The March Degustabox review

Last week, the postie delivered the latest Degustabox and, despite the wintry weather warnings for Easter weekend, there's no doubt about it - spring should have sprung by now, so the box has a slight Easter theme, with a couple of chocolatey products and lots of kid-friendly treats.

Here's what was hiding inside the box - no prizes for guessing what the kids went for first !

Yes, you've guessed it - a sharing bag of Smarties and Milky Bar Mini Eggs (RRP £3). I said we could use them for topping Easter-themed cupcakes, but it fell on deaf ears. They were declared delicious and gobbled up before I even got a chance to get my cake tins out !

I did get to create some sweet treats using the Shreddies Max Granola (RRP £2.59) though as I added some to a fridge bake. It has a nice blend of flavours and textures, with crunchy oat clusters and pieces of Shreddies. It's made with 74% whole grain and is high in fibre and protein.

We were just running out of the kids favourite Vimto Sugar-Free Squash, so they were delighted to discover a new bottle of squash to try out : Ribena Pineapple & Passion Fruit (RRP £2.49). I was pleased to spot that this is also a no-added sugar variety and contains less than 15 calories per 250ml serving. It has a lovely rich, sweet, tropical flavour that we all really enjoyed.

Canny All Natural Chocolate Milk (RRP £1.59) is another no-added sugar (and also gluten free) drinks option that went down well with the kids for its yummy chocolatey taste. This was included in the box as a gift for the subscribers who have answered the most monthly surveys.

Cirio Pasta Sauce (RRP £2) is a new-to-the-UK product from a brand that we already know and love. There were two different sauce varieties available in the boxes, both featuring sweet Cirio peeled plum tomatoes - we got Classica Tomato & Vegetable Sauce. Very tasty heated through and added to pasta, with or without the addition of minced beef or bacon lardons. The choice is yours !

We've already tried and approved the Appy Kids Co No-Added Sugar Drinks (RRP £1.29). The Madhouse kids love the flavours (we got mixed berries in the Degustabox but they love all of them) but also the fun characters on the cartons. This latest series features Roald Dahl creations, including Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the BFG. The drinks are vegan approved, low in calories, free from GMOs, gluten, added sugars or artificial preservatives and are lunchbox friendly.

Staying on the drinks theme, but with a more grown up option, Tenzing Natural Energy (RRP £1.19) harnesses six natural ingredients to give you a boost : green coffee, guarana, green tea, Himalayan rock salt, beet sugar and lemon juice. I'm not a big fan of energy drinks but I like the fact that this one uses natural ingredients and absolutely nothing artificial, making it no worse than a cup of coffee. It's also low in calories (55 per can).

Mr Lee's Noodles (RRP £2.99) are always handy to keep in the cupboard for a quick lunch. They're basically a posh Pot Noodle, but they contain no hidden nasties and are low in sugar, fats and calories. They use freeze dried ingredients to lock in flavour and nutrients. We got Dragon Fire Vegetable which was a bit too spicy for us. Other subscribers got Hong Kong Beef.

 Encona Carolina Reaper Chilli Sauce (RRP £1.49) even has a warning label on the front because it's so hot ! This limited edition product combines the heat and flavour of the world's hottest chilli pepper, tomatoes and spices. It promises to challenge even the bravest of chilli-fans so we're wimping out and passing it on to a friend !

Hafervoll Limited Flapjack (RRP £1.99) is a handmade, oven baked bar that could almost be passed off as homemade. They're the first 100% natural oat bars without added sugar, cheap stuffing or other chemical additives (according to the description). This was cut into pieces and snaffled up quickly, with the Lebkuchen flavour giving us a little taste of Christmas.

There was also a voucher for a totally free Cheestrings Snack Mix (£1) in the box - as a Degustablogger, I received a lovely selection of Cheestrings goodies directly in the post. These went down really well with the Madhouse kids who, like all kids, love snacky things that they can pick at after school or in their lunchbox. Each pack has three individual sections, containing crunchy crackers or pretzels, real cheese cubes and a sweet treat - fruity mix and white chocolate shortcake pieces, cherry strings, biscuits and choc raisins or cherry cubes, yoghurt raisins and biscuits, depending on which one you pick. A big thumbs up from the kids because they are delicious and fun to eat with lots of different flavours and textures.

This month's recipe card is for Easter Chocolate Brownies with the Smarties & Milky Bar Mixed Mini Eggs, which would have been delicious if the kids hadn't already scoffed all the eggs ! We thought this was a fabulous family-friendly box and the only thing that we won't use personally is the ultra spicy chilli sauce.

