A Cheap Week!

Last summer I went a bit over board and spent too much, then during the months after I kept going overboard, until now. It MUST stop!

So I started with my food shop, this week my boyfriend has gone away for work so I am on my own.I still managed to spend £77 in Tesco though..I suppose it's not so bad, I got cat food and biscuits, 3 greetings cards and 3 bunches of flowers i addition to the guinea pig veggies and a little something for me (food).

I got the ready prepared chicken breasts which are on a 3 for £10 usually and are fairly low in fat and calories. These contain 2 chicken breasts each, so I am having for dinner each night and the other I am adding to pasta and salad for my lunch the next day, I had my first one last night and am having chicken Cesar salad for lunch today. 

I'm going to my mums for dinner tonight, so that's one day I don't need to cook or do any dishes, hopefully! Other than that I will be living off what's in the cupboards and what's in the freezer, I definitely wont starve. 

My challenge to myself is to not spend any money, not to need to do any mid week shops and generally to keep my purse firmly SHUT :-) Let's see how this goes!

Cookie x

Frugal Food Hacks | Use it up!

It was estimated that UK households would be responsible for 7 Million tonnes of food waste last year, I'm sure we're all guilty of it, and I have to say for us it's usually fruit and veg.

For more information on food waste, see here, for information on what you can do and for useful tips and tricks see below.

There are so many good reasons not to waste food, one of them is that it's a total waste of money!

There are a few food items that at one point I wouldn't of had a use for but now I find they are sometimes the best bit and here they are:

• Celery leaves - these are fantastic used in soups and stews and also to flavour stocks
• Broccoli stalks - I used to chuck these, now I have found they are amazing cut into little matchstick size pieces and used in coleslaw and salads. They are also delicious chopped in soups and stews, and I also feed them to my Guinea Pigs - if they're lucky! 

  

  Image from Pinterest

• Parmesan rinds - One of my chef friends told me this little trick and I love it, these can be tossed into soups and stocks or made into a stock. I used my last one in a courgette soup and it was delicious, the rinds can also be frozen until such time as you are ready to use it, then just use straight from the freezer.

Sometimes I find things get chucked because I don't have enough to make anything substantial with it, don't bin it, get creative, here are some ideas of what to do with 1:

• Potato, courgette, sweet potato - Can be grated and added to soups, stews and stir frys. Also nice in omelettes or made into fritters.
• Carrot - Great in salads, added to soups and stews
• egg - Boiled and added to salad, or added to a white sauce for moussaka etc, used to egg wash pastry.
• small piece of cheese - added to pasta, salad, sandwiches chuck i in anything really or top mash potato/cottage pies, etc.
• small amount of corn, chickpeas, mixed beans, etc - Add to pasta or salads, make hummus or other bean purees. Add to soups and stews, or blitz with breadcrumbs or mash potato and make burgers/patties.

Meat leftover from roast dinners also is a common thing to be thrown away, here is some ideas for using it up in a creative and delicious way:

• Chicken - Can be sliced or shredded and used in cold salads, I particularly like doing a pasta salad for our lunched the next day, although I do love a roast chicken sandwich! Not only does this ingredient work well in cold foods, you can add it as a pizza topping and add to soups, stews and hearty meals such as a chicken, pesto and butternut squash lasagne.
• Beef - You absolutely cant beat a beef sandwich the next day, I like horseradish with mine.
• Pork - I love shredded pork or gammon, whatever I have basically put into coleslaw, in sandwiches and salads
• Leftover bones - These will make the best fresh stock which is a cut above your bog standard stock cube and so so worth the effort.

As fruit is a common item that is wasted, here as a couple of ideas on what to do with fruit nearing or just past its best:

•  Old bananas - Can be used in banana loaf and banana milk, I find they are sweeter the older they get. 

• Soft fruit such as berries and apricots, and apples - Can be simmered with a little sugar and seasoning such as cinnamon and ginger. This will make a nice compote which is lovely with Greek yogurt.

