July 15, 2016

National Cherry Day Made Sweet With Forest Feast

July 15, 2016/ Claire Spence

Forest Feast, the premium dried fruit and nut snack company, will join cherry lovers all over the UK to celebrate national cherry day on the 16th July, honouring the delicious, crimson fruit.

Ann Woods, Product Development Manager at Forest Feast said: “People still want tasty and convenient snacks but there is an increasing consumer demand for healthier snack alternatives, which has seen our cherry category grow significantly.”

“Cherries are not only delicious, they are bursting with vitamins and anti-oxidants, which is very appealing to consumers who want snacks thatdeliver on both taste and nutrition. Sour cherries taste amazing on their own, but can be transformed when you combine this unique-tasting fruit with other ingredients such as Belgian dark chocolate, other dried fruits or when added to savoury or sweet dishes.”

To help celebrate National Cherry Day, cherry lovers can enjoy a number of delicious cherry snacks options from Forest Feast, including:

·Forest Feast Belgian Dark Chocolate Sour Cherries - This decadent snack creates the perfect marriage of the intense flavour of the bittersweet chocolate and cocoa matched with the unexpected tartness of the cherry. RRP £1.99

·Forest Feast Scrumptious Sour Cherries - Low in fat and packed full of antioxidants, sour cherries are a tart version of regular cherries and can be enjoyed on their own but also give a delicious tartness when added to sweet and savoury dishes. Sour cherries hold their shape better when heated making them a firm favourite with cooks. RRP £1.70

·Forest Feast Berries & Cherries – Bursting with authentic fruit flavour, Forest Feast Berries & Cherries is a delicious mix of sour cherries, dried blueberries, cranberries and jumbo raisins which also packs a nutritional punch as 25g or one small handful of dried fruit equates to a serving in the government recommended 5 a day campaign. RRP £2.69

All Forest Feast products are available online and from leading retailers nationwide. For more information and recipe suggestions, visit www.forestfeast.com or find Forest Feast on Facebook and Twitter.

March 02, 2016

Say 'Aloha!' to Belfast's Freshest New Eating Experience & Try Something Different from the Kua 'Aina Lava Grill

March 02, 2016/ Claire Spence

Situationed on 2nd floor of Victoria Sq Belfast beside Nando's

I'll make you a wager: you'll have never tasted tuna any finer than the Lava Grilled tuna steaks on offer at Victoria Square's newest eaterie Kua 'Aina. Belfast is usually the last place that restaurant chains open up in, but thanks to Kua 'Aina being owned by two homegrown Northern Irish folks, we are privileged to be only the third branch to open, with the other two being London based.

We went along for a meal and met Harry for a chat. He usually runs the Carnaby Street branch, and he also mans the Kua 'Aina festival van (more on that later).

Harry explained that Kua 'Aina is actually the only restaurant in the complex who cook completely from fresh. The Hawaiian menu is a fabulous breath of fresh air indeed. I had peeked at the menu online before our visit, and initially had pictured it as another burger bar, and whilst they do a great burger, that's only part of the picture.

The menu offers traditional burgers, fish, veggie and chicken & turkey options. Then you choose whether you want it served as a burger, or hot sandwich, or bunless with salad. There are also very tempting 'Super Salads' , and the tuna & avocado caught my eye immediately. Sometimes when you are trying to diet especially at this time of year pre-summer, the salad option on the menu can feel like the booby prize. Your lettuce arrives and you longingly stare at everyone else's meal and decide you'll just buy a sarong for over that bikini and get something tasty next time. BUT- look at that salad!

Its an enviable rainbow of fresh, crunchy goodies. The ginger and soy dressing with the tuna and greens is to die for. The tuna fillet tastes like no tuna I've had before. I've had tuna at restaurants before which literally tasted of nothing, but the Kua 'Aina fillet it meaty, smoky and delicious.

Tuna & Avocado Super Salad includes a whole avocado! Hooray!

