Giveaway Time! Jordans Granola & Nut Bars

Well, as I promised you yesterday – it is time for a giveaway! Especially helpful if, like me, you need a little help with eating healthier breakfasts. Sometimes I just don’t have the time or the energy in the mornings to make some of the more “fancy” breakfasts that I love, and instead want something that takes less time without compromising on taste. When that happens I turn to an old favourite – cereal.

Jordans are one of my favourite brands when it comes to breakfast cereals – I love all of their granolas, especially the tropical fruits – perfect for when you are wanting to pretend you are eating breakfast on a beach somewhere, despite the cold British weather outside! I’m also a big fan of their mueslis and crisp cereals, so when I was contacted to see if I’d like to offer my readers a giveaway of some of their newer products, I jumped at the chance!

Jordans are offering to send one of you a pack of Super Fruity Granola…

and also a box of Absolute Nut Luxury Bars which sound perfect if you need a “to-go” breakfast option…

To enter the giveaway please do one or more of the following. Each one counts as an entry so please leave a separate comment for each:

• Leave a comment on this post with your favourite breakfast ideas
• Like my Facebook page
• Follow me on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway
• Link back to this giveaway on your own blog

Don’t forget to leave a separate comment for each of the above actions to let me know that you have done them, I’d hate to miss any entries! This giveaway is open to UK residents only (sorry to all my International readers!) and will close at midnight on Wednesday 10th October. Good luck everyone!

Doves Farm {Review}

Hello! Good day? I went to the gym and swimming while Toby was in creche again this morning - it feels so luxurious to be able to exercise during the day!! We nearly didn't go as there was really bad fog and my Mum/sister were a bit worried about me driving over, but I took it slowly and it was fine. Good experience, and having my sister in the passenger seat was, yet again, a calming influence (even if she wasn't actually that calm herself, haha!) Toby did really well again at the creche - obviously this time he did realise I was going to leave, but he said goodbye happily, no tears, and carried on playing. I wish I'd known about this creche before! Great experience for him, and great for me to have a couple of hours to exercise before evening tiredness hits!

When I got home I had a bagel for lunch, this time with blue cheese and grapes:

Not quite as amazing as last week's mashed avocado bagel, but still really tasty. Bagels are a good option for days like this. I have breakfast then do the school run, drive half an hour, about 45 minutes in the gym (although only 20 minutes cardio and the rest weights), 40 minutes swimming and another half an hour drive home...so by the time it is time for lunch I am starving and need something quick and easy! Bagels do the job perfectly!! :)

Liam is doing lots of overtime this week so we ate dinner before he got home tonight. I didn't feel like cooking and the children were more than happy when I suggested porridge. Toby hardly ever eats much dinner in the evenings but he gobbled this up! Mashed banana porridge with cocoa-peanut flour sauce (they had blueberries, chocolate chips and golden syrup as their toppings instead - Izzy's choice!!)...

I made rather a lot of sauce...not that I'm complaining!! I normally use 15g of peanut flour to make dipping sauces, but this was 10g of cocoa and 20g peanut flour (plus milk and a little agave). I didn't use as much agave as I normally would, just enough to bring the chocolate out, so it was like a really dark chocolate peanut butter sauce, mmm!

Anyway, on to the title of this post. A little while ago I was contacted by Doves Farm to see if I would like to review some of their newly repackaged cereal bars and flapjacks, all of which are organic and fairtrade. I love cereal bars for carrying around in my bag for when hunger strikes (either mine or the children's!) so I was happy to say yes! Thanks you so much for your generosity Doves Farm...I was very happy when this box was delivered!! :-D

There are three types of cereal bars in the range - banana mango & brazil, sultana apricot & apple, and crispy chocolate & rice:

The first cereal bar that I tried was the banana, mango & brazil:

I always find banana flavoured things to be a bit hit and miss - sometimes they can taste quite artificial, however this one was pretty good. It had pieces of mango, pineapple and brazil nut running through it, and whilst I might have liked the chunks to be a bit bigger, the size of them did mean that they were consistent throughout the bar without it falling apart. The bar itself had a great consistency - chewy whilst still having some bite to it. I enjoyed this bar and would happily eat it again, although as you will see further on in the review it wasn't my favourite - better are still to come! :)