Cant find a use for your left over bits and bobs, you don't necessarily have to use it up straight away, you can always give freezing it a go, see here for some ideas on foods that will freeze well. 

Frugal gift inspiration | Cactus |

Sometimes the best gifts are the ones you make yourself, they are usually that little bit unique and the thought and effort definitely outweighs the expenditure for me.

I am a big fan of all things natural and a lover of tiny plants, so when I saw this little cactus in B&Q for £4 I couldn't resist.

For me what lets this item down is the boring terracotta pot, we are currently in the throws of decorating our lounge so have purchased some tester pots,but they are something we usually have dotted around the house. So what better idea than to paint the pot a more appropriate colour.

This couldn't have been more simple and the cactus isn't actually planted in the decorative pot meaning I was able to remove the plant for painting, making it even easier!

So, here is the finished look, I love it and it took about 10 minutes to complete so all in all this is a really cheap, easy and satisfying project and it makes for a great little gift.

My little cactus now fits in beautifully with my other miniature plants!

Cookie x

5 Frugal / Thrify tips and tricks | November 2015

These may seem really obvious to some of you and perhaps not so to others.

1. Simple swaps to reduce your shopping bills

This can be a really quick win, but it can also be a gamble.
Take a look at your shopping receipt, study the trends, What do you buy most often? What is the most expensive items that you buy? Take a good hard look at the items falling into the 2 categories, buy most often and most expensive. 

With those that you buy most often, its usually not a question as to whether you need it or not, but whether you can get the same thing cheaper, perhaps by buying another brand. You may be reluctant to change, and at first that can be hard. I often buy the one that I want and also buy the cheaper brand at the same time so I, a. have the original version in stock if the new version doesn't meet my standards, and, b. It gives me something to compare to. For example, I only ever used to buy Heinz baked beans, I purchased those, along with some Tesco own brand and also 1 tin of Tesco value. Whilst the Tesco value beans were OK and didn't have an unpleasant taste, they were smaller and the sauce was quite watered down, The ordinary Tesco own brand were still cheaper than Heinz and were very similar in quality. I am still making a saving here, not as much as I would with the value beans but you have to actually want to eat them otherwise why buy it?

With the items that are most expensive, ask yourself is it something you really needed? and could you have picked it up cheaper? do your research for next time.

2. Substitute & Get creative

Ran out of your favourite moisturiser? Perhaps you have none of that pink blush left? Or maybe you have ran out of your usual kitchen cleaning spray. Before you go out and buy exactly the same product to replace something ask yourself, Do I have something else that will do the trick? I find that usually I answer yes to this, perhaps my fave moisturiser has ran out, but I have so many others just asking to be used. I have a rule, if I am not going to use it then I don't need it, this does make me a little more conscious of the sheer volume of stuff I have as a result of previously over buying, it also pushes me into using/trying my excess products rather than getting rid.

Another question I would ask myself if I don't have a substitute is, Can I make one? I would really recommend surfing the web for this one because there are so many recipes for all sorts of cleaning products, natural detergents and even beauty items that you can make at home using basic household ingredients, for instance a lot of the cleaning products need Vinegar, lemon juice and/or bicarb of soda, none of these will exactly break the bank, plus they aren't harmful to the environment.

3. Re-use,Up-cyle and Re-fashion 

When I think the time has come to throw something away I have a little think, Can this be used as something else? Can I do something to fix this and make it work properly again? If I answer yes to any of those 2 questions then I keep hold of the item. It's not always easy to think of examples here, but here is one that occurred recently.                                                                                             
I managed to shrink one of my jumpers in the wash, rather than throw it out I thought this would be just perfect as a cushion cover. This is in my to do pile, but the other required ingredients are simple, a wide eye needle and some grey or yellow wool (which I most definitely have somewhere), and some scissors.. oh and some time.                                                                                                           
With lot's of ongoing projects and such it is easy to accumulate clutter, and I do want to avoid clutter and hoarding. I have a dedicated box, in a dedicated area where I keep my re-usable items and I don't let it over flow, keeping it all in one place is a good way of managing it!                                           

There are some great ideas here for some standard re-usable items such as jars, packaging and old clothing.  

