Culinary Christmas

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What festive foods will you be exploring over the Christmas period? I'm going with the following items, see what you think.

A meal is not a meal without crusty bread as either an accompaniment or a starter. Imagine crusty bread, balsamic vinegar and rich, fruity olive oil. I love dipping and swirling the bread, and the contrasting taste and textures is fantastic. There is no better olive oil than Filippo Berio with its rich, fruity taste and Italian heritage.This Christmas they have released a special, limited edition 1L tin which features one of Italy’s most iconic landmarks, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The unique, limited edition tin is stunning and going to be well used over the Christmas period along with crusty bread for dipping, on the roast potatoes and honey-roast parsnips, and along with some honey and lemon juice for salads.

Available for £6.49 (RRP)

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Most cooked meals in this house during Winter are accompanied by cranberry sauce. I adore it, to the point where five years ago my dad bought me a picnic hamper packed full of jars of the red, fruity sauce and I managed to get through every jar before the expiry date!

At Christmas time, the humble cranberry deserves the special treatment and that is what Owen Potts has done:

This cranberry sauce has been blended with honey to create a sweet and delicious accompaniment to the traditional Christmas meal. Made with over 40% cranberries and over 10% honey, you know that you're going to be getting a quality sauce on your plate on Christmas day.

Available from main supermarkets for £1.89 RRP

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As far as my dad is concerned, the Christmas Day buffet tea is not complete without a jar of pickled onions. He's not the only one now either. I thought I'd managed to not marry my father but Mr. TheBoyandMe and he agree on this requirement.

Garner's Pickled Onions are a tad more special than the regular jars on supermarket shelves. The traditional pickled onion is marinated in an exclusive new blend of rich spiced vinegar with whole mustard seeds, something that my dad will enjoy immensely. The spices make the onions more seasonal while the mustard seeds provide that additional burst of flavour to waken up tastebuds after the dullness of turkey and stuffing. All presented in a beautiful Kilner jar which helps to seal in the flavour and freshness during the Christmas period.

Available from most supermarkets.

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I get a bit bored with the usual Christmas pudding, Stöllen cake, yule log etc. at Christmas time. I love cheesecakes and a New York style cheesecake is my most favourite. The English Cheesecake Company have a range of sumptuous cheesecakes which are a perfect addition to the Christmas dining table.

Feast your eyes on this baby:

This is a Brandy Snap Cheesecake. Isn't it a thing of beauty? Seriously! Look at the depth of that base and the curls of the brandy snaps! And trust me, they were gorgeous and crunchy, sweet and smooth. The thick vanilla, cream mix of the cheesecake is completely luxurious and laced with a hint of brandy butter. It is smooth and leaves the most amazing after-taste. All on a thick digestive base which is sweet and crunchy and a delicious contrast to the thick cream.

If you're after something different for a Christmas dessert, then you really should investigate their range. Why should the most important meal of the year be let down by a Value Christmas pudding?

Available for £26.50 from The English Cheesecake Company

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Christmas is not Christmas in our family without a tub of biscuits, and which better biscuits to go for than Fox's? This Christmas, Vinnie the gangster panda has put together a selection in a Limited Edition tin.

It's got all the traditional favourites in there: Choc Fudge, Original Ambers, Party Rings, Jam & Cream Rings and Butter Crinkle? But if anyone goes anywhere near the Golden Crunch Creams, then I shall harness my inner Vinnie, and there will be a war!

Available for £8.00 in Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison's

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I'm not a fan of nuts, I think they taste like wood which amuses Mr. TheBoyandMe greatly. However, he adores nuts and every Christmas we have bowls of different types lying around on surfaces. His favourites are pistachios and this year he'll be trying these from Wonderful Pistachios.

With four flavours out (Roasted & Salted, Salt & Pepper, Sweet Chilli and No Salt) there is a flavour to suit everyone. As Mr. TheBoyandMe likes nuts and spicy flavours, I gave him the Sweet Chilli to try out. "Sweet Chili isn't precisely a traditional flavour, but it's not excessive; after the first mild kick, it settles into a very pleasant spicy feeling that lingers for a while afterwards and gives a certain more-ishness that makes it difficult to stop eating them!"

Available in most supermarkets now.

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There's now't better to accompany a cheeseboard for Christmas Day supper than a lovely selection of pates.

These scrummy pates and terrines from Castle MacLellan in Scotland are divine and very high quality. Between the pair of us we've sampled the crab terrine, the salmon pate and the oven-roasted mushroom pate. There are some imaginative flavours which would suit the Christmas dinner table well.

