that."
"Me too." My mouth is watering as I recall the taste. There was nothing quite like that sticky sweetness.

Who could resist such a treat?!

For the full recipe please use the link above, on BBC Good Food site. I followed their recipe exactly as stated.

I didn't have soft butter toffees, and actually couldn't find soft toffees anywhere. Are soft toffees and fudge the same thing? Anyway, I bought a packet of butter toffees (Waitrose own), which are pretty hard and sticky-brittle, the type that when you bite into one, your teeth get cemented to it.

I wasn't sure if these toffees were going to melt, but they did melt.
Use a big  heavy duty pan for this job, and one that you don't worry about scratching later, when you need to clean it.
Melt 50g butter with 200g toffees, then throw in the marshmallows and keep stirring until you have a gloopy sticky mess.

Then add the rice crispies and mix thoroughly. The melted toffee starts to set pretty fast, so you need to act quickly.
Line a square brownie tin with foil or parchment paper and oil a little bit. Scoop the rice crispie into the tin and pat with a wooden spatula to flatten it.

It will be ready to cut in less than half an hour. It will be a bit soft at this point.

My boys loved it, and would have gobbled up the whole lot, if I didn't ration it.

Thank you to Laura and Clemmie for the inspiration - and of course, Jane Linfoot! - for writing such irresistible food descriptions!

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I will Pin all blog posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

Photo diary: week 35, project 365

To say I was lacking any inspiration this week would be an understatement. After taking hundreds of photos during our trip to Cornwall the week before, I just couldn't feign any enthusiasm to continue with photography. Hence the half-baked attempt at doing a few snaps, mostly of our garden and some food shots too.

While we were away, a couple of friends came regularly to water our potted plants and tomatoes in the greenhouse. As the heatwave has ended, my phloxes have perked up again. I love their sweet scent.

On Monday I popped into M&S and treated myself to a small box of chocolates. They represent the taste of the British Isles, so Scottish chocs are raspberry-flavoured, English have a hint of honey, Irish - cream liqueur, and Welsh - sea salted caramel. I haven't decided which is my favourite flavour, perhaps I should buy another box, just for the purposes of research, of course.

On Tuesday I only snapped a piece of bread with Cornish butter. Very inspired piece, without doubt.
But the butter was good.

On Wednesday I baked a batch of honey and matcha muffins.

We're going to have a big crop of apples again this year. On Thursday Eddie and I watched Titanic, hugging each other for comfort.

Cyclamens are taking over my garden at the moment. They usually bloom twice, in spring and in autumn, and they look so pretty.

Today Eddie and I spent a couple of hours, working on a 3d jigsaw puzzle, a model of the Solar System from Ravensburger. I must pat myself on the head, the puzzle was delivered this morning, and the review should appear before Monday. I've been very good. Now where's my chocolate?!

Ravensburger 3D Planetary Solar System Set (522 Pieces)

When the Moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars...

I can't pretend that I remember the song The 5th Dimension Age of Aquarius when it peaked no.1 in the charts (as I was just a baby then), but I used to listen to it as one of the songs on the golden oldies compilations, when I was a student. And I still remember some of the words...
This song somehow popped in my mind, when Eddie and I were busy building Ravensburger 3D Planetary Solar System set earlier today.

When it comes to quality 3D jigsaw puzzles, Ravensburger is unrivalled. We have quite a collection of 3D models from Ravensburger, and they decorate many a book shelf in our house.

We haven't found the spot for the Solar System yet, as it would take quite a bit of space if placed in the right order and distance. As the jigsaw puzzle comes with a beautiful poster, we think we'll put the poster on the wall in Eddie's bedroom.

All the planets could be attached to strings and suspended from the ceiling, but that would require careful planning and technical skills which we lack. Eddie's Dad can just about change a light bulb, but hanging a Solar system model in his bedroom is, I'm afraid, beyond his capabilities.

Image credits: Ravensburger

Eddie and I worked as a team, we have split the tasks in half and spent a happy couple of hours, working on and off with the puzzle.

There are 8 different planets to assemble. Once the whole set is finished, you have the Solar System in miniature, and it looks splendid.
All the planets are scaled to represent the individual sizes of the planets, hence the number of piece of each puzzle is different too. For example, Saturn and Jupiter are made of 108 puzzle pieces, Uranus and Neptune consist of 72 pieces, Earth and Venus - 54, Mars and Mercury - 27. There are 522 pieces in all.

As you can see, the pieces are curved and numbered on the inside, with a little arrow pointing the direction of the next piece to come.
All puzzle pieces are made of high quality plastic.
Once assembled, place the planets on the stands.

Thanks goodness, all planets were sorted into separate plastic bags, as before I opened the box, I was a bit worried about sorting them. I shouldn't have worried.

The magnificent colourful poster is a gift to any budding astronomer. It includes useful facts about each of the planets.