4. Get organised

I always find things tend to cost more when you buy them last minute. Also if you have something that you need to spend a lot on, consider putting a little money aside in the run up to that so it doesn't make such a huge impact on your wallet. I try to over save and make sure I have more than I think I need from the offset, we have recently had work done on out house, because we were organised we were also able to do some elements of this ourselves, saving around £300, even so the job cost a little more than we were expecting so it's always good to be prepared for life's little surprises. 

5. Stay in

This might sound like an obvious one, but with party season fast approaching the temptation for lots of expensive nights out comes with it. I find that I can easily spend £60+ on a night out, so doing this on a weekly basis will seriously burn a hole in my pocket. Also, having done work on the house it seems such a shame to spend so much time away from it. It's a great idea to get people around for nibbles and a few drinks this time of year, it's certainly cheaper and you could cut the cost even more by asking your guests to bring a little nibble each or BYOB, at the end of the day it's the company that's the main part, so you can really focus on being  good host and making sure a great time is had by all.

Perhaps you have some frugal tips for any aspect of life that you would like to share? I would love to hear them, please drop me an email to rebellious_cookie@hotmail.com and I may even feature yours in my next frugal tips and tricks. 

Cookie x

Brand V Budget | Food | Natural Yogurt

One basic weekly shop item that I like to save on is yogurt. We have a little tradition of having fruit, yogurt and muesli/granola as a weekend breakfast.

So this is something I currently buy once a week, but depending on my diet at the time I may buy more. For instance if I am being careful I have been known to use this in smoothies, salads (to make the mayo go further calorie wise), and as a 'dessert' alternative (with honey), I've even used it to make white sauce for lasagna and moussaka.

I always used to purchase the Yeo Valley yogurt, and on several occasions it wasn't in stock so I had to use an alternative, usually Tesco's own brand standard version, then I got a little brave and tried the value one, to be perfectly honest I don't know why I didn't do that sooner.

See below for a comparison of the yogurts I have tried and what the annual cost would be. Just to be clear the only ingredient in each of the below yogurts is Milk, as I would hope, watch out however as some of the low fat yogurts on the shelves contain thickeners such as modified maize starch (cornflour I think).

All low fat natural yogurt is fairly runny, all I do, say if I want a thicker consistency is strain it myself. It might sound like a lot of work but it's much cheaper than thick Greek yogurt, and the strained ones are much nicer, but more expensive than those that contain thickening agents. To thicken, I place a non fluffy clean tea towel or piece of muslin cloth in a sieve, I then balance the sieve over a large jug/bowl, add the yogurt into the tea towel and cover, leaving in the fridge over night. In the morning you will have a really thick, creamy yogurt! Truth be told I went through a phase of making my own yogurt, but it's a fairly lengthy process and it's so much easier to just buy it.

1 pot per week @ £0.45 (52 X 0.45 = £23.40 PER YEAR) 

1 pot per week @ £0.90 (52 X 0.90 = £46.80) 

£23.40 more expensive than Tesco Everyday Value over the course of a year

1 pot per week @ £1.50 (52 X 1.50 = £78) 

£31.20 more expensive than Tesco Own Brand over the course of a year

£54.60 more expensive than Tesco Everyday Value over the course of a year

And, here's the end result, I can afford to spend a little more on a healthy sugar alternative such as date nectar or agave nectar (derived from cacti), and a really delicious granola or muesli.

Now you've read this, is this something you currently save on? If not, is it something you will consider on your next supermarket shop? 

Cookie x

Brand Vs Budget | Beauty | Cotton Wool Pads

For years I used Boots for all my beauty essentials, including cotton wool pads.

