United Tastes of America at Lidl Week Inspires Me to Serve Everything on Skewers!

It's been American Week at Lidl, with lots of treats in store.

Of course I had to stock up. I don't know if anyone else felt inspired by this Buzzfeed post about skewer food last week, but as a mother of a picky eating six year old, I was keen to try some of the ideas out.

I picked up all the ingredients in my Bangor Lidl store. For savoury skewers for the adults I bought the outstandingly delicious sirloin steaks, a red pepper and baby potatoes.

I simply boiled the potatoes then tossed them in butter. I fried off the red pepper in olive oil, so they still had a little bit of crunch and wouldn't fall apart when I added them to the skewer. The sirloin I chopped into pieces and fried in the super hot pan, adding a dollop of honey thirty seconds before the end to give it a lovely taste. They were SO GOOD.

For my son's savoury skewer I added Belgian waffle quartered, cherry tomatoes in coloured varieties and hotdog sausage chopped up. What do you know, instead of fighting over eating, the novelty of the presentation had this meal demolished in minutes.

The easiest and yummiest looking dessert idea was this brownie one.

I had run out of clean skewers at this point, but for soft foods you can use drinking straws. Also a safer plan if you want to avoid giving six inch metal or wooden spikes to kids! Again these were a success. I might make dozens of these come birthday party time in October.

If you're into your healthy snacks then you can pick up a popcorn maker which uses hot air, not oil, for just £8.99.

For bakers, there are cake pop makers and doughnut makers, £11.99 each. Plus ready made doughnut batter in store.

I also spotted, but didn't pick up, these 'Nutella' filled cookies. If anyone tries them let me know are they worth trying on Twitter, I'm @rudedoodle.

A couple more products caught my eye, some very Ikea-a-like meatballs, and almond tarts. Also fancied this big pork fillet to make pulled pork, it was £4.99.

Another taste-a-like, a bag of Starbucks' type hard waffles for less than the price of one waffle bought in their chain! These are a spot on taste match.

Lastly, you may wonder how I'm even finding time to blog, what with school holidays and no moment of my own anymore, well, Lidl to the rescue once again. For the past hour Michael has been busy colouring in this cardboard playhouse we picked up with our Lidl shop for £7.99!

Don't forget you can check out the Lidl NI website to see what themed offers are coming up in the next few weeks, influding some fab duvets and jammies boys and girls in July.

Sneak Those Veggies Into Dinner Time with Pop Chef for only £9.99

Remember going to the Ideal Homes Exhibition when you were a kid? There was always a fun cutting novelty for making food shapes that Mum wouldn't buy. Well now you can get the Pop Chef for only £9.99 and it's safe for over 3 year olds to use as it doesn't have blades. Affordable, safe, quick, easy, dishwasher safe.

You can make appealing, party fruit kebabs (sticks are included in the pack). Or how about saving some pennies and shaping toast, cheese and ham and sending it to school for break instead of packs of Dairylea Lunchables. This way you can use fresh produce with no additives. 

As you can see above the Pop Chef is also useful for pretty and simple bun or cake decoration. I was very excited to try this product out; I'm the sort of adult does buy Lunchables, for themselves! 

You have six different shapes and the ends are incredibly hassle free to swap over. I tried cutting Apple, yellow pepper and toast. All cut easily. When I went to pop them however, I came stuck a little. I squeezed the orange pump and the apple didn't budge. I worked out there's a trick to it. You smack the palm of you hand down on the top of the orange part like you would to get tomato sauce out of the end of a ketchup bottle. This works a treat and the shape literally pops audibly out of the tube. So if you child is using the Pop Chef themselves, they may need to practice that part or have your help.

As it is my son is a fussy eater, so the Pop Chef will be getting used regularly from now on. 

The £14.99 Home Ice-cream Maker that Actually Works! The Chill Factor.

When I was a child I wanted, and finally got, the Mister Frostie Slushie Maker. My parents would have this look of utter misery when I'd ask to use it, as it never really was me using it, it would be them. Twenty minutes of cranking the almost impossible to budge handle, to make half a cup of broken ice. When the Chill Factor arrived with us yesterday for review, Mister Frostie was the first 'person' who sprang to mind. As my son bounced about excitedly deciding which flavour of ice cream to create first, I thought to myself, 'this is Mister Frostie's revenge'.

Nevertheless we stuck the cone in the freezer overnight, and picked up the ingredients we needed to make Oreo Ice cream this morning. All we actually needed was 100ml of cream, and some crushed biscuits. In fact all the recipes suggested in the Chill Factor instructions are two or three ingredients long. That means you know exactly what's going into your home made ice cream, sorbet or frozen yoghurt. No additives, and you can flavour using fresh fruit.

For £14.99 it's a very reasonable price for something that doesn't take up a whole cupboard to store, like a large ice-cream maker, and can help you with healthy eating as you control the ingredients. I love it. I'm freezing it up again as I type, I'm going to make myself some frozen toffee yoghurt to have while I watch tv tonight.

Let me know if you get one yourself, and which recipes you come up with.