A subscription to Degustabox costs £12.99 per month including delivery, with each box having a value of much more than that, but the great news is, I have a discount coupon code for you which means you'll get the first box for just £7.99 - enter code 0BS6T at the checkout.

for more information :

http://bit.ly/DBhomepage - website

http://bit.ly/DBUKfacebook - Facebook

http://bit.ly/DBUKTwitter - twitter

Also now on Instagram @DegustaboxUK

Disclosure : We received the box in order to write an honest review. As a Degustabox blogger, I receive all of the products that go into the monthly boxes, but subscribers may not get exactly the same selection.

Madhouse recipe : Toffee apple shortbread cake

It seems very flippant and well, wrong really, to be blogging about cakes while going through a bereavement, but - especially if you've got kids - life has to go on, which is probably a good thing. The kids have all been quite jittery since Madhouse Daddy died, especially at night - they saw and heard much more than any kid that age should - so, for now, the girls have moved their mattresses onto the floor in my room and Pierre's in bed with me. Paradoxically, we've been having some of the biggest giggles we've had in years - I've discovered that not only does Pierre talk in his sleep, he's also a complete wriggle-monster. On one occasion, I woke up to find his head under the covers and his feet on the pillow next to my head. Luckily he doesn't have smelly feet !

So, on to the cake. It was deliciously gooey and Madhouse Daddy polished about half of it off all by himself !

Toffee apple shortbread cake

ingredients :

360g plain flour

75g icing sugar

340g butter

3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced

300g sugar

8cl water

350g crème fraîche

pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a deep, square (or round will do, if you don't have a square one) cake tin with baking parchment. Mix together the flour and icing sugar, then cream in all but 2tbsp of the butter until it just forms a dough - don't over-mix.

Press about 2/3 of the dough into the line cake tin until relatively flat and smooth. Put in the oven for 20 minutes while you sort out the apples.

Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Bring to the boil - you can use a brush dipped in water around the sides of the pan to stop the sugar from crystallising (I didn't bother). Take off the heat when it reaches the right golden colour. This should take about 5 minutes.

Drop in the apple chunks - they will release their juice and the caramel may go hard but keep cooking and stirring for 3-4 minutes and it will go liquid again. Once all the liquid has reduced and the caramel has started to thicken, take off the heat.

Take the biscuit base out of the oven.

Add the crème fraîche, the remaining 2tbsp of butter and a pinch of salt (or leave it out if salted caramel isn't your thing) and keep stirring over a high heat until smooth and glossy.

Pour the toffee apple sauce over the biscuit base.

Pull off chunks of the remaining dough and dot all over the top.

Bake for a further 15 minutes until the topping has gone slightly golden brown. This is the killer - you have to wait for at least an hour for it to go cold, then chop it into slices and serve.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up some apples that were going wrinkly in the fruit bowl.

Giveaway #674 : Win The Story of the First World War For Children - closed - winner Nat Newham

The First World War was the world's first 'total war' and its scale was unprecedented. In fact, it was declared to be 'The World To End All Wars', but, sadly, this did not turn out to be true and just twenty years later, a new world war was on the way. It was also the first war between modern, industrialised nations and saw new and terrifying weapons deployed for the first time, including airplanes, tanks, zeppelins, giant warships and poison gas. Now, on the verge of the centenary of the end of the conflict, The Story of the First World War for Children (1914-1918) is a fact-packed information book that relates the unfolding events and the human stories in a way that brings history vividly to life.

The book is full of photos and drawings that really help to bring home the scale and destruction of the war. Even as an adult, I find this one, on the opening page, both hauntingly beautiful and eerie

There are a few splashes of colour but even those remain muted. The overall colour scheme of black, white and grey helps to evoke the bleakness and sadness of the unfolding events.

The book explains all of the key events in child-friendly, short texts :  the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the various battles, the football match on No Man's Land on Christmas Day 1914, the sinking of the Lusitania, ...

The book also looks at more unusual, unexpected aspects of the war, such as the role of animals or the artwork inspired by the war.

It's a fascinating look at one of the most important events in modern history, which is a mine of information for school projects or just idle curiosity. I enjoyed looking through it with the Madhouse kids and answering some of the questions that they had and they were even inspired to continue their research online once they'd finished scrutinising each and every page. Always the sign of a great book.

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Age Range: 8 - 12 years
• Publisher: Carlton Kids; Reprint edition (8 Mar. 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1783123524
• ISBN-13: 978-1783123520
• Product Dimensions: 29.2 x 24.1 cm

Carlton Kids have kindly offered to send a copy of the book to one lucky Madhouse Family Reviews reader. Fill in your entries in the rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 10/4/18

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray ! Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. The winners' personal contact information will be passed on to the PR / Brand responsible and used only for delivery of their prize. 