I thought I'd write about these because they feature at least twice a day, every day (I use a minimum of 3 each day) in my routine so over the year they are something I get through a lot of.

So let's start with the more expensive cotton wool pads, these come from boots and cost £1.69 for 100 which isn't crazy expensive, also you can usually pick these up on Buy One Get One Half Price meaning you get 2 packets for £2.54 with the deal.

Without deal                            
£1.69 for 100 = 1.69p each pad            
X3 used each day =5.07p each day       
365 days =18.51 each year                 


With deal   
£2.54 for 200 = 1.27p each pad
X3 used each day = 3.81p each day
365 days = £13.91 each year

Now for Tesco, 1 packet = £0.55p for x 80 pads

£0.55 for 80 = 0.69p each

X3 used each day = 2.07p each day

365 days per year = £7.55 each year

The difference £13.91 - £7.55 = £6.36 (providing you get the buy one get one half price deal, otherwise that's £10.96 saved!) This might not seem a lot but think about how long you have been using cotton wool pads and how long you may continue use, for example over 10 years it could be a potential approximate saving of £63.60, which all adds up.

Also on the subject of the difference, I see no great difference in quality between the 2 of these products, they both do exactly the same thing for me, the only difference is the Tesco one is cheaper! and for me that is a win win situation, why pay more than you need to? That's an extra £6.30 (or possibly £10.96) to spend on the and other things each year.

Cookie x

Five Favourite Frugal Feeds

Some of my favourite meals are seriously cheap to make. I am a proper foodie so for me food comes first, it's just a bonus that they're cheap to make too!

1. Lasagne/Bolognaise/cottage pie/Chilli - One thing that I think is worth paying more for is meat, especially mince, I pay more for extra lean mince because basic beef mince is so fatty and I don't want to put that in my body. You can pick up a big  pack (750g maybe?) of extra lean beef mince in Tesco for £5, I only cook for 2 people so this usually gets divided into 3 batches. I fry it off to start with along with onions and garlic, I then split it out and do the individual dishes with it, one for that night, perhaps one for the one for the freezer. This usually makes about 5 meals, I don't like to eat too much mince and processed meats so I bulk this out with blitzed celery and carrot which makes it very healthy but also it goes a lot further and adds to the flavour. Mince is so versatile and you can do so much with it!

Multi tasking with the mince, some are for the freezer

Traditional, comforting cottage pie



Spaghetti Bolognaise with plenty of parmesan and garlic bread

Tortilla Chili Bake

Adding lots of veggies

                   Chili with tortilla chips and an array of dips                              

2. Macaroni Cheese - I love cheese, plain mac and cheese, or even mac and cheese with broccoli and cauliflower, it's so cheap to make but really tasty and a good veggie option if you don't want to go to too much effort.

If you want it to be even quicker and cheaper you could even jazz up a tin of macaroni cheese, I do this occasionally when i'm feeling lazy. It's really simple, 1. open tin, 2. I mix in a little salt, pepper and a good helping of nutmeg and give it stir/mix, 3. I pop it in a foil tin or tray any will do, 4. I grate cheese and pop it on top and finally 5. I stick it under the grill for about 5-10 minutes or until gold and crispy, believe me its quick, really cheap and you wouldn't recognise it as tinned mac!

3. Jacket Potato with Tuna and cheese - Really simple, nice, basic food that accompanied with salad is a perfect easy evening meal. You don't have to stick with tuna and cheese, there are so many budget fillings out there such as beans!

4.Vegetable soup - Got loads of vegetables knocking around? Perhaps one of several  different types vegetables? Group them all together. This is a fab way of using up leftover veg or even items in your veg drawer that may have otherwise been ignored/neglected.

5.Roast Chicken - a great Sunday lunch option, a whole chicken is usually cheaper than individual parts such as breasts. Just season to your preference and cook and est, there is usually chicken left over for sandwiches or salads the next day. Also you can whip up a lovely fresh chicken stock from the carcass, this is perfect for your vegetable soup or even a risotto or dish.