All the 'proteins' in the meals are cooked on the special lava grill. I asked Harry what this actually meant. He explained it's a Hawaiian way of low fat, healthy cooking, and it's what the George Foreman grill is based on.

The other food we went for was a Mahi Mahi & Monterey Jack sandwich, Spicy Huli Huli Chicken as a burger and a kid's meal of chicken strips and sweetcorn. If I did have a negative point about Kua 'Aina, it would be the kids' choices I'm afraid. The options aren't plentiful and the meal like a bit anemic beside our colourful offerings. I would love to see more Hawaiian options too, as kids are just as open as us to trying new things. I did totally love the glass Smix's apple juice came in however (top pic in this post) I want one myself!

When Kua 'Aina asked us along, they said I simply had to try the milkshake, so we had one each. Coconut and strawberry, in cute pint bottles. They are just as good as they tipped us off to, and they source the ice cream from Morellis locally. You can even make it dirty with spirits, and check the Kua 'Aina website for their signature cocktails and 2 for 1 offers on those.

Sweet potato fries (portion is bigger than it appears here!)

We also picked a couple of sides, although saying that, the main meals were plenty. We had sweet potato fries which rivalled the kings of the sweet potato next door (N**dos!), very crispy and delicious. The onion rings are comically large and made for sharing.

Chilli fries side would do as a main course £5.50

I couldn't resist the chilli fries, but a word of warning. They are HUGE. The portion could be a meal for one in itself. Fries with mince and cheese and jalapeños. I couldn't manage even a 1/4 but kindly they wrapped it up for me to take home. Incidentally you can order Kua 'Aina for delivery thanks to the Deliveroo service arriving in Belfast. Also while I mention it, the Kua 'Aina staff, I think we dealt with three local staff during our visit, are all really upbeat and friendly, which makes me think they must be nice to work for as well as eat in.

We adults were too full for dessert, but Smix used his special, child's 'dessert stomach' to fit in this freshly made, thick and fluffy American style pancake with maple syrup (icecream optional) .

So we had a lovely visit and most certainly shall be back. Sadly if you aren't in London or Belfast, it may be some time before you get a Kua 'Aina of your own. Why not petition them on their Facebook Page for a restaurant in your area?

As I mentioned earlier, they have a food truck that visits festivals. Not sure if this is last year's or this season coming's food truck calendar, but keep an eye out this summer!

January 23, 2016

Sakura Sushi, Belfast - I Got It Wrong...

January 23, 2016/ Claire Spence

Back in August last summer I posted a blog touting The Battle of the Belfast Sushi Joints. Back then my favourites, Yo Sushi! Belfast came out on top, but I believe I was a little hasty writing Sakura in Botanic off as too authentically Japanese for me (not necessarily even a bad attribute!).

In August when I went along to order take out from Sakura, I was struck by the distinct lack of pictures of what everything was on the menu. Even as a sushi enthusiast I'm very much still a 'point at the picture of the sushi I want' customer, even dining at Yo! So I just asked Sakura to make me up some sort of takeaway and unfortunately that day they chose a huge platter of only nigiri (raw fish on blocks of rice). No rolls of any sort, or even maki.

Then, as a Yo Sushi! westernised sushi experience veteran, I was faced with a piece of nigiri that literally had octopus suckers on it. I concluded Sakura was too rich for my tastes.

So, Thursday past, Fashion Week launch, I'm up in Belfast anyway so I take advantage of being near somewhere that actually sells sushi (Bangor is a sushi desert) and with parking easier near Sakura, I decide to have another try.

Hooray! A giant sign outside with PICTURES of three different trays you can buy to takeaway. I immediately go inside and point to the sign with glee. I chose the medium tray on Thursday, but today I picked up one of each of the sizes to show you what you can get.

Small £4.80 Medium £8.50 Large £12.50

These rolls are especially good, they've crispy bits in them (technical foodie term).