Keep an eye out for these in supermarkets.

I was sent samples of these products to try for the purpose of this review. Our opinions are honest and unbiased.

Homemade Christmas Cards (A Cheat's Guide)

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This morning I decided that The Boy and I would get creative and make the Christmas cards that I'd been intending to make with him for the past month. With Christmas being only a week and a half away I decided that it was time to get a move on!

A while ago I bought two tubs of foam stickers from Hobbycraft. They were £4.99 each and contained glittery foam letters, Father Christmas heads, reindeers, Christmas trees, gingerbread figures, stockings etc. So using these, some white card, blue paper, snowflake sequins, gold stars and glue we set to work.

First I cut the white card to A5 size, folded it in half and then cut a piece of blue paper to the same size. Then I cut a wavy line down the centre of this to make two skylines for two cards. Sticking these to the top half of the card I had an instant Winter snowscene. The Boy then created his cards really quickly and easily using the foam shapes. We decided on Christmas trees and he peeled the backing off and stuck them down. A gold star on the top of each tree, some dots of glue and then snowflake shapes and the card was finished!

Following this The Boy decided he wanted to try and use the gingerbread figures, one of which is a mummy and one a daddy. He was very annoyed that there wasn't a baby figure so he dumped the idea of it being a daddy and decided it was mummy and baby! (Ha!)

In total we made eight cards, just for immediate family members and I think they look rather fab personally. And in total it took an hour with minimal mess (something I'm not adverse to) and maximum enjoyment.

If you've got a quick and easy craft activity with minimal effort and maximum glitz factor then please link up to the pretty linky thingy below and let's share our ideas!

A Weekend Full of Tots: Both Big and Small

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I intended to write just one post about the TOTS100 Christmas Party but I got carried away talking about the Butlins resort at Bognor Regis so decided to split them into two posts.

When I heard about the event, I immediately checked with a couple of others to see if they were going and signed up. I was nervous as hell about going to the event because I felt like I was surrendering my anonymity, however at the same time I was desperate to meet some other bloggers (I rarely get invited to events) and meet up with Jenny and Helen who I'd previously met. The three of us were pretty much desperate for a break away from it all and we willingly jumped in the car on Friday evening to drive the three and half hours down to the South coast.

We were quite lazy on Saturday morning but eventually got ready to leave our cocoon of a hotel room and venture over to find out what Butlins had in store for us. In the foyer I noticed a couple of other mummies and deduced that they were Mummy and The Beastie and Mummy, Daddy and Me Makes Three. We chatted briefly to them, admired the decorations and Christmas tree and played jumping while waiting for Mummy Mishaps to come and rescue my poor, neglected son (I'd forgotten to bring a coat for him, that's what comes of leaving the house with him in his pyjamas and sleeping bag!). Thanks Burton for lending him a coat for the weekend!

We headed over to the Skyline Pavillion for lunch, had a mooch around and had a good run around on the chaotic soft-play. We enjoyed a puppet show which had some fabulous puppetry and dancing courtesy of the Red Coats, those ladies earn their bobby-socks and blazers!

In the afternoon, while The Boy had his sleep and Mr. TheBoyandMe rested his eyelids, I met up with the other 34 bloggers for the afternoon reception that Sally had arranged for us. Having already seen a tweet from her a few days before about boxes from Hallmark, I suspected that something was on the cards for us and she didn't disappoint. We were split into four groups for the purpose of socialisation and given an hour to decorate an empty Christmas tree using the contents of the middle table.

A few of our team raced for a tree, while a couple of others grabbed baubles. Unfortunately, one of the other groups doubled up on the lights, sellotape and scissors leaving us without any and we managed to wrap a large selection of objects without either sellotape or scissors. What Mellow Mummy, All About The Boys and I can't do with ribbons isn't worth mentioning!

Ably assisted by one of the lovely twins from Here Come The Girls 'helping' with the baubles, and Bloggomy doing her twirly things with ribbons (and a kind Butlins staff member who found us some lights), we managed to get a very sophisticated tree done with time to spare. Just enough time to steal borrow some additional decor from the Butlins reception to boost the silver and red theme before judging. Unfortunately we didn't win the hampers from Aldi but it was the perfect activity to get everyone chatting and mixing together.