Covered in Sumac, parsley, lemon  and smoked salt

What are your favourite budget meals?

Cookie x

Frugal forages | Blackberries | Tomatoes

About 2 weeks ago I dragged my other half along blackberry picking.

It's very spiky, so be careful - but there was an abundance of these along one of our quiet roads on the island.

We were probably picking for about half an hour and we got near to 900g of berries, for nothing!

                           


Over the next week this made 2 Blackberry, apple and date crumbles and a pie - best of all the blackberries didn't cost a thing.

If this is something your interested in its definitely worth a go, last year I got a huge haul of these that I ended up freezing a large batch and making jam to last for months.

This is somewhere between pie and crumble, I didn't have enough pastry for the top, so thought on my feet. With some salted caramel ice cream this went down a treat.

Mmm Pie!

Finally, on the subject of foraging I have harvested the last of my Romanian Dwarf tomatoes, here are the lovely and sweet little beauties.

Did you grow any goodies this year? Or perhaps you've been foraging, please leave me a comment below.

Cookie x

Little update

Dear readers,

Just a quick message to let you know that I will be reducing the number of weekly posts that I do, I have been posting 4 times per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) and whilst I am enjoying this I am finding I have little spare time.

So, I will now aim for 2 posts per week, as usual I will post these at 12:00 UK time, and these will now be 1 on Monday and 1 on Friday.

I realise that my posts have been very review heavy too, and I will continue with my reviews because I love it, but I will also be focusing a little more on frugal/lifestyle/foodie posts too.

If I have a lot of reviews to complete at any one time I may do some ad hoc posts outside of my usual days, these would likely be on a Wednesday or a Saturday.

Please let me know what kind of posts you would like to see more of, if you have any suggestions comment below- I'd be really grateful.

Thanks for reading

Cookie x

Frugal Cookie | What I do | How to be FRUGAL/Savvy

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post to recap on some of the things I now do since challenging myself with frugal living.

Firstly a little about why I am doing this, it's not to be cheap, it's to be smart and efficient with my money. I want my money to work harder for me, essentially I love spending and buying new things, however I need to be careful. With adulthood there is responsibilities such as mortgages, bills, rent, etc, basically, enjoy being young! Enjoy living rent free and appreciate the benefits it brings while you can - that would be my advice to you.

Before buying our house I spent most of what I earned without much thought about 'what if?', these days I have to save for things that may or may not happen such as the need to replace a boiler or a detrimental piece of machinery or furniture within my house. It's worth being sensible, redundancy is very common in today's current situation and I've been there before.

Don't get me wrong, I still splash out on things but in order to do this I make sure that I'm saving in other areas.

Here are some of the things that I have done to date, hopefully these may even give you some inspiration too.

1. Streamlining/ getting the best deal

• Swapped from a mobile contract costing £35 per month to a PAYG top up of £20 per month.
• Less visits to the hairdresser, gone back to natural roots and rather than paying £60 every 6 weeks I am now spending £30 - £40 2-3 times per year.
• Less visits to beautician and home waxing saving £25 per month
• Selling lots of clothing, furniture and things that are no longer required on local facebook groups
• I am shopping smarter, I have swapped certain products for cheaper brands and sometimes even a stores own brand, there are some things I wouldn't dream of swapping and other things where I wish I'd done it sooner! I am also using coupons and vouchers wherever I can, take a look  at in store magazines such as that from Boots, Tesco and pets at home as they usually contain some great coupons.
• SUPERSAVVY ME - Frequently has coupons for Proctor and Gamble products such as Pantene, Ariel and many well known brands. They also run a lot of competitions and do several giveaways each month.

• MYMAIL - Printable coupons, sometimes for the amount that the product is on offer for, therefore sometimes FREE.

• CARING EVERYDAY - Printable coupons from Johnson & Johnson brands.

2. Freebies and Prize Wins

There are so many Freebies out there it is unreal! Online there are many freebies, see below for some of the sources that I have used.

