The very very best thing about all of these Chewits sweets, aside from the taste, and the chewiness obviously, is that they're ALL vegetarian, which means for just about the first time ever, all of my children can have equal share and no-one has to 'make do' or find something else.

My teenagers were a bit put off by the 'Carnival' initially as they didn't know what was going to happen and they had to either fill in the form, or connect to Facebook. They're dubious of 'spamming' and didn't want to post loads of Facebook status they had no control over, alternatively the form option asks for your school name, which in our house they're banned from sharing. I told them they could just put 'school' and after that initial hiccup, they were off.


The app only works on a computer, it isn't able to work on a mobile yet, which meant they ended up taking turns.

My 13 year old girl played with the 'Carnival' for longest and she really enjoyed taking the faces of her 2 best friends and installing them onto cartoon bodies so that they could visit the carnival with her.


I tried the app myself and connected via Facebook, choosing to share 'only me'. The app did share 5 stills from the Carnival, which is a little excessive, but they had the faces of my 2 chosen friends on cartoon bodies, so they were quite amusing. Because I'd connected to Facebook my latest status update, birthday and school name also appeared in the carnival, as well as bits of other information which were quite funny - I especially liked the 'I love Euan' on the back of my character's bag, as that's my partner!



There is all sorts of information about Chewits here, photo's from 'Treat Truck' travels, information about sports courses and plenty of space for you to have your say. There are 5 games to play too -  Mystic Chewie, The Claw, Castle Adventure, Spaceship Adventure and Taste Adventure.

Mystic Chewie is an animated fortune teller. You choose a subject and are given a one sentence fortune in return.  For example choose 'Flavour' and you might get this is reply - "Chewie sees your favourite flavour to be Fruit Salad because you are so fruity and fun!"

The 3 Adventures games are 'point and click' puzzles. These puzzles are okay, some of it is very logical (e.g. try the key in the lock) but some is a bit random and very much open to chance and searching around the page for clickable items.



The Chewits Claw is the big game. You can actually compete to win prizes including an iPod Touch. It's based on the claw machines where you grab at toys and try to lift them up and you have to be very precise with where you place your claw or you score!

Points are gained by collecting Chewits. You can get extra points by filling up the bars on the right and collecting specific amounts of particular Chewits when asked.


It's very simple and addictive in the same way as Tetris, but actually a bit more frustrating because once you get tired you simply can't get a good score at all and you need to walk away! My best score so far is a disappointing 18400, sadly massively beaten by my teenagers!


So what did they think of the Chewits Cool Crazy Carnival? 

13 yo -

• I like the heads, they're funny.
• I don't understand why I had to put all that information in?
• The carnival is good, but I don't see where it goes because you can't choose the rides there
• No Claw score given

 14yo

• The Claw is a bit hard to get in the right place. 
• If it was a phone app I would probably get it because I'm competitive
• No Claw score given

15yo

• Carnival set up was longish and led to very little apart from a link, and the data wasn't even included when playing the games
• The Claw is very addictive
• It would be better on phones
• Best Score 52500

15yo (Winner of the most thorough review ever by a teenager)

Fairground

• No pause button =(
• Asks personal questions
• Can't save photo's

Castle

• Kind of frustrating
• Simple point and click
• Puzzle solving fun

Aliens

• Yay!

Mystic Chewie

• Highly amusing - not gamey

The Claw

• I don't like 'invite your friends' feature
• Super addictive
• Makes me want Chewits
• Not Chew Bad (Gr9* pun)
• Best score 28900

*Gr9 is like gr8, but one better....


Overall it got the 'thumbs up' from my lot. They all messed around with it a bit and completed at least one of the 'Adventures', and at least 2 have returned to try and better their best scores.

The website can be a bit glitchy and asks for upgrades to Flash that aren't helpful sometimes when you play 'The Claw' or 'Mystic Chewie', but these games can be played directly through Facebook from the Chewits page with no issue anyway.

Plenty of good harmless fun!

Sky Ride Big Rides are huge events which take place in towns and cities the length and breadth of the UK and include all kinds of entertainment for children and freebies for cyclists. They close whole streets an areas to cars and let cyclists rule the roads and enjoy cycling safely.