After this, I popped back to the hotel and picked up Mr. TheBoyandMe and The Boy so that we could go and get them something to eat before our evening meal. We nipped into Papa Johns for the pizza buffet and managed to join the table already occupied by fifteen other people: Multiple Mummy, The Crazy Kitchen and MummyMummyMum and their gorgeous children. After we had our fill, we went back to prepare for our big night out. All the lovely, glamorous ladies met in the foyer of the hotel and we all froze our arses bottoms off as we nipped over to Bar Rosso for complimentary cocktails: cranberry and vodka = fruity and strong and yummy!

Turner's is a very nice restaurant that was designed by Brian Turner and the chef there used to be the head-chef of The Ivy. That's the closest I'm going to get to posh London dining, and to be honest if that's the best they can do for a vegetarian at Christmas time, then I'll stick to Pizza Express in Cardiff Bay! Wild mushroom risotto is great for a Summer evening meal, not for a warming Winter and Christmas meal when the meat alternative was a full Christmas dinner.

I didn't take a photo of the pudding: figs and apricots do not inspire me, although the cinnamon ice-cream and poached pear was nice. No replacement for a sumptuous cheesecake or the traditional Christmas pudding though.

However, a meal like this is all about the company and the presence of Mummy, Daddy and Me, Multiple Mummy, Dear Beautiful Boy made the evening fly by! I forgot to take a photo of them but did manage one of Jenny and Helen!

We dutifully meandered over to the resort's club afterwards, but decided we just wanted a quite chat in the hotel bar instead, leaving the more hardcore MammaSaurus and TiredMummy of Two to party with NewMumOnline and the glamorous Actually Mummy.

After a tipple or two and having the lights turned out on us in the bar, we retired to bed!

To cut a long story short (too late I hear you cry!), the Sunday saw us have lunch with Mummy Mishaps and her lovely family (in Papa John's), playing with some more rides in the Skyline Pavillion, all of us falling asleep for an afternoon nap, seeing Bjorn's snowstorm and then having an evening meal with Mummy Mishaps again (this time in the Sun and Moon pub). The Boy and Burton started to have a good old natter about this and that, until Burton fell asleep following his mammoth two hours in the swimming pool! Just before we had to do, The Crazy Kitchen turned up to join us, and the littlies set about making a bus to drive us home.

Unfortunately we had to leave on the Sunday night as The Boy had developed croup and I wanted to get him to a doctor, but I shall leave you with some images of the Sunday.

I thoroughly enjoyed our weekend there and found that Multiple Mummy is just as funny and friendly as I suspected and I wish we lived closer because we got on well! It was brilliant to meet up with the others and find that they are just as lovely (and glamorous) as I'd imagined. I wish I'd had more time to speak to others including Kate from I Am Wit Woo and Jen from Mum In The Madhouse, amongst others.

Never mind, there's always next time!

'Ho-De-Ho' Not 'Hi-De-Hi'!

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If you've been hiding under a rock for the past month then you'll be excused for not knowing that this weekend was the Tots100 Christmas Party at Butlins, Bognor Regis resort. Anyone else has no excuse and should hang their heads in shame now!

As this was my first proper blogging event, I was so excited but incredibly nervous. Obviously anyone is nervous about these, but I have been particularly nervous as this was the big reveal: I was no longer going to be a green bug with yellow antennae and a permanently happy smile.  However, with Mr. TheBoyandMe and The Boy in tow for the family weekend in Bognor Regis, and my lovely friends @JennyPaulin and @Jessies_Online to support me I felt a lot more comfortable at meeting the other bloggers.

Having decided to stay an extra night, we drove down on Friday night (right decision, roads were empty) and with The Boy settled into his pyjamas and travel Gro-bag the three and a half hours passed quickly.

We were soon settled into the incredibly plush Ocean Hotel in the Butlins resort. I didn't get the chance to see the Shoreline hotel over the weekend and I understand this to be more orientated towards younger children, but the Ocean is more my cup of tea: a nice boutique-style hotel with additional facilities making it easy enough for those with younger children.

We stayed in an Atlantis room which is more of a mini-suite with a king-size bed in the main bedroom area and small seating area, good-sized bathroom (with a fixed overhead rain shower) and a twin bedroom area. There are flat-screen televisions (with in-built DVD players and freeview) in both sleeping areas, a plethora of towels and a complimentary toiletries set, a small fridge in the main room, a balcony with table and chairs, a safe (big enough to fit a laptop, DSLR camera, video camera, etc), a kettle (with four mugs, tea bags, sugar, long-life milk and coffee sachets), an iron and ironing board, a hairdryer and 'disco' lights throughout! That's not something that I'd normally consider a selling point, but the slow colour-changing ambient lighting was strangely calming and The Boy and me (ha!) loved it.