• SOPOST - This  is a fantastic freebie tool, businesses use this company to distribute free samples of their products to the general public and potential future consumers. I have received in excess of 10 great beauty and food freebies this way. Some SOPOST are obtainable by entering a persons email, others you will need facebook for and some you will need twitter for, the idea is you send one to a friend and they send one to you. Obviously in order to receive the item you will need to provide your name and address.
• GOOGLE FREEBIES - I googles freebies in UK, you will come across lots of resources which will point you in the right direction of the latest freebies. Here are just some of the websites - http://www.latestfreestuff.co.uk/ , https://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/ , http://www.freestufffinder.co.uk/

3. Review and Campaign freebies | (WOMM) Word of Mouth Marketing Campaigns
 
I have received a considerable amount of free items to review from the below links.
 
With these websites all you need to do is sign up and provide information about yourself and your shopping habits, they will ask you to complete surveys from time to time, usually this is the gage whether you are compatible with a  product and whether they can then offer it to you to test.
 
Once you receive  your free product you then normally have around 60 days to try it and spread the word about your experiences. There is also activities such as sharing on facebook, twitter, submitting photos and videos and more.
 
The more surveys you do and the more active you are the more chance you get for future campaigns, I have found I go for ages without being offered one and then all of a sudden I get 3 invites.
 
The campaigns can be for anything, to date I have received lots of food items (they will usually send vouchers, especially for fresh food), body and skincare items, I even received a Dyson hoover worth £420 form a campaign, I would recommend doing this if you like to try new things, or even if you just love a freebie! Remember though, if you don't complete any of the campaign activities afterwards it is unlikely that you will receive further items.

• BZZAGENT UK
• ORCHARD AT TESCO
• TESCO HOME PANELS 
• SUPERSAVVY ME 
• TOLUNA
• AMAZON REVIEWS -  For this you just sign up to the website and you will need to have an amazon account. There is some free items and some really discounted items which you can have in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. I have just started doing this and have received a few freebies this way, thanks to Amber for the great idea (check out her blog here)
• BLOGGERS REQUIRED - This is a great resource, this lists blogger projects that you will need to apply to, if you are accepted you will usually be sent an item to review, each project will differ make sure you read the description to see if its definitely something your interested in.
• BRANDBACKER - This works in a similar way to bloggers required, you will need to apply to trial a product, therefore you will need to sell yourself with an effective pitch.

4. Surveys

You can make a few quid completing online surveys, however this can take time so I personally don't do these as I work full time and for the return I would get its not worth giving up my evenings.

•  INBOX POUNDS - Along with paid surveys inbox pounds also does paid emails, they will send an email into your inbox and you can get a penny for clicking on the link - this takes a long time but it does mount up and it's very little effort, I am on nearly £20, yes it's taken me a year but all I have had to do is visit a few websites.
• TOLUNA

5. Reviews for companies

Another way that I have received quite a lot of review items is by approaching companies asking to try products in exchange for a review. I also welcome companies contacting me to ask me to review items, if you would like to send me something to review please feel free to get in touch by email: rebellious_cookie@hotmail.com

6. Be inspired

Finally I haven't being doing this alone, there are so many people who have influenced me along the way from thrifty friends and relatives to YouTubers and bloggers alike. I will be putting up a post soon sharing some of the best frugal/freebies bloggers and YouTubers around, please watch this space.

I hope this post have gone some way toward inspiring you to use your money a little more wisely and perhaps to seek out relevant freebies where possible. As always if you have any questions please feel free to comment below or contact my by email (details on my Contact Me page or above).

Please leave me comment below if you could like me to expand on any of the topics I have mentioned above. I do plan to do some more posts going forward where I go into more detail on certain aspects such as sourcing review items and WOMM campaigns.

Cookie x

Healthyfoodbrands.co.uk Products | Review

Hi All,

I have done a lot of skincare, body and beauty product reviews lately so I thought today I would change the subject to another of my favourite topics.. Food!

