Monthly Archives: June 2014

Review: Ozeri Stone Earth Pan

Posted on June 26, 2014 by TheGingerbreadMum

I was lucky enough to be sent the Stone Earth Pan by Ozeri to try and have been using it as my only frying pan for the last month.

The pan utilises a natural stone-derived coating from Germany called Stonehenge making it one of the world’s first frying pans to combine non-stick perfection with being absolutely free of toxic substances such as PFOA (PerFluorooctanoic Acid), a harmful chemical often found in traditional cookware.

The eco-friendly pan is made from heavy-gauge die-cast aluminum and has a magnetized base so it can also be used on induction stoves. The comfortable handle is coated in heat-resistant silicon and solidly attached to the pan.

I’ve been very impressed by the Stone Earth Pan. It’s a lovely solid pan without being too heavy that heats quickly and perfectly evenly as its advertising claims. My pan is the middle size in the range (26cm/10″), and is small compared to most of my other frying pans, but its unusually high sides means you can cook a surprisingly good amount in it.

The instructions recommend always having an initial thin film of oil in the pan before cooking. This has worked perfectly for me, but I’ve also cooked bacon, sausages and pancakes without using any oil or butter and the non-stick surface has stilled worked like a dream.

Cleaning has also been a dream. Unfortunately it’s not recommended to put the pan in the dishwasher. However, even after a month of fairly constant use it only needs a quick wipe with a soapy sponge. Even after cooking my Asian-style salmon whose sticky honey marinade always leaves my other pans needing a soak and then serious scrubbing, the Stone Earth Pan just needed a quick soapy wipe down!

The Stone Earth Pan also comes with a fabulous free pan protector, made from thick felt, enabling you to store other pots and pans on top of it without its non-stick surface getting damaged. This is a brilliant extra and it made me wonder why other pan manufacturers don’t do this.

I’m now a huge fan of Ozeri and their Stone Earth Pans and the best thing is, unlike other top quality pans, they don’t cost the earth!

Disclosure: I was sent the Ozeri Stone Earth Pan to review. My opinions are honest and my own.

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Posted in review and tagged non-stick fry pan, non-stick surface, Ozeri, Stone Earth Pan, Stonehenge. Bookmark the permalink.

The most important meals of their lives

Posted on June 11, 2014 by TheGingerbreadMum

For children in Africa, breakfast isn’t just the most important meal of their day, but it could also be the most important meal of their lives. Starting the day with a full tummy gives them the energy to go to school and the energy to concentrate on learning. Education has the power to break the cycle of poverty; it can turn despair into hope.

The UK charity, Send A Cow, have published an e-book celebrating the importance of the first meal of the day as part of their Break…Fast appeal to help children in the poorest parts of Africa start each day with hope, potentially changing their lives. The Most Important Meal of their Lives features women and men who have made remarkable achievements. These women and men, who changed the lives of others dramatically, all had the choice to eat breakfast. If they hadn’t started every day with a full tummy, would they have changed the world? Maybe not.

Send a Cow researched what these great people liked to eat for breakfast, writing down the recipes for the food that helped them reach their potential. Now you can also start the day just like some of history’s greatest women and men, including Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Mother Theresa and the Apollo 11 astronauts.

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my versions of some of the Most Important Meals over the last few weeks. Here are some of them. I also breakfasted like Amelia Earhart and Jane Austin.

Mahatma Gandhi secured independence for India and inspired freedom movements all over the world. When he was in London, he liked to eat porridge and cocoa.

My peaceful breakfast:

Albert Einstein believed in the benefits of a vegetarian diet. When he lived in Germany he liked eating fried eggs for breakfast with something drizzled over them (download the book to find out what!).

My brainy breakfast (I was initially sceptical of what Einstein poured over the top, but it actually works very well):

Rosa Parks became an icon in the battle against racial segregation when she bravely yet quietly refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. Her featherlite pancakes have an extra (very American) ingredient which make them very yummy (download the book to find out what it is!).

My quietly strong breakfast:

While the book is free to download, any donation you make, big or small, before the end of June 2014 will be doubled by the UK Government. Your donation will help Send A Cow provide seeds, tools and livestock so African families can grow enough food to feed themselves.

Tomorrow morning when you eat your breakfast, don’t take it for granted. Take a moment to think about the importance of food and take a moment to think about the power of food. Food has the power to change lives. Food has the power to change the world.

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Posted in breakfast, recipe, review and tagged #BestStart, Amelia Earhart, Apollo 11 astronauts, breakfast, famous people's breakfasts, importance of food, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Send A Cow, The most important meals of their lives, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill. Bookmark the permalink.

Mini savoury bread puddings

Posted on June 4, 2014 by TheGingerbreadMum

When we were doing our Kingsmill Great White Challenge, I didn’t just want to eat bread in sandwiches or as toast. After a quick search online for ideas, I decided to try making savoury bread puddings.

Not only are these puddings a brilliant way to use up older bread, but they’re also great to use up any crusts or end pieces that your family doesn’t like eating. I have a few bags in my freezer of crusts leftover from school lunches which I would normally make into sugar-free French toast, but now I think they’ll be made into savoury bread puddings!

Please excuse my approximate amounts in the recipe. This is a very forgiving recipe, so even just 2 sausages would work. The only important thing is making sure there is enough liquid to moisten all of your bread chunks.

