Design Your Own Love Heart & Win a Factory Tour

To celebrate 60 years of Lovehearts, Swizzels Matlow are holding a competition to design your own Love Heart sweet to win a factory tour, Willy Wonka style. You can enter here.

Catch the Second Half of the Great Ulster a pub Week

The greatest celebration of Northern Ireland’s pub culture is taking place in a pub near you this week.  The Great kicked off on Thursday 1stMay 2014 and runs until Friday 9th May 2014.

The Great Ulster Pub Week is the biggest pub centric multi-venue event seen in Northern Ireland and will showcase all that’s ‘Great’ about the Ulster pub.  Over 160 pubs from right across Northern Ireland taking part in the exciting pub celebration, with hundreds of unique events showcasing great food, great entertainment and great craic taking place.

From live music, magic, theatre productions, poetry readings and pub quizzes to arts & crafts workshops, film screenings, special menus and charity challenges, The Great Ulster Pub Week offers a diverse array of events that’s sure to surprise and delight pubgoers across Northern Ireland.

For further information and for full event listings, visit www.greatulsterpubweek.com or find The Great Ulster Pub Week on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Instagram using the hashtag, #UlsterPubWeek

Coconut Popcorn from Propercorn, the Perfect Summer Snack

If you are a Birchbox beauty sample service subscriber, like me, you might have had the chance to try the Propercorn Coconut flavour popcorn in this month's box. I absolutely loved it, I'd never tasted anything like that before. Propercorn kindly sent me this pretty box containing each of their flavours currently available. 

The packs are slightly larger than regular crisp packets, but are lower in calories from being hand cooked in rapeseed oil & seasoned with Propercorn's special seasonings. A great snack if you are counting calories and still want snacky stuff. Whenever I diet I always need things like this on hand, because if I cut out everything snacky altogether, the diet only lasts half a day before I give in due to misery!

I've managed to drop from 11st 6lbs to 9st 10lbs since Christmas, so I will be buying lots of Propercorn for the rest of the weight loss journey.

The Big Beef Taste Test at St. George's Bar & Grill, Belfast

On Saturday evening we were invited to a Beef Masterclass at St. George's Bar & Grill. The beef in question was a selection of high quality cuts straight from Hilltown Farm. One of the farmers called in to tell us all about the free range style their cattle are raised, including the eight pints of stout each beast delights in each day! The beef is aged on location, meaning your steak has a tiny mileage from farm to plate.

Head chef James then gave us a short Masterclass on the cuts and techniques we can use at home. From beef heart, to cuts of rump, we all learned a little something new. 

Beef heart, tastes a little like liver or kidney

Slow roasted beef with rice

The kitchen was hot, so we took our drinks out on the terrace which overlooks the famous St. George's Market area. The Bar & Grill serves brunch on market mornings, and I really want to call back for that, over looking the pretty cupcake stalls and craft vendors. Most of the produce St. George's Bar & Grill comes from the market downstairs, from local vendors, making it super fresh.

Our tasting platter consisted of a tender rump steak, a deconstructed lasagne and a posh version of cottage pie. We had been out all day Saturday, so we had our son with us, but they really looked after him. While we were having the Masterclass they allowed him to draw on their menu chalkboard, and knowing the food was a little bit too picky for a six year old, they offered him chips to feast on. He really felt special. 

Michael enjoying an ale made on Hilltown Farm

So tender

The restaurant has pre-theatre or concert menus, so we have already planned to come back the evening before we see Miley Cyrus next month. Showing a theatre ticket, or even an ice hockey ticket will get you a free glass of wine with your meal.

Thank you for having us, St. George's, I have you down as one of Belfast's best kept secret foodie stops now. 

T-shirt Fun with Ikea Textile Pens

We bought a white t-shirt each from H&M (£2.99 & £3.99) to try out the Ikea Loppstarr Textile Pens. They can be found in the textile department for £1.75 a pack.

Son asked me what sort of t-shirt he should make. I said, "what would you really love on a t-shirt that you can't buy in the shops?" So, of course, he drew a giant ham & cheese Subway, a stage, and a disco. 

I picked a t-shirt which was more stretchy than his plain, white cotton one, which proved to be a mistake. Plain tees are easy to draw on, but stretch fabric is really tricky. My t-shirt didn't come out too well, I couldn't draw lines just make dots to put together a picture. So my advice is go for very basic cotton tees, or fabric. I gave mine a Ridgway Homemaker plate design. 

Easter Tuesday Daytrip to Exploris Aquarium, Portaferry, Northern Ireland

Spot the sea creature that looks like one of those darn Rainbow Loom, elastic band bracelets.

I did a picture 

So did my husband.

Grumpy, hungry face

We then took the ferry across to Strangford to try to get fish & chips for lunch. Nowhere open. Drove to Killyleagh. Nowhere open. Now I realise everyone needs a holiday, but with dozens of families on day trips, an open chippy within the 30 mile radius of the ports could have made a killing. We tried Saintfield, nope, on to Comber, just a KFC style place with no seats. We eventually found a chip shop open in Ards, about ten miles from home. Poor show South Down!

We did go for a dander in Killyleagh to try and find somewhere open, and so our son could visit the castle which is used for the exterior shots in CBBC's Dani's Castle.

Happy Easter from The World of Kitsch

We had an Easter Egg Hunt.

Easter Dinner

Bunny dinner

Cream Egg Ice cream

We then drove to Groomsport, Cockle Row for crafts and Easter babies.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter Sunday with your families and friends.

Cadbury Easter Egg Trails All Over the UK this Weekend. We Took Up the Quest at Mount Stewart.

We are just back from a lovely day out at Mount Stewart, one of the National Trust's Northern Irish properties. This long weekend, all over the UK, Cadbury are holding Easter egg trails, and you can find your nearest trail here.

We had a lot of fun. The trail costs £1 on top of National Trust admission. Your child receives a special Cadbury Passport, a Safari hat, and on completion of the trail each child gets an egg. 

Mini Hunter S Thompson

This is a 'stop taking photos and get on with the trail' face.

Michael with his egg

We brought a picnic, but there is also a small restaurant/cafe at the property.

On the way home to Bangor we cut across the peninsula and stopped in Donaghadee for a paddle and to share a parcel of chips. Perfect day.