So Sakura, forgive me, I was wrong and now I love you. The website gallery shows me many wonders I would love to try too. Maybe I should print out the pictures and take it with me to do a bit more pointing ordering. The rolls with the yellow on top, second down left, those look GOOD.

January 07, 2016

Marks & Spencer's Enviously Delicious Clean Eating Ranges for a Fresh 2016

January 07, 2016/ Claire Spence

In the past if someone announced their eating clean intentions I'd think 'dead on. Rather you than me!'. Clean Eating involves removing preprocessed foods from your diet, or at least avoiding additives in what you do buy already made. That sounds like no fun at all.

When I arranged this latest blog post with my lovely contact for M&S, she suggested I look at the new juices they've brought out, and clean eating involving a stirfry offer (it's a really great offer, more on that below). I wondered would I find anything to my taste, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The fruit and veg section is an obvious place to start. All sorts of delicious fruit with some on a 2 for £3, mix and match offer.

As well as the classic favourite fruits, there are some I haven't even heard of! M&S are great like that, they'll have products you just can't get elsewhere.

Adventurous cooks will love the herb station. You can buy potted herb plants too.

These little salad bowls have been around for ages, but they've launched a few new versions for the year ahead. I noticed quite a lot of avocado products round the store, always a good thing. These pots are £3 for 2, can be mixed varieties or even included in the fruit and veg 2 for £3 too.

Here's that fabulous stirfry deal I mentioned. You get a meat, veg mix, noodle or rice and finally a sauce for £7. It's all mix and match so the different combinations seem endless. The meal serves two but you could easily bulk it up to feed two kids as well with an extra pack of noodles.

The meat options don't cut corners, as well as the chicken and beef you'd expect, there are exotic choices like duck breast, king prawn and salmon. I don't think Ive ever had salmon in a stir fry.

Here comes a really innovative range- vegetables that replace pasta in meals. Each of these cost £1 and could definitely be used to bulk up the stir fry like I mentioned. I havent seen these for sale anywhere else and I'm very curious to try them.

Those of you with brand new Nutribullets will love these smoothie packs. For £2.50, or two for £3, you get everything you need to whizz up the perfect healthy juice. You can even use the container as a cup.

The little veg and protein tubs, such as this beetroot, chicken and pecan nut one below are an interesting alternative to a snack of chocolate or crisps during the day.

Green tea can help your metabolism, so with it only being £1 for this box, I decided to give it a go.

M&S fresh soups, from the fridge department, are known for being rich and delicious. They've launched a few new recipes and you can try them by taking advantage of the current buy one, get one half price offer.

Also newly launched are these tea based drinks. They are £1.50 each. They'd make a delicious afternoon snack with one of the crispy Pink Lady apples.

Staying with healthy snacks, these baked pea snaps are £2 for bags of 5.

I also loved the package design of their instant noodles.

So you're set for your evening meal with the stirfry offer, but what can you pick up on the go, or for a working lunch?

These new open sandwiches and healthy wraps are mix and match with a drink & snack all for £4.

Here are a couple of combinations I chose. All £4 offers.

Smoked salmon and prawn. How cool are these carrot crisps?

Finally, your healthy eating breakfast- porridge, you can't beat it!

Coincidentally Sprucefield M&S have Fitbits. I bought one last week and I'm loving it. It tracks your steps, exercise, quality of sleep etc. If you're thinking of getting one you should pop along and play about with what they have there.

September 06, 2015

Yogland Is a Self Serve Parlour of Pure Joy

September 06, 2015/ Claire Spence

I begin a fortnight cycle of my weight loss program again tomorrow, so Michael and I rushed off to review Yogland on Belfast's Lisburn Road this afternoon. It's a cool little Sunday afternoon treat stop that has something for everyone.

Frozen yoghurt has always been the lower fat cousin of sinful, sugar-laced icecream, but Yogland goes one further with their own blend of high protein, zero sugar recipes, some of which are gluten free.