I made my savoury puddings in a large muffin pan, but you could easily pour all the mixture into a loaf tin and eat it in slices instead.

To get your munchkins involved in the cooking, forget about cutting up the bread and get them tearing it up instead. And I’m sure they’ll love mixing all the ingredients together too.

MINI SAVOURY BREAD PUDDINGS

Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 30-40 mins
Makes 6 mini puddings

1/2 onion, finely diced
3 or 4 uncooked sausages
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 tbsp fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme or chives, chopped
salt and pepper
approx. 4 slices of bread, roughly chopped into cubes about 3cm square
oil of your choice (I used rapeseed oil)
extra cheddar cheese for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 180C.

Remove the casings from the sausages by cutting down the length of the sausages and peeling off the casings.

Heat a small amount of oil in a medium-sized frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and sausage, and cook for about 5 minutes until both are cooked, stirring to break up the sausage meat. Take off the heat and allow to cool a little.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix the milk, egg, 1/4 cup of grated cheese, chopped herbs, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Add the sausage mixture and then stir through the bread (if the mixture is quite wet and runny, add a little more bread; if there isn’t enough liquid to soak through the bread, add a little more milk).

Allow the bread to soak up the liquid while you lightly grease a large muffin pan.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan, sprinkle over a little extra cheddar cheese and cook for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top and cooked through.

If you want to make your mini puddings into turtles, use half a cherry tomato for the head and pieces of soft cheese triangles for its legs and little tail. His mouth is a small piece of soft cheese and his eyes are cress leaves. I also garnished the plate with cress (grown by Nicholas!).

Variations:

Bake the mixture into a loaf tin and eat in slices
Add some grated apple while you’re cooking the onion and sausage
Use bacon or uncooked ham instead of the sausage
Add some chopped fresh spinach to the finished mixture

What do you do with your leftover bread?

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Posted in family, lunch, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged fun food, Kingsmill Great White, leftover bread, savoury bread pudding. Bookmark the permalink.

The Kingsmill Great White Challenge

Posted on June 2, 2014 by TheGingerbreadMum

I do love a challenge, especially one that involves food, so when Kingsmill invited us to take part in their Great White Challenge I jumped at the chance.

For three days we had to replace our normal loaf of bread with Kingsmill Great White and use it as creatively and healthily as we could. Our creations also had to have the ‘wow’ factor, kind of like The X Factor but with sandwiches instead of singers!

I don’t usually buy white bread, especially not for Nicholas, although I do secretly love a slice of white toasted and slathered in butter. Thankfully Kingsmill Great White contains as much fibre as wholemeal bread with 7.0g fibre per 100g (interestingly Kingsmill Tasty Wholemeal contains 6.2g fibre per 100g).

Nicholas, unlike his Italian papà, loves toast and sandwiches, and happily eats them every day. However, he’s recently gone from happily eating his crusts to refusing to eat them.

But back to the challenge. As soon as I heard the bread’s name there was only one possibility for me – we were going on an undersea adventure in search of great white sharks!

Mask and snorkel? Check!

Shark pjs? Check!

We actually had a false start to the challenge as it was postponed a week at the last moment, but I didn’t want our efforts to go to waste. We had turtle toast with peanut butter and a teeny bit of nutella for breakfast to celebrate World Turtle Day. Then Nicholas very excitedly told me when I picked him up from pre-school that he’d eaten TWO sharks at lunch (and there were only crumbs left as evidence). Two great whites already spotted!

On to the official challenge. On Friday we had ‘under the sea’ sugar-free French toast for breakfast, jellyfish and fish sandwiches for lunch and some shark fin carrot soup for dinner. I made the jellyfish tentacles from the leftover crusts and (shock, horror) they were the very first things Nicholas ate! Number of great whites spotted – 1

On Saturday morning a fishy in a hole gave us lots of energy, then later our Playmobil friend went a little crazy when she spotted not one but two great whites lurking in our salad sandwiches. Number of great whites spotted – 2

We started our final day of the challenge with crab toast (again with peanut butter and a little bit of nutella) inspired by one of Nicholas’ books (and the crab legs, made from crusts, were the first to be eaten!). I then used some of the bread chopped up to make healthy mini savoury bread puddings for lunch and I made Nicholas’ into another turtle (this is also a great way to use up any crusts or end pieces nobody eats). And finally, in the evening, we had summer pudding (another fab way to use up older bread). Unfortunately my octopus turned out more like a spider, but he still was very much appreciated! Number of great whites spotted – 0

Total number of great whites spotted – 5!

We had lots of fun making and eating our creations, and I loved see Nicholas enthusiastically eating his crusts 😉

You can see lots of other wonderfully original and healthy creations by other bloggers by searching #KingsmillGreatWhite on Twitter or Instagram. Kingsmill also have a fantastic free Lunch Book with recipes all created by kids (Hayley’s Funky Turtle is definitely my favourite).

Some of the other bloggers who did the challenge and their fabulous creations:
Boo Roo and Tigger Too
Mummy Mishaps
Mummy Mum Mum
Mummy’s Space

Disclosure: we were compensated by Kingsmill for participating in their challenge. My opinions are honest and my own.

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Posted in cute lunches, review and tagged #KingsmillGreatWhite, cute food, cute lunches, fun food, Great White bread, Kingsmill, Kingsmill challenge, Kingsmill Great White. Bookmark the permalink.