The room was excellent and I can't recommend it highly enough. I have only three tiny niggles: the first was that the carpet didn't appear to have been hoovered and so on Saturday morning I asked at reception if they could send house-keeping in to give it a quick going over. Reception were most apologetic and by the time we got back two hours later, every fibre of the carpet was standing to attention having been vacuumed to within an inch of its life. Secondly, it was incredibly hot in the room! The other thing that irked me was that they didn't empty our bins on either day, and as we had eaten breakfast in our rooms we had food waste, plus with a child who is still in nappies at night, there was a fair amount in the bins overflowing onto the beautifully clean carpet!

I was amazed at the amount of entertainment available throughout the weekend, definitely something for everyone in the family. The staff are genuinely helpful and caring, being a redcoat really does matter to them! I'd downloaded the brilliant (and free) app for the iPod Touch which can add entertainment events straight to your calendar, this made it really easy to keep track of where everything is taking place and at what time. With free wi-fi (strict firewall settings making it safe) available in both hotels and the Skyline Pavillion it makes it easy to check against the app. Oh and to tweet!

There's a fair amount of places to eat: pizza, pub food, snacks, bar food, Burger King, Turner's (where we had our meal) and in the hotels themselves. However, having spent £90 on just four meals (lunch for the three of us on Saturday and dinner for Mr. TBAM & TB, lunch and dinner for all three on Sunday) the prices are a little on the steep side, which makes the Spar shop a good addition to the site. We had a very good meal with some healthier options available (there's quite a fast-food vibe to some of the 'easteries') in the Sun and Moon pub. The Boy had three fishfingers, five smiley faces and a pot of peas for £3.50 and it was served on the most sensible plate I've seen given yet:

Unfortunately we had to leave last night rather than this afternoon (as I wanted to get The Boy to the doctor this morning) and therefore we missed out on seeing Father Christmas in our designated slot, but were provided with a small gift of a selection box as a consolation.

Would we go again? Yes!

Would I go in the depths of Winter again? No! The site is right on the coast and it was bitterly cold in the open air.

Was the Christmas vibe present during that Christmas Festival weekend? Yes, in abundance!

Overall: service – excellent, hotel – excellent, entertainment – excellent, food – good but pricey.

This is neither a sponsored or a review post. We had a reduced hotel-rate as part of the deal that Tots100 organised with Butlins, but this has no bearing on the outcome of this post which I wasn't asked to write. I just wanted to share the love!

ShowOff ShowCase: The One That Should Have Done Better

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This weekend (while I am hobnobbing with the lovely folk at the Tots 100 Christmas Party) is your opportunity to link-up a post that you wrote that filled you with a sense of satisfaction. You typed that last full stop, pressed 'publish' and thought "yes, this will be a good one!" and waited.

But no bugger actually bothered to read it, or if they did they certainly didn't comment on it!

Why? I can still hear you shouting it at the stats counter/comments log.

Heaven only know why. They didn't deserve it, they were good posts. It's not their fault that they were published on a Bank Holiday or when people were experiencing blog-apathy. Or at the Tots 100 Christmas Party (did I mention I'm going already?)! They don't deserve to feel inadequate, not when they've done nothing wrong.

This weekend, I'd like you to help that post to hold its head up high! Brush them off, stick my badge at the bottom of the post and show them off for everyone to see. Don't be ashamed of them, help them shout at everyone:

I SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER!

ShowOff ShowCase

I've added two; one was a competition post but I love the video and I wanted to share it again. Comments on it are closed so if you want to comment on the Oreo video, please can you do so below? Thanks!

Friday Funny

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These are Christmas themed this week:

  • The man who bring us our presents is Farmer Christmas.
  • When we were decorating the tree he examined each bauble and decoration. Turning one over of the holy couple and their newborn Messiah, he asked who they were so I told him their names. He repeated, "Oh, Mary Joseph and Navy Cheeses?"

Friday Funny

Our Story of Christmas

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On Sunday morning, we got up at a reasonable time and headed off to a garden centre on the other side of Cardiff. I'd been informed by a work colleague that it had a brilliant grotto with Santa and his missus, so that was good enough for me. Out of the three of us, I was the most excited as Mr. TheBoyandMe is a man and it takes more than that to get his enthusiasm enthused on a Sunday morning, and The Boy has not a clue who Father Christmas is.