The flavour options are immense. We tried watermelon, cookies & cream, red velvet cake batter and peanut butter, all tasted beautiful. I'm not keen on plain frozen yoghurt, but there is a classic greek flavour if you want to keep it original.

How Yogland works is simple. You pick a tub, dispense the flavours you desire in the quantity you wish. They encourage trying more than one flavour and we both were able to fit three flavours in their small tub each.

Next comes the fun part. Now if you are having frozen yoghurt as part of a clean eating, fat free diet, you can still top your tub with coconut, fruit & jelly bubbles. If you're a seven year old boy, or a total sweet tooth like myself, then the world is your oyster where toppings are concerned. You can take as much as you want, you're just limited by how much you can balance on top of your yoghurt!

There are cereals, granola, broken Oreos & Reece's Pieces, Haribo, Love Hearts, Dolly Mixtures, Skittles, Cadbury Buttons, Smarties, just a kid's dream really.

I tried the little fruit bubbles, which burst in your mouth. I'm wondering is that what's in bubble tea? Whatever they are, they are my new favourite thing.

Cookies & Cream and Red Velvet frozen yoghurt with bubbles, white buttons and coconut topping

Cookies and cream frozen yoghurt with bubbles, Oreos, peanut butter cups, white buttons and Smarties

As the whole process is self serve, they don't charge per tub size, but rather by weight. So they'll weigh your finished tub and charge you depending on that.

Watermelon frozen yoghurt, popcorn, Cocopop and Haribo toppings

There are window seats downstairs, so if you have a pram in tow you can sit there. Upstairs is more spacious, with lots of bright decor and board games! While we were there a group of student age friends were enjoying their frozen yoghurts and having a Jenga tournament.

So we loved Yogland, the variety of options means there is something for all the family. I reckon we will drive up every so often to treat ourselves. Given the health aspect, I will definitely be choosing Yogland over any icecream cafes if we are up in that area. I just wish we had one in Bangor for after school treats.

September 01, 2015

New You Plan Day Five : Making Crisps out of Soup?

September 01, 2015/ Claire Spence

Can't believe I've made it this far! I've never stuck so completely & strictly to an eating plan, EVER. Not just weight loss eating, but also a few years ago I had high cholesterol and couldn't stick to a diet for that either!

So why is this diet different?

Firstly I have to be accountable to you guys. There's no point me doing a free week's trial in return for blogging all about it, then not doing it properly. My readers want to see if it's worth the price tag, and if I mess around on it, you aren't getting the whole experience reported to you.

The other reasons are applicable to anyone doing the plan, the second being the money guilt trap. As you are paying £38.99 a week for your total inclusive food for those seven days, it's silly to cheat one or two days and waste your money.

Lastly, this diet is different in that New You Plan's input doesn't stop with the delivery. There is free live chat with a customer service advisor during office hours. There is a plethora of tools for weight loss maximisation on their main website. But what really is helping keep me on plan is the Secret Slimmers Facebook Page that I keep mentioning. Women (mostly) who are going through the exact same plan as you, with advise, answers to questions and encouragement for you daily. It's a very active page with fun events like Selfie Saturday and weigh ins weekly. Without the page I KNOW I would have blipped and scoffed something off plan by now.

So, truthfully, how do I see the New You Plan diet, five days in? Well to be brutally honest, it IS hard. This isn't a diet where you simply make a few changes to you eating by adding more lettuce than potatoes to your dinner. You can only eat four New You products a day, a shake, a soup, a bar or a meal. The meals are SMALL. I'm not going to pussyfoot around that fact. You are certain to pour out your very first meal packet on your first day and think, 'oh my god, I could eat four of these in one go'.

So you are making a big sacrifice of your usual eating habit of eating until you are full. You aren't hungry after the small meals, but you will notice the huge difference in portion size from regular meals.