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

Giveaway #673 : Win 3 x Thunderbirds dvds - closing date 7/4

Globecooking recipe : Bacon & Egg Pie (New Zealand)

As you've probably heard if you're a regular reader of my blog, Madhouse Daddy sadly passed away a few weeks ago. When I came back to menu planning for me and the kids to try and get back to normality, I was at a bit of a loss. I love globecooking and Madhouse Daddy was always game for trying out my weird and wonderful concoctions, even when they sounded decidedly dodgy ! The Madhouse kids, on the other hand, not so much, and I frequently siphoned off their portions of meat and veg before adding the exotic sauces or spices. So, where to go from here? Well, I've found a compromise and have trawled through my bookmarked globecooking recipes, trying to find the most kid-friendly ones or working out how to adapt some of the others. So far so good !

Bacon and Egg Pie is a Kiwi classic and has a reassuringly familiar name and reassuringly familiar ingredients. Even so, it had a 50-50 success rate. I thought it was nice but a bit bland, Juliette loved it, Pierre wasn't keen (because of the peas) and Sophie thought it was OK but a bit dry and too many eggs ! The first mention I saw of Bacon and Egg Pie was on Carole's Chatter - as a genuine New Zealander, she posted a simple, no-fuss version, using frozen puff pastry, raw eggs, frozen peas and bacon (which looks more like UK ham). I had bookmarked this recipe years ago but never got round to making it. I was reminded of it when Not Quite Nigella shared her souped-up version, with a homemade sour cream pastry crust, hard boiled eggs, cheese and a whisked egg and milk filling making it more like a quiche. I combined elements of both to create my own version, so feel free to tweak it even more !

Bacon & Egg Pie

ingredients :

(serves 4)

1 pack frozen puff pastry

pack of bacon rashers

6 eggs

splash of milk

handful of grated cheese

handful of frozen peas

Use half of the puff pastry to line a pie dish. (I've downsized - if making a larger one you might need two sheets of puff pastry.) With hindsight, using foil to line the dish was a bad idea because it stuck to the pastry - baking parchment would be better. Fill with baking beans and bake blind for 20 minutes or so while you prep the rest and the oven is preheating to 180°.

Fry the bacon, drain on kitchen paper and cut each rasher into thirds. (Prepare for the kids to descend on the kitchen and eat several pieces before you shoo them away !) Boil two eggs for about 10 minutes. Crack the shells, leave to cool until you can handle them, peel and cut into halves.

Whisk together three eggs and a large splash of milk.

Take the pastry out of the oven and remove the baking beans. (Try to avoid making them ping all over the floor like I did !) Arrange the bacon pieces in the bottom. Scatter over the frozen peas and lay out the egg halves.

  

Pour over the beaten egg mixture. I also added one raw egg in the middle, to see how it would turn out. It does work so you could leave out the egg boiling and just use raw eggs cracked into the dish instead.

Scatter over a little grated cheese if you like.

  

Use the remaining half of the pastry on top. Seal the edges and brush with a little milk or egg yolk.

Serve cold as picnic or packed lunch food, or hot with mash and beans or salad.

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ***

Fancy trying some more Kiwi-inspired cuisine? How about a Kiwi Burger?

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up lots of eggs and the end of a bag of grated cheese.


Linking up to the brand new World Food Linky over at Jess Eats and Travels

What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 2018 week #13

Having a menu plan definitely helped keep us on track last week, especially for when I was dashing in and out from different appointments and needed to get something on the table quick. Next week will be calmer (not necessarily a good thing) so I'll add a few more elaborate (but child-friendly) dishes next week to keep me busy. I've noticed that with one less mouth to feed, we have more leftovers so I'll leave a couple of "joker" days so that the fridge doesn't overflow with Tupperware boxes !

Saturday

lunch - The traditional fast food visit - apparently it will be KFC this week. (Pierre's choice)

dinner - bacon & split pea soup

Sunday

lunch - roast chicken & all the trimmings

dinner - chicken soup (or maybe fridge grazing if the kids don't want soup two days in a row)

Monday 

lunch - chicken & mushroom pie if there are leftovers, chicken parmesan if there aren't, with baby potatoes & veg

dinner - spaghetti bolognese

Tuesday 

lunch - cottage pie

dinner - leftovers or omelette

Wednesday 

lunch - chicken cordon bleu, cheesy leek mash & peas/carrots

dinner - quiche & salad

Thursday 

lunch - shashlik kebabs, ebly & ratatouille

dinner - creamy chicken & bacon with rice & veg

Friday  

lunch - fish fingers, rice & peas or sweetcorn

 dinner - beef maffé (an African stew with peanut butter, beef, potatoes, ...)