The next bar I tried was sultana, apricot & apple:

I wasn't a fan of this bar to be honest. I like my cereal bars chewy, whereas this one has a really crispy texture. After taking my first bite, I checked the ingredients list and wasn't surprised to find cornflakes as the third ingredient. It doesn't taste bad, but it just isn't for me. A shame, it was the only bar I didn't like, but then I suppose they can't please all of the people all of the time! ;-)

The final cereal bar that I tried was the crispy chocolate & rice:

Chocolate flavoured things aren't normally my first choice when it comes to snack bars, so I was very surprised to find that I loved this! I love the appearance - the two different layers (one cocoa rice, one just sweet crispy rice) and the mini chocolate chips on top make this look really fun. I'd originally planned to share this bar with Toby, but after taking a bite I gave this one to Toby...

...and got a new one for myself! Yum. I can't believe the chocolate flavour is my favourite, but it's so good!! It is sweet enough for me, but not too sweet (Liam would've liked a bit more sugar) - you can really taste the cocoa in the bottom layer. Delicious. I've only got one bar left in this box and will be definitely be buying some more once it has gone!

Doves Farm also sent me a couple of boxes of flapjacks - plain butter flapjacks and apple & sultana ones:

These are really tasty, and great for lunchboxes too! The first time I tried the apple & sultana ones I cut it in half and put some in Izzy's lunchbox:

I really like these - in fact I'm eating one now as I type this - they are definitely taste more sugary than the cereal bars although actually I just checked and these have 12.3g of sugars per bar, compared to 16.9g per sultana, apricot and apple cereal bars. Another reason to love the flapjacks - they taste even more "treat-like" than they actually are! The flapjacks don't have a hugely strong apple flavour, but there are small chunks of cooked apple dotted through them alongside the sultanas. I love the texture of these flapjacks. Perhaps not as chewy as homemade ones, but lovely and soft.

There are also plain butter flapjacks for those of us (*ahem* Liam!) who don't like dried fruit in baked goods:

As the name would suggest, these flapjacks use butter whereas the apple & sultana ones use (sustainably grown) palm oil. I really enjoyed these flapjacks too, again they have a lovely texture and a luxurious taste. They are perfect for Liam to take to work too - I won't let him take anymore of the chocolate cereal bars as I love them so much (!) but whilst I like these, I prefer the apple & sultana flapjacks so Liam might be able to sneak a couple of them out of the box!!

I was really impressed with (most) of these bars. The calories range from 142-196 calories per bar, which, for me, makes them ideal for a mid-morning snack with a latte, or just to have in my bag for if I get hungry while I'm out. The only one I wouldn't buy again are the sultana, apricot & apple cereal bars, but if you prefer crunchy cereal bars then you may well like these as well - it was only the texture I objected to. Thanks again to Doves Farm for giving me the opportunity to try these - I will definitely be picking up some again when I go shopping! :)

Have you tried any of Doves Farm's cereal bars or flapjacks before? Or any of their other products? I guess a lot of us will have used their xanthan gum (great for thick smoothies!) and I have also enjoyed their gluten free pasta before. This was my first time trying their snack bars though and I was really impressed. I often regret eating pre-packaged bars - wishing I'd taken the time to make my own snack - but these bars tasted really fresh so definitely make a great portable/quick alternative to home baking.

Hospital Stay

This has been my bed for the last 4 nights...

not so comfy...

Turns out our daughter didn't have torticollis at all - when her neck didn't seem to be getting any better, and in fact was more swollen and red, I took her to the doctor for a second opinion on Thursday morning. He sent us straight to A&E! Poor little girl was so brave, she ended up having general anaesthetic for them to drain the abscess on Friday morning, and then Saturday morning they discovered one of the nasties in her neck was Strep A so we had to be moved to a side room and she was only allowed to leave it to go across the corridor to the toilet...she was so bored! We had hoped to get out last night but her neck drain was still oozing, she finally had it taken out this afternoon and we made it home just in time for dinner.