So the meals are small, but balanced for nutrients daily. The meal replacement bars are quite big in comparison. Like fun size Mars Bar size. Being able to eat chocolate on a diet is fab though. The other two products, shakes and soups, are straightforward, easy to make and taste good. I decided quite early that I didn't want any of my four products a day to be liquid, so I'm now turning shakes into bowls of mousse or frozen lollies, and this afternoon I attempted the soup mix crisps!

One pack of New You Plan soup mix, any Flavour, I chose chicken, add spices if desired.

Add 30ml of water and mix into a baby food consistency

Spread the mixture out in crisp sized shapes and microwave for 90 seconds

Peel from the paper and eat! Mine were more like savoury bites so I'll spread the mix thinner on my next attempt

Excitingly now my daily posts are being shared over on the New You Blog among the other stories of women's successes. I hope by the end of the full seven days I'll have a result somewhere near the average. I have a fashion event to attend next Tuesday, so it would be lovely to have dropped under 9 stone by then.

*week one of the New You Plan provided for review purposes. Always see a GP before embarking on a very low calorie diet. All result vary, weight loss is not a guarantee*

August 21, 2015

Marks & Spencer Celebrate Tastes of the British Isles

August 21, 2015/ Claire Spence

£4 for these classic pudding inspired sweets

M&S is one of the truly uber British brands that I would miss terribly if I ever moved to another country. Whilst they do offer worldwide tastes like sushi, Indian foods & Chinese delights, what they do really well is finding the absolute best of British farmers & producers products and bringing them to us at a great price. For example the famous Cornish Cruncher cheese, in its distinctive black packaging. Its an award winning cheese that Marks & Spencer discovered and now sell all over the UK.

This summer M&S launched their Tastes of the British Isles range, which covers almost every section of the Food Hall. They have curated speciality foods from every corner of the UK, including classic puddings, regional bakery items and a whistlestop tour of British cheese varieties. It's a range to be proud of, as it shows the world that Britain has such a wide selection of amazing foods and dishes, with tastes for every palette.

Every few weeks M&S invite me along to Sprucefield to pick items to feature on here, so it seemed about time I shone a light on some of the Taste of the British Isles products.

First, the sweet treats. I know any time I want to bring a dessert along somewhere I always head to M&S. The quality of their cakes is far superior to other supermarkets. Saying that, I'm not a huge fan of their own brand chocolate. My Scottish pal Michael advised I bought the giant chocolate buttons, but sadly even those didn't do it for me. I do like their fancy little bars, like the lemon mousse or cappuccino flavour bars, and you can't deny that Percy Pig is the King of the Gummies.

I'm a sucker for a scone with cream and jam & in the fridge section I came across a scone pack that came with both jam & clotted cream. I also liked the look of these strawberry & cream infused scones. All I need is a big pot of tea with these and I'm set.

Scone selection £3 : Pack of two scones £1.35

Whitby buns are doughnut shaped buns with a lemon curd filling. We had tried the berry version last time, so picked the lemon this time around.

I've never seen a blackcurrant Swiss roll before, but if it's from M&S it's bound to be delicious. The little stripe in the cake is very cute and the £2.50 price tag is brilliant value.

I'm not a frequent yoghurt eater, but sometimes I just take a wee notion and have a yoghurt week! I love some of the unusual flavours here, treacle & clotted cream, rhubarb & custard, and as for the 'Sussex lemon pond pudding', well I'm not very sure what that is, but I'm sure it will taste great. There are further flavours in this range I haven't featured, and they are all on offer at £3 for five.

West Country yoghurts 80p each or five for £3

Sometimes you want an after-dinner dessert but not something humongous, so these little tartlets are just the ticket. They are also available in a lemon meringue variety and cost £2.50 or are two for £4 mix and match with lots of other bakery items.