The Sun comes as a Sun mobile.

This beautiful educational Solar system set will make a super gift for any jigsaw puzzle fan, or any aspiring astronomer. It would also look fab in a schoolroom interior.

Disclosure: We received the puzzle for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are our own.

Farewell to summer

Ah, summer holidays, summer holidays, why do you have to come to an end? We loved that it didn't matter if we went to bed almost at midnight, or stayed in PJs until midday, who was there to judge?! We could have a picnic in the garden, read books in the summerhouse, pick strawberries from the strawberry patch (those that were't munched by the slugs first), have water fights in the garden and visit the milk shake shop on a hot afternoon...

What would we remember of summer 2018, when we look back? The longest heatwave?

In June we planned a 5-days-long adventure with Eddie when Sasha went on a residential trip to Butlins with his class. It didn't end as planned, as Sasha didn't cope with the change from routine, so we had to cut our adventure short.
But we still had a fabulous day at Legoland...

And a day in Brighton... staying in the room with the best view...

We enjoyed longer walks through the flood fields by the river Windrush...

Loved picking a handful of red currants after dinner...

Visited Sasha's new school...

Spent a small fortune in cafes...

Were ecstatic on the flight simulator.

Relished every minute of flying high on the swings...

Some of us were so tired after the playground antics, that we had to stop in town and have a little lie-in on the bench before going back home.

And then there was a fun birthday party for Eddie...

August was more of the same - leisurely trips into town, playground and cafes.
I took one zillion photos during our trip to Sennen Cove, Cornwall, and Eddie and I had fun, arranging some of them in a short video.




We also baked cakes and cupcakes, made fudge, watched lots of films, played football and read many wonderful books.

Farewell, summer! Hello, autumn!

And since Eddie is the main editor of my iphone movies, here is another Eddie-fest of summer memories.

Honey and matcha muffins

Did you watch the first episode of the GBBO yesterday? In the past I used to watch it on the iplayer, but since earlier this year Channel 4 dropped off the iplayer on our TV (or the other way around), I can only watch it on the laptop or ipad which is not ideal.
Since my dear husband is enjoying himself at the Venice film festival, the TV was available in the evening (otherwise he'd be glued to Netflix or Amazon, watching one thousandth episode of some American series).
A few days ago I was looking at the list of contestants on my ipad, and commented to my men - though more talking to myself - that most likely the first person to leave would be a pensioner, and all the young cuties would be kept until the victorious end, whether they are good bakers or not.
As it happened, I was wrong, the pensioner stayed, saved by a whisker (or should that be a moustache?!) after creating a very arty self-portrait in a brandy snap shaped as a postmortem mask. It was utterly bonkers and brilliant at the same time.
The young ladies were pouting and whingeing, but stayed put. So far I decided to root for Terry, Rahul and Antony.

One of the contestants, a super-confident French girl named Manon, used matcha in one of her creations. Which made me think that I do have a couple of tins of matcha tea in the kitchen.
I bought them with the best of intentions of staying healthy. The problem with matcha tea for me is that I don't like the flavour, it is like drinking powdered green algae off the stagnating water. Well, maybe marginally better.

I have tried in the past to make pancakes with matcha tea, but they were not met enthusiastically by my family.

Shall I try again to bake something with matcha? I wanted something simple and easy, no decorations or frosting, just something sweet for tea.
I also have several jars of honey in different degrees of crystallization. Would mixing honey and matcha work?

And here it is  - a recipe for honey and matcha muffins.

Honey and matcha muffins
Ingredients:
2 medium eggs
100g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
260g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
225ml milk
65g butter, melted
90g honey
2tsp matcha

In a deep mixing bowl beat two eggs with caster sugar. Add a pinch of salt, sift in flour and baking powder. Pour in milk, stir in together. Melt the butter and honey (if crystallised) and mix in the cake batter.
Pour one third of the cake batter in a smaller mixing bowl and add the matcha. Mix together until well combined.

Place cupcake cases into a muffin tin and fill in with the cake batter, in whatever patterns you desire. I made some plain honey ones, plain matcha ones and a mix of both.
Put the muffin tin into an oven preheated to 180C. Bake for about 18-20 minutes until the toothpick comes clean.
Remove from the tin to a wire rack. Eat warm, with tea or without.

The boys looked suspiciously at the muffins, but Sasha, strangely enough, ate two of them. Eddie opted for the plain honey one, as I thought he would.
They might look a tad scary (I'm not a GBBO material, and my bakes would give vapors to Prue and Paul), but actually taste pretty good.

I still have plenty of matcha left. Any suggestions on what to do with it, apart from the obvious drinking as tea?

Since I used some old-ish honey (and cleared one of the jars) and some of the nearly-forgotten matcha (there's still plenty left), I'm adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky at Madhouse Family Reviews, hosted by lovely Cheryl.