Anyway, this is a food blog so on to the food - apologies if it gets repetitive!! I was very glad that I'd followed my porridge craving for breakfast on Thursday - cocoa porridge topped with peanut butter...

luckily this kept me going as with all the waiting around to be seen in A&E, I didn't get to eat again until 4.45pm! By then I was starving...I gobbled down this egg mayonnaise baguette with crisps added to it...

I have eaten a lot of bars the last 5 days. I won't bore you with details of exactly when I ate each one but let's just say they often counted as "breakfast" and occasionally "dinner" - Liam visited as much as he could - our families were great with looking after the baby so he could visit - but when I was on my own I didn't want to leave daughter, especially as we seemed to spend most of the time waiting for Drs to visit to take blood/change cannula/remove plastic pipes from neck etc...all of which most definitely required her to be sat on her Mummy's lap whilst screaming the ward down!! :( Anyway (I feel this post is going to have many off-track rambles - sorry!!) these were some of the bars I enjoyed...

Liked the dark chocolate in this - shop didn't have any in stock after I bought this one though :(

This was breakfast one day - strange after-taste

Really tasty, although very sticky from all the honey & glucose syrup!

My favourite - full of sugar again, but also lots of big chunks of almonds and brazil nuts, yum...I had lots of these!! :)

I also managed to escape to the canteen on quite a few occasions when Liam or my Mum were there to look after daughter (and no doctors were due to visit!) I drank many many lattes (with 3 white sugars in each, oops!) over the last 5 days, plus some food - mostly covered in stodgy cheese sauce, bleugh.

A scone and a latte mid-morning on Friday with my Mum whilst Liam spent time in the playroom with daughter and baby...

Lunch only 1.5 hours later whilst daughter was in theatre - had to grab food when we could! Sweet potato with salad from the salad "bar"...

This was really nice but unfortunately I didn't spot sweet potatoes in the canteen again, sad times!

A latte and a carrot cake muffin on Friday afternoon before Liam headed home - we'd wanted to take daughter to the canteen as well as she was really chirpy after her op, but the nurses wouldn't let her off the ward to be on the safe side...she was really irritable and wanted to stretch her legs!!

This muffin was really tasty and it was good to have a little bit of time away from the ward before the night ahead of me - the first 2 nights were really hard going as not only was I woken up when daughter had to have her antibiotics drip at 2am, but I was also woken up whenever anyone else on the ward was seen by the nurse...and the Mum in the bay next to me (seperated by a curtain) thought it was acceptable to chat noisily, on a children's ward, until 10.30pm until a nurse came and said they were trying to quieten the ward...grrr!! We got more sleep once we moved to a side room for Saturday and Sunday nights - at least then it was only my own daughter keeping me awake!

On Saturday I experienced the first of the "cheese sauce meals" for lunch - this one supposedly had cauliflower in it - but you had to look hard to find any!!

It was basically stodgy cheese sauce with lumps - there weren't many meat-free options around!! Part of the problem was that I was eating whenever I had the opportunity, not necessarily traditional meal times, so I usually missed out on baked potatoes etc and had to eat from the self-serve hot food that had been sitting around since the last proper meal time...nice(!!)

I had a second cheese sauce meal on Saturday - an early dinner of mushroom & herb pasta bake...

this was actually quite nice...I was pleasantly surprised!! :)

Sunday lunch was the worst of the cheese sauce meals - we'd been waiting all of Sunday morning for a Dr to visit, and whilst Liam was there, we were hoping the Dr would remove the neck drain (she decided it wasn't ready to come out in the end) so I didn't want to leave daughter. I gave up on getting lunch about 2pm and made myself a couple of slices of plain buttered toast from the parents' kitchen (the only food we had access to) and of course the Dr turned up as soon as I'd finished eating it! So as I then wasn't hungry for lunch, Liam went to the canteen and had carvery. I eventually went to eat at 3.30pm so this had been sitting around on the hot plate for a while...a big serving of cheese sauce with soggy cauliflower and broccoli in it...

this was enough to put me off eating any more hot meals in the canteen!! Luckily I did stock up on the yummy nut bars :)

I did make one more trip to the canteen - this afternoon when Liam was packing up the room and we were waiting for paperwork to be filled out - I had a major headache so a latte and the cake that has been tempting me all weekend was needed - Dime Bar cake...

this was so yummy - a layer of cake, topped with caramel, peanuts and chocolate...

