Review | Flora Buttery

Hello my fellow soon to be Easter bunnies! hope you're all having a swell day.  So this review should of actually been done before Christmas!  Why do you ask was it not?  Well I simple reason really there was a big mess up.  I was supposed to be reviewing this product in October then there was a delay which I didn't mind until November. Then they said they sent out vouchers but hardly any of the people who were on the panel received them!  Basically in short I didn't receive my voucher to test this until late January.  This was a very upsetting experience in a bloggers eyes as I had planned to bake so many wonderful things with this at Christmas, but it didn't happen.  So basically I had to wait until I was baking again, I don't bake often you see even though I love to bake.  

So what did I bake with this?  Well if you have looked at the Spring Wishlist I've been doing over at my blog post, you will notice some flowerpot cupcakes.  Well my fellow fluffy clouds I decided to give them a go.  I got some silicone flower pot moulds at Hobby Craft for only £1!  I then got the rest of ingredients and made them with David. I did indeed replace the butter with Flora Buttery as requested in the panel.  They turned out like this.

So the taste test.  The good news is it didn't seem to taste any different to the normal un-salted butter from Asda which I normally use.  I didn't have to use too much for this recipe so maybe it would save you money instead of having to go out and get some butter? the buttery taste did come through though on toast but I for one like the butter taste so that was a win. However my other half did notice that the lid was kind of difficult to get off.

The Price

Now I know what your thinking "price doesn't always matter" but I'm pretty sure when your in a pickle it will. So can you save money by buying this, and then cooking with it if your known for excess amounts of baking?

Flora Butterly 500 g £1.70 (or 2 for £3)

I can't believe it's not butter  500G £1.65

Taken from Asda

Now obviously looking at that the "ICBINB" wins all by 5p.  But it also depends what sort of deals they have on at your local supermarket.  It also depends how much butter you need to use.  However seeing this and if you only need to use say 50g, then it would be well worth buying a pack of Flora, and using it as a cooking replacement for butter.

I hope this review put this into good perspective and there was a lot of helpful information.  I know this is not a good Easter Blog but I'll blog that (hopefully busy life and all that) on Monday the day after Easter. Should be a good one.  I'll show you what Easter activities we got and show you the Easter eggs my son got.  Until next time ta ta!

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Review | Upbeat Protein drink

Hello my lovelies!  Today I am reviewing the upbeat protein drinks!  The lovely guys over at upbeat sent me a massive parcel of goodies along with 2 vouchers for free drinks.  Here is what I received below.  I am so grateful and a lot has come in very handy, even if it did take me and my friends a while to figure out what the "egg" thing was ;D (It's a MP3 player by the way)

We've already used the bag for our lunch when we visited a park in a different town!  Now I'm not going to lie I wouldn't normally buy these,  there just not something that comes to mind.  If I'm low on energy I normally buy a snack bar or something similar.  With high protein and low fat though maybe I should be thinking of these more often?  However it does come along side the problem of actually remembering and of course finding them in the shop successfully (I'll come to that later on).

Before I was given this chance I had never heard of upbeat.  Anyone else or just me kept out of the loop again?  Upbeat is own by the company Good Whey, yet again I've never heard of them (opps). They have a website located here. Which I had to use as I couldn't find the drink in my local stores.  I advice everyone else using the site as well to find out where there nearest is sold.  

That's the number on problem I found with this site.  Even after using the site to find where my nearest store was it still wasn't available even after looking in where it was supposed to be sold.  Eventually I did find it sold in a Holland and Barrett store in Chelmsford.  First I tried the Mango and Passion fruit.  The texture was much like yoghurt so it didn't offer anything new to the department of healthy protein.  The taste was bitter I was not a fan of the Mango club.

However when I tried the strawberry it was much nicer on my tongue pallet.  It went down like a dream. I'm still not a big yogurt fan though so I doubt I would be in a rush to buy these again unless maybe I was on a diet.  However I have told myself not to diet this year.  Instead I am focusing on my teeth (which is going REALLY well bring on September!) 

I do however feel like this is a good product for mums to have if they have the convenience of a shop providing these on their doorstep or near their children's school.  I mean how many mums out there skip breakfast?  Come on own up I bet it's quite a lot right?  Also how many of you go through out the day snacking more then having a proper lunch as your to busy doing housework or work related stuff.  Like this companies aim is it's to "fuel the gap" and I think this will benefit ALOT of mums.

So all in all this drink is not for me but would be very helpful to mums out their that skip breakfast or need more energy throughout the day. Until next week!

*I was sent this product to review and asked to give my opinion about not only the product but the company too.  ALL opinions are unbiased and my own.

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Review | McCain ready baked jackets

Hello everyone.  So today I'm going to be talking to you about these bad boys.  That's right McCains new microwavable jackets!  I'm not going to lie I was a bit unconvinced at first.  I mean I've had microwaved meals in the past and they are never as good as the real thing.  With these my first thoughts were that the potato was going to be dry and not very satisfying.  Was that true? Well let's find out.