I wrote to http://www.healthyfoodbrands.co.uk/ to ask if I could try some of the products in the ranges that they stock, they very kindly sent me 3 products from Rayner's essentials and a bottle of Honegar.

In addition to the products they also kindly provided me with some recipes, which is just as well because I dont tend to use malt or molasses in my everyday cooking or baking. 

These are cooking items but are less mainstream than your honey and golden syrup, these also double up as health foods and have many great health properties.

One of the recipes I received was for malted bagels, I have never made bagels so I thought 'Why not?'

The recipe wasn't 100% clear, and some of the ingredients were impossible for me to get on the day, for instance - fresh yeast and strong white flour.

I had to make do with plain flour mixed with a small amount of strong white that I had left, and another substitute of fast powdered yeast.

So, here's a loose idea of what I did. I used 500g flour (preferably strong white flour), a tsp of salt and enough lukewarm water to create an elastic (but not too wet) dough, I used about 350-80ml. 7g dry fast yeast. I also added to tsps of malt extract to the flour and salt mix.

I mixed the yeast in the water first and then added to the flour and salt mix. I used my Kitchenaid artisan with the dough hook to knead for 5-8 minutes until really elastic.

Once the dough was made I made it into a ball and oiled the bowl before putting it back in, I then left it for 1 hour and 15 minutes to rise in my proving drawer, if you don't have a proving drawer it will take longer. leave it in a warm place until risen to double size.

  

After the dough had risen I knocked it back and kneaded for a further 3-5 minutes, then cut it into 8 pieces. Once this was done I then placed onto a silicone sheet and put back into the proving drawer for a further 30 minutes to rise.

 

I used my finger to poke a hole in the bagels bearing in mind that these would eventually shrink.

The next step was to boil the bagels for 4 minutes (2 on each side) in water with 1 tsp of malt extract. They did pretty much double in size as the recipe suggested.

 

 

Once boiled I laid these on a silicone sheet and have them a little egg wash before sprinkling on sesame seeds.

  

These were put into a preheated oven at 190c for 20-25 minutes.

 and here is the final result. Yes they look a bit wonky but they tasted brilliant and I really enjoyed making them.

       

 I had these on day one with soup and then the next morning with scrambled eggs and they were delicious. 

I'd like to say a huge thank you to the company for their generosity and to Stephanie for all of her help along the way.

Please check out this company and the products detailed on their website. It really was great to be able to combine health with baking.

Cookie x

Review Items - 10 October 2015

1. Herpatch Coldsore Serum, £7.99 Boots. I applied to try this through bloggers required by using the following link - Sign up here

It is asked that the product can be reviewed within 2 weeks of receipt, whilst I may not get a coldsore in that time I will test the product out to see what it does.



                                     
2. Flint+Flint - SPF Hand Hero £24 for 75ml, can be purchased here

This smells really gorgeous and I could smell it before opening the bottle, I can't wait to try this. I am going to have this at my desk and use it as my primary hand cream for now.

 

3. Healthy Food Brands sent me some baking goodies and some recipes in order for me to test and review. 

I said that I was a homebaker and this company kindly sent me baking products, however they are all fairly similar, whereas I know that the range consists of other more mainstream baking ingredients such as golden syrup and flavoured essences, etc. 

Luckily I was also sent a recipe sheet, because malt doesn't usually feature in my baking so I am looking forward to leaving my comfort zone and trying something new.

 

4. Pevonia kindly sent me their winter relaxation gift box to review. This retails at £30 and can be purchased here.

This brand is very luxurious and specializes in creating that spa vibe at home. This kit is an ideal way of spending some 'me' time and generally de-stressing.

5. InstaNatural Retinol Moisturiser and Serum with 2.5% Retinol

I have tried quite a few products from this company and so far so good, as such I am expecting more great things from these guys.

I am looking forward to giving all of these things a try, so please keep checking back for my upcoming reviews!

Cookie x