Hello my savvy savers! If you are subscribed to my Youtube channel you might of seen my latest video where I did an Iceland grocery haul. I do personally love the prices, deals and bargains you can find in store and online!
If you would like to do a Grocery shop with Iceland, you only need to spend £35 online for FREE delivery or £25 in store for FREE delivery.
Here are some discount codes for First time online customers:
everyone loves that smell of "fresh bread" when they walk down the bakery isle in their local supermarket, but how "fresh" is the bread?
I went shopping in my local Sainsburys the other week with my Mother. My mum is a huge fan of the Sainsburys bakery isle. She is always filling her basket with: Cheese twists, Giraffe bread, crusty rolls, cookies and so on. - Im guessing that makes her sound unhealthy, but i can assure you, our family does consume a well balanced diet with vegetables with most meals and helpings of fruit.
My mum decided she wanted some "morning breakfast rolls"
Under a big sign saying "freshly baked bread" mum picked up some rolls and they was really cold. she decided to squeeze one and it was rock hard in the middle. it was half frozen!
I tweeted Sainsburys telling them about their rolls. this is the response i got:
I always thought "fresh" meant that something was baked and had not been frozen, so i googled the definition of "fresh" and this is what came up:
As you can see it says "food recently made or obtained; not tinned, frozen or otherwise preserved" soooooooo if the bread rolls had been frozen, surely that means they are technically not "fresh"
now ive been doing some research and supermarkets can get away with this at times as the bread can be part baked in a factory and then frozen to be sent of to a supermarket so they can carry on baking it in store and so they then class it as "freshly baked" - also dont forget they add preservatives into this bread to make it stay so called "fresh"
I also know..... of a very popular bakery chain that doesn't sell fresh as they make out. we are made to believe that the products there are all freshly made in that store that day.
I gues its true that nothing is fresh unless we bake it ourselves!
so today is pancake day! so many people I know are on diets at the moment or have converted to vegan so they think they cant enjoy pancakes.....
I am going to tell you this is wrong, and making healthy vegan pancakes are very easy peasy to make!
the picture above is my vegan pancakes i made the other day and they was very delicious indeed!
im not one who tends to measure ingredients all that often and I personally believe you dont need to for this recipe as its all about getting the right consistory of batter.
Ingredients:
1 banana
oats
almond milk or coconut/soya/rice milk
cinnamon
method:
pour some oats into a blender and blend them until they turn into a flour
add chopped banana into the blender
pour in some plant based milk and and then blend all the ingredients together
check the mixture to see if you need to add any more milk and if so keep adding and blending until you get the right consistory.
sprinkle in some cinnamon and add us much as you like. remember to keep tasting until you get that perfect taste ad then blend all together again
once you have your batter ready pour circles onto a pre heated non stick pan and keep checking and flipping until cooked.
stack the pancakes up and add your favourite healthy toppings!
you dont have to add any topping if you dont want to as they are very tasty by themselves!
when my mum looked at the photo of my pancakes she said she could see the face of Jesus! what do you guys think?
if you try this recipe feel free to let me know and share pictures with me :)
food discovery box is a new trendy monthly/bi- monthly/quarterly food box subscription, delivered straight to your door!
what makes food discovery box different from other food box subscriptions is that you pick what you want in it as we all know that everybody has different tastes!
each month you get to choose some unique goodies what are rare British Artisan! they great thing is the foods are never available in super markets so you know you are trying something new and quirky!
all the foods on the website are from British food producers who take pride and care into making their great tasting foods in small batches and the website fully support them and help get there talent seen!
fooddiscoverybox.com contacted me and asked if I would be interested in doing a review about them. as soon as I checked the website I was like "ohhhh yeeeahh"
I found the website really easy to use and the menu had lots of new and unique foods to choose from like "beetroot ketchup" - of course chose this delicious sounding sauce to go in my box!
I also picked out salt and black pepper cashew nuts, honey roasted cashew nuts, raspberry white chocolate with popping candy and some coffee. i was then sent some garlic pickled eggs along with some apple and raspberry fruit jerky. - I have done a taste test of these products in my youtube video and you can either click the link here or carry on reading and at the end of the blog post i will post my video review.
Each month there is always a new menu to choose from. you choose five items to go in your box and then the food discover box team give you a 6th mystery item for free. if you cant decide what foods you would like to try or if you are a bit daring, there is an option where you can click "surprise me"
me personally being a #foodie loves this option! it is so exciting to see what foods arrive straight to your door step!
another great thing about the website is there is something for everyone. they always state what foods are nut free, dairy free, gluten free and so on...
with your box you get sent a little wallet with information about the products you have chosen to go into your box and maybe the odd recipe!
you can cancel your membership after one month if you so wish! - i love this option as other food boxes put me off by saying you need to be a customer for at least 6 months!
if any of you #foodies out there wish to give this amazing food subscription box a go i have a discount code for you!!shhhhhhh for a 50% discount, at the check out add the discount code "BEST FRIEND"
I have also made a video with lots of information and taste tests for you to watch:
if you are subscribed to my youtube channel you might of seen my "rainbow cake" video that i posted.
so my cake didn't end up looking as good as the beautiful, vibrant pictures that you find on pintrest, but it tasted AMAZING!
i am going to share with you my recipe and method in the most easiest way a can so anybody can give this ago!
ingredients for the sponge:
125 grams of soft butter
225 grams of self raising flower
150 grams of caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tea tablespoon of baking powder (or less)
a pinch of salt
a drop of vanilla extract
a few colours of gel food colouring (its more vibrant if you use gel)
ingredients for butter icing i don't use measurements for this. i just keep adding and mixing, with a little bit of tasting until i decide its perfect!
room temperature butter
dash of milk
icing sugar
method:
pre heat the over to gas mark 5 or 190c or 375f
put all the sponge mixture in to a bowel but not the food colouring!
use an electric mixer or do what i did and use a hand held bender to mix all the ingredients together until it forms a creamy mixture
depending on how many colours you are using, split the mixture equally into bowels. i used four colours so i only used four bowels.
once the mixture is evenly split, start adding your food colouring, for example: put blue in one bowel, pink in another and so on...
if you have more than one cake tin lucky you! i only had one cake tin the same size so i had to cook four sponges separately!
grease the tin well by using butter
add your first coloured mix to the tin (or if you have more than one tin, put a colour in each tin)
put your sponge/sponges in the oven to cook.
i didn't go by a time whilst cooking my sponges because im an idiot and never found out how long you keep them in an oven for! i would say check after about ten minutes to see how they are getting on. prick it with a fork and if the mixture does not stick it should be ready. of course make sure it is spongy before taking it out of the oven.
whilst the sponge/sponges are cooking start making the butter icing!
put in a few spoonfuls of butter into a bowel, with a drop of milk and icing sugar
mix until smooth and creamy
leave the delicious butter icing to one side until the sponges are cooked
once the sponges are cooked place them on a cooling rack to cool down.
do not attempt to put the butter icing on the sponges whilst they are warm otherwise it will melt and make your cake soggy!
next we are going to want to build the cake together
stick the sponges together using a thin layer or butter icing. if you like you could also add a layer of jam
next cover your cake it the rest of your butter icing!
you may want to add decorations or sprinkles but i left my plain.
i hope i have explained everything in an easy way and it is learning difficulty friendly!
if you have given this recipe a go feel free to tweet me your pictures @lambarini
also here in the video if you would like to watch my process of making it!