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Join in with the weekly meal plan bloghop !

An InLinkz Link-up

Giveaway #673 : Win 3 x Thunderbirds dvds - closed - winners Jackie Curran, Alison Aligiraffe Johnson and Tracy K Nixon

5,4,3,2,1 … THUNDERBIRDS ARE BACK!

The hotly anticipated, iconic British TV series THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO arrives back on our screens, with Season 3, Part 1 airing on CITV in spring 2018. Starring RASMUS HARDIKER, DAVID MENKIN, THOMAS BRODIE-SANGSTER, KAYVAN NOVAK, ROSAMUND PIKE and DAVID GRAHAM, this season promises more family favourite rescue efforts from the Tracy Family.

Produced by ITV Studios and Pukeko Pictures in association with Weta Workshop, this season will introduce two brand new characters: a villainous coalition, THE CHAOS CREW - HAVOC (a master thief and pilot) and FUSE (a hulking demolition expert). They bring an array of exciting destructive skills, weapons and vehicles including SPOILER (Havoc’s car), BASHER (Fuse’s ATV) and their combined aerial jet known as THE CHAOS CRUISER. Also joining the star-studded cast is multiple award-winning actress RUTH JONES, playing an unflappable rig driver on a treacherous mountain road and BEN BAILEY SMITH as Jensen Hunt.

Fun for the whole family, fans old and new, or those looking for an introduction to the world of

International Rescue, this is one not to be missed!

This series, International Rescue has their hands full: The Tracys and their Thunderbirds must go above and beyond to tackle new threats while continuing to rescue those in need. An undersea mission for Thunderbird 2, the return of Maximum MAX (and several other MAXes for that matter), the unrelenting heat of planet Mercury and a rapidly growing giant geranium are just a taste of what’s in store. Luckily, our heroes find help along the way: from a game master within his futuristic virtual realm, a rig driver facing perilous conditions, and a pompous race car driver just to name a few. The GDF also steps in to help with their own rescue operation machinations (known as “R.O. BOTS”), but they soon prove to be more trouble than they’re worth. All the while, through every adventure, a grand and ultimate mission begins to take shape. One that will require the combined assembly of every Thunderbird, not to mention the aid of International Rescue’s old “friend” - the Mechanic. This mission, once attempted, would leave Tracy Island vulnerable to a devastating attack, but it may also end in the Tracys’ biggest and most personal rescue yet.

Join us for this thrilling, explosive and emotional chapter of… THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Thunderbirds Are Go, Season 3 Part 1, will TX on 31st March, 8:30am on CITV and ITV

To celebrate the new season, I have a Thunderbirds DVD (season 2) to give away to 3 lucky Madhouse Family Reviews redaers. Fill in your entries via the rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 7/4/18

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray ! Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. The winners' personal contact information will be passed on to the PR / Brand responsible and used only for delivery of their prize. 

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

coming soon !

Book review : The Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner

I love crime fiction but I do tend to find that a lot of novels end up resembling each other and frequently guess the outcome long before the end. Not so with Lisa Gardner. I've read a few of her books already, including Live To Tell and The Neighbour (click through for the reviews), and every time, she's had me on the edge of my seat, so I snapped up another of her books, The Killing Hour, when I spotted it in the £2 section at The Works.

The book follows feisty but fragile trainee FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, who stumbles across a dead body at the Quantico campus. As the body looks uncannily like her own dead sister, Kimberly, along with Special Agent Mac McCormack from Georgia, dodges the Feds, ignores the fact that neither of them have any jurisdiction and sets off to track down the killer.

Mac has spent several years trying to outsmart a ruthless serial killer called the Eco Killer and he's convinced that this latest body is one of his victims. The Eco Killer's calling card is that he kidnaps young women in pairs, kills one and uses her body as a macabre treasure hunt clue, furnished with objects that can be pieced together to find the location of the second victim, abandoned in extreme temperatures and harsh terrain, goading the police to find her before it's too late.

It's an original plotline and the writing is chilling and full of suspense. Kimberly is a complex and endearing character - her budding romance with Mac and tentative bridge building with her father lead me to believe that she will have been picked up in subsequent novels, which I will have to investigate because I really like her as a character with great potential.

If you want a book that will have your nerves jangling and your heart thudding, look no further !

star rating : 5/5

RRP : £7.99

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Orion (4 Mar. 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1409117421
• ISBN-13: 978-1409117421
• Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 2.8 x 19.7 cm