So I popped these in the microwave for the suggested time it had on the back of the box which was for about 5 minutes.  Longer if I re-call if you were doing more than one potato.  I decided to cook one each for me and David for dinner that night.  Obviously this was a big dinner for David so no surprise he didn't each much of it.  He still enjoyed it though but he left about 3/4.  I'm not surprised though as these were quite filling and normally I eat a whole jacket no problem.  

Obviously the skin wasn't crispy cooking them via the microwave BUT you also have the option of cooking them in the oven if you wish.  To my delight these jackets were not more dry as any other normal potato I would of cooked from scratch.  I always add butter before I add my topping anyway, but I was expecting to add more then usual but I didn't have to which was nice.

The only bad thing I would say though is I had to bung them back in the microwave for a few minutes longer as they got quite cold quickly.  Maybe it's because they were done in the microwave?  I've never had that problem when baking potatoes in the oven.  I think these jackets are a good source of healthy eating in just minutes if your running late on dinner for your family if say you've been out for the day.  Or if your a student these would be a good thing to buy having one per night.  They are on sale at Asda for £2.50 for 4, Which is about 62p per jacket.  There is however the Asda own range which is basically the same (though I have not tried these) for just £2 which sets it at 50p per jacket.  Still quite expensive so I would wait until they went on offer. 

Obviously there is always buying potatoes and baking them from scratch but like I said previously these are good when you're short on time.  When putting all the factors together I'd give this a rating of 3.5/5.  There good quality potatoes and a healthy way of filling your tummy.  They are also a great quick meal for four BUT the price is quite expensive and they got cold quickly.  I hope you enjoyed my review and found it useful,  until next week folks!

What is your favourite jacket filling?

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Review | Where has Polly gone?

Where has Polly Gone? A book promoting awareness of ADD/ADHD 

Where has Polly gone (not to be confused with where has all the rum gone ha ha) is a beautiful children's book.  This delightful read is aimed at children and promotes awareness of ADD/ADHD. 

Whilst reading this book I loved the illustrations and thought they were brilliant.  The pictures on their own tell a story which is great for children. As well as 3 other factors.

1.  Children can count and recognise shapes in the illustrations
2.  There are polygons on every page above the text, kind of used like page numbers.  so children can name the polygons and also count the sides each one has.

3.  This one I was not expecting but Geography.  Towards the end of the story Netta (the main character) explores the world.  You can spot out different countries and there monuments.

The story is easily broken up for children which makes reading easy to digest. I know this as I find it hard to read myself.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE books but I can never read them with ease.  I have no idea why but when I get to the end of a page I fall asleep.  Yes even if I'm enjoying it.  I for one would love to see this book in library's AND in schools.  I think it's very important that children learn about the difficulties some people have with life that some people take for granted.

So all in all a great book!

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Reveiw | Sure Maximum protection

So not a lot of people may know that I am a product tester.  I product test and write reviews on website for companies.  A lot of people may think "oh you just get free stuff to write good reviews" when in actual fact I test the product and give an honest review.  I remember one of my first product reviews being of Tesco's new cookies and they were hard and horrible. Anyway the product I am talking about today well I don't know if I can say anything bad about it, it is that good!  Today girls I am talking about Sure new maximum protection deodorant.  I was lucky enough to be handed a full size sample by Sure themselves to review and my god I am so glad they did as I never want to use a different one again!

First thoughts

So my first thoughts were "oh great another product that promises long last freshness but doesn't".  Especially considering I had already tried the sure maximum protect spray so I wasn't going to be easily convinced.  At first I got the packet out and it came in a nice smart box and was different to some of the sticks I had seen before. This one had holes in it not looking like a glue stick thank god.  It smelt nice and refreshing though kinda like soap I guess.  I was even more spectacle about it when I found out the price!  £5!  I was thinking to myself will this really be worth it I mean £5 is ALOT of money.

The test

So anyhoo I decided to give it a go and applied the deodorant.  It felt smooth and didn't feel sticky which was good.  In all honesty I carried out the day during house work and doing some play activities with my son.  It wasn't until it got to dinner time that I realised that I hadn't needed to reapply all day!  Normally I use Nivea 48hr protect but I still have to reapply it once a day.  With this deodorant I haven't had to do that at all!  Not even when going shopping or being in stressful situations!

The conclusion

My conclusion is that even though this product is £5 it really does what it says!  If you are a person who has to reapply there deodorant through out the day then this might just be the solution you are looking for.  I would even say that you might save money! Considering even if it is £5 because you don't have to keep buying it over and over again due to reapplying.  This is so good that after a week of using this I put my other deodorant in the bin!  The only thing I would have to say negative about this product is that they could of put more of the "glue" in it as the product is transparent and shows that they did not use all the space that was available.  Apart from that I give this deodorant 10/10

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