Yum, this almost made up for the fact that I didn't have peanut butter the whole time we were in the hospital - a tiny jar of bog standard pb cost £2.49 in the shop!!

Luckily, to counteract all the stodge, I have also had some nice food brought in by relatives. My Mum sent a delicious fruit selection in on Saturday...

daughter and I shared most of this on Saturday afternoon, then I polished off the leftovers at 10pm whilst waiting for the Dr to (eventually) turn up to change daughter's cannula and take blood...poor child was so traumatised to be woken up for that experience - both nights since she's been tossing & turning and shouting in her sleep :( the fruit was nice though (!)...

I never thought I would crave fruit and veggies so much! Not surprising though - I failed to find any vegetables (except salad) that was not over-cooked beyond recognition, and the only fruit available were apples and bananas. Healthy cravings also probably amplified due to the over-consumption of chocolate - every visitor seemed to bring daughter a box of Thornton's chocs, many of which were sadly consumed by me!!

Back to the healthy stuff though...my Grandma & Grandpa visited yesterday afternoon and brought with them a welcome gift of food from Marks & Spencer...

My Grandma, unfortunately, spends a lot of time in and out of hospital so obviously knows what type of food would be welcomed! The egg sandwich and (amazing!) lemon curd yoghurt served as last night's dinner, and I had the fruit salad for breakfast this morning...

much better than the leftover cold toast I've been eating from daughter's breakfast tray the other mornings!!

As I said, we did finally make it home today :) the doctor came round to look at daughter this morning but he felt her drain was still oozing so much, so he came back about 3pm and luckily decided it was ok for us to come home. He had to first take the drain out of her neck though - this was horrible to watch - she was already traumatised by the doctor's visit on Saturday night, so she started screaming before this doctor even touched her. In the end 2 nurses had to hold her down on her bed while the doctor pulled the drain out, my poor baby! :( She soon bounced back though and packed up her stuff ready to go home, I'm hoping she's young enough to forget about the more horrible aspects of this experience!

When we got home, we were all too tired to cook! Liam and daughter ate ready meals - spinach & ricotta cannelloni and macaroni cheese respectively - both too stodgy and cheese-sauce filled for me! I had the same thing I'd eaten before all this started - cocoa porridge (this time with banana in) topped with peanut butter...

I missed my porridge even more than fruit & veg I think!

Phew! I hope to get back to more interesting food soon - can't wait to start cooking again! As if staying in hospital for 4 nights wasn't enough, on Friday I got a phone call from our landlord's brother saying he'd be in at 8.30am Monday morning (today) to re-do the bathroom and paint most of downstairs...was meant to be done a week ago but they got held up. Our bathroom currently has a toilet but no sink or bath (these will be put in tomorrow but we won't be able to use them the bath/shower until Wednesday) and for at least the next 2 days the house will not be very baby friendly...Liam has to go back to uni tomorrow but I'm planning to spend most of my time at my Mum's house round the corner - daughter can recuperate and watch TV in my Mum's bed and I can do my best to entertain the baby!!

Right, this post is nearly over - I need to catch up on some sleep! I hope this hasn't been too dreary or dis-jointed, I'm so relieved that daughter is ok - being in hospital has been really boring and at some times pretty miserable, but it has also made me realise how lucky we are - at least our daughter will make a full recovery and just be left with a little scar, some of the other children in there won't be so lucky :(

To end on a brighter note, the main thing that kept us sane was our visitors, in particular my Mum. She did her best to give me a break and keep daughter amused - one of those ways was by making fruit faces...I'll leave you with a fruit smile...good night!