I chose the Eccles cakes not for my own house, but for my Dad. He's been buying Eccles cakes from Marks and Spencer for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately as a child I was put off them for life by my Dad trying to discourage me from eating his supply, telling me they were called 'Flies' Graveyards'. So I can't eat raisins or sultanas to this day, funnily enough!

The Tastes of the British Isles range also has a wide variety of savoury offerings. M&S stock more different types of Scotch Egg than I've seen anywhere else! After the success of the Cornish Cruncher cheese, they've expanded the products its a base for. I picked up this delicious Cornish Cruncher terrine, which will blow your socks off.

The Marks & Spencer cheese aisle is a place of wonder for cheese lovers. If there is such a thing as a cheese enthusiast, then they'll love the range of British cheeses M&S currently has on offer. I picked a twist on the classic Cornish Cruncher, a block with balsamic onions though it. My absolute favourite cheese right now is the Blacksticks Blue variety. They also sell it in a soft spreadable cheese, and I've been known to demolish a tub of it within 24 hours, it's just too good!

Juice £2 : Blacksticks Blue £2.20 : Cornish Cruncher £2.50

And look! Blacksticks Blue sausages! I'm not really sure how cheese infused sausages work, so if you want to see how they turn out, keep an eye on my Instagram as I'll show you how they turn out on there when I've cooked them.

Tastes of the British Isles sausage are £3.50

M&S are famed for their Lochmuir salmon, and these BBQ glazed fillets are perfect for late summer dinners. Served with a big green salad its a good option for healthy eating folks.

If you're feeling more like fish and chip shop style grub, they have a wide variety of different battered or breadcrumbed fish. You can buy family sized packs too.

Finally, also part of the three for £10 deal on meat and fish, how tasty does this gammon look with its ale chutney flavouring? Well done, M&S, always something new and wonderful to try.

August 08, 2015

Battle of the Belfast Sushi Takeaways!

August 08, 2015/ Claire Spence

I was talking about sushi over on Facebook and my friend Claire recommended I try Sakura on Botanic Avenue in Belfast next time, rather than Yo Sushi! Michael & I had actually been to Sakura twice a number of years ago, when they were the only place that had a sushi train in Northern Ireland. It was so long ago I couldn't even remember what it was like to compare to our staple Yo Sushi! takeaway boxes. So I picked up a big twelve piece box for £16.50, at Sakura, and a large salmon & tuna box for £7.50 from Yo Sushi!

Top left £16.50 box from Sakura, top right is a little sushi mix bowl from Yo! which costs £1.50, bottom is the £7.50 Yo! large salmon and tuna box.

Firstly ordering at Sakura was trickier than Yo! because there aren't really premade boxes or pick and choose from. Secondly the menu to order from doesn't have images of each piece, and even though we get sushi often I still don't really know all the names of the things I like, or don't like. I know what a hand roll is (I'm not keen on them), California rolls and maki, but everything else is always ordered with a point at the picture on the Yo Sushi! menu.

So even though the Sakura takeaway menu is more extensive than the Yo Sushi! one, I was a little flustered at what to order and in the end just asked for the large selection.

Compared to Yo Sushi! pieces, Sakura sushi is almost twice the size. I can eat a whole box of Yo! takeaway in one sitting, but I only managed five from the Sakura tray. They give you tonnes of wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger too.

Generous amounts of ginger & wasabi with the Sakura box

Tastewise I think Sakura is closer to what you might get in a traditional sushi restaurant in Japan, whereas Yo Sushi! is more of a westernised version of the food type, which I think I prefer. You can't say that Sakura portions aren't generous, in fact I've no idea how I'm going to manage to eat it all this evening while the raw fish is still good!

After my Sakura experience I think I'll stick with Yo Sushi! at least for takeaway boxes for now. I think Sakura would be better for sitting in, so that's on my to do list. Now what am I going to do with all this fresh sushi?? I'm off to hunt for some lose trousers with an elasticated waist band....