With enough inner mistletoe for the three of us, we plodded off and found that yes indeed it had a fab grotto with Saint Nick and every-fink! Including a two hour queue!

With Mr. TBAM promising me that he didn't mind if I returned the next morning with The Boy, we had a good gander at the decorations and the pretty lights, played with some expensive carousels that we shouldn't have and explored the multitude of Christmas trees ready to be lovingly picked.

Upon arriving home and wolfing down our lunch, Mr. TBAM went into the loft and got our bargain Christmas tree (£100 reduced to £20 in a January sale five years ago), put The Boy to bed and I got busy 'growing' our tree, took me an hour to do what nature takes decades to do. (Plus no needles, no sap and no rash! Hurrah!)

When The Boy woke up and came downstairs, he walked into the dining room to see the six-footer twinkling away with over 160 white lights on it. A very different reaction to last year, as he paused, took a little step back and burst into the biggest grin ever. We then spent the next hour decorating the tree together, and his skills have definitely improved since last year as he put one decoration onto one 'branch' and didn't take them back off again; always a bonus!

And so to the title of this post:

Christmas 2009: Jingle Bells

Christmas 2010: Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus

Christmas 2011: A Smelly Stocking

This is the star I bought for our first Christmas together as husband and wife ten years ago. Fitting that it's placed on the top now by our child.

You see we buy The Boy a decoration each year to go on the tree, and write on it to commemorate the year it was given. This way when he moves out (at the age of 59, certainly not a day before!) and decorates his own family tree he will already have a good collection of quality decorations to start him off.

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I'm linking these up to three great Christmas linkies

CreatingChristmas

Mummy Mishaps' Christmas Tree linky

Thinly Spread

The Real World Is Inadequate

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Right so in I traipsed to the capital city of Wales with its plethora of shops. I found a parking space really easily and we were in our first shop within twenty minutes of leaving home. Shopping in Cardiff at Christmas had never been so easy!

But the first shop didn't have what I wanted. And bearing in mind this was Waterstones and a fairly popular title, I wasn't impressed. They wouldn't have any back in until January.

The next few shops were entered with the soul aim of trying to find a nice top for Saturday night (Tots 100 Christmas Party) and I failed.

The following shop was Next in an effort to buy some Christmas tops, new trousers and a pair of boots for The Boy.

So having struggled down twenty steps to one of the only places that has food suitable for children (not every restaurant has to be sushi or fast food trash you know town-planners) and then had a kindly assistant help me back up, frozen our little fingers, toes and bottoms off (mine not so little), and become generally hacked off with trying to find a toilet suitable to use with The Boy, we came home.

And this is why I am now sat on the sofa with Amazon, Next and Simply Be open in separate tabs, with the television on, central heating and a cherry liquor chocolate warming the cockles of my heart and stomach! Because shopping in real-life shops sucks and the Internet is as popular as it is for a reason!

Blogoversary Competition 5: 'Create-a-World' by WhiteStep

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When I first started blogging I saw one or two bloggers review a product that I thought was amazing. A few weeks ago I was asked if I'd like to review it! That will be happening within the forthcoming weeks but take a look at this:

Create-a-world is a brilliant toy promoting children's imagination and story-telling skills. The creative play possibilities are endless and as it is similar to a fuzzy felt, the pieces won't slip easily but are removed without a problem. I can't wait to review this with The Boy, but in the mean-time Whitestep have kindly donated a Create-a-World (worth £49.99) for one of my readers.

To be in with a chance of winning this amazingly creative blogoversary prize, simply fill in the Rafflecopter form below:



Please note that by providing your e-mail address you are agreeing to receive correspondance from the PR company for Whitestep who may contact you about promotions.

Blogoversary Competition 4: Orchard Toys Shopping List

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I have been so fortunate this year to have reviewed a variety of toys and puzzles for Orchard Toys, some directly and some through the Toyology scheme. I am a massive fan of their quality and beautifully illustrated products, and The Boy adores them, begging to play their games at any opportunity.

I've recently been sent one of their most popular games to review, and I am lucky enough to be able to offer Shopping List as a blogoversary competition prize:

But the ever generous Orchard Toys have not only offered the original Shopping List game, but also the booster packs: clothes and  fruit & veg!

To be in with a chance of winning this must-have blogoversary prize, simply fill in the Rafflecopter form below:



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