Sky Ride Local Rides are led by British Cycling Ride Leaders. They follow planned routes through scenic areas and are available for all different abilities including routes suitable for adaptive bikes. All rides are free of charge.


Sky Ride also facilitates Social Cycling Groups and 'Buddy' link ups everywhere, so that anyone can find someone else to cycle with.

Jaffa have given me the opportunity to give away a fantastic cycling kit worth £50. It includes a Halfords bike pump, water bottle, bike lights, t-shirt and Tesco money-off vouchers as well as Jaffa fruit shaped bike reflectors.

Especially at this time of year when the nights are drawing in, it's an excellent time to ensure your lights and reflectors are clean and working as they should be, and replace them if necessary.


For your chance to win the Jaffa Cycling Kit please enter using the Rafflecopter form below...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We've reviewed for Ozeri before, so when they asked me if I'd like to review again I was more than happy. Last time we reviewed their Glass Digital Kitchen Scales and now they have sent their Ozeri Curva Artisan Series Double Wall Beverage Glasses - or Glass Tumblers to you and me.

 



Unlike most glass tumblers, these are made from borosilicate glass, which is stronger and more durable than standard glass, and is heat and shatter resistant. This means that you can use them with ice or hot drinks with confidence. Because they are double-walled whatever you choose to drink won't burn your hands or get them wet because of condensation - brilliant.


Like the scales we reviewed beforehand, these are an item often overlooked, that is generally designed for usefulness only, but in this case is a thing of beauty. 


These are quite large, somewhat clunky, glasses but they're still comfortable enough to hold.The glass feels thin and delicate, but as it's borosilicate we're assured it isn't - we've had them a week now and my teenagers haven't managed to break any!

They look stunning. A real discussion point and a beautiful thing to have on display. I'm delighted with them and have really enjoyed having something so nice, and which makes standard tumblers look incredibly boring.


The Ozeri Curva Artisan Series Double Wall Beverage Tumblers (bit of a mouthful!) have an RRP of £29.99, and are currently on sale on Amazon for £24.95 with free UK delivery.

We love Orchard Toys, and we love Christmas, so I was delighted when they asked me to review a new game that has been produced especially for Christmas! Christmas Surprises by Orchard Toys is our new favourite game. It's brilliant fun!


Christmas Surprises is actually 2 games in one - a shapes game and a colour game - printed onto 100% recycled board and recommended for children aged 3+. The games are played on 4 double-sided game shaped boards with 24 baubles and 24 presents. There are 2 special dice, one for each game.


The Colour Game is played using a Christmas Tree board. It's incredibly simple and ideal for a very young child. All you have to do is roll the special dice, take a bauble of a matching colour from the table and cover the matching circle on your board. If you have already covered it then play passes to the next player. The winner is the first person to cover all of their baubles.


This game was nice and simple and quick, easy for anyone to grasp and actually quite competitive towards the end. 

The Present Game is played using a Santa board and play is very similar to the bauble game only instead of matching coloured baubles, you match shaped parcels. What's special is that you don't get to see what is inside your presents until the end of the game, this is brilliant as is it gives a real excitement and buzz and the same air of expectation and anticipation that you do feel at Christmas.


It doesn't really matter who wins this game because everyone gets to turn over (open) their presents, so everybody feel a winner. It's an all-round feelgood game.


Both games are brilliant for observation and turn-taking skills. They promote memory skills and teach colours and shapes. The wide array of fantastic presents are brilliant for encouraging discussion and broadening language. Matching the shapes onto the correct places on the gameboards is also excellent for manual dexterity.


We think this is an absolutely brilliant pair of games. We all prefer the shaped presents game over the coloured baubles game, mainly because the idea that you have all of those amazing secret presents is really exciting. It's also an excellent way to teach your child shapes.

Unusually for an Orchard Toys game, we do have one complaint. The colours on the dice and baubles don't quite match up, which immediately led to a disturbance when we played. When we investigated it was clear which side of the dice was blue, but because the blue bauble is slightly purple and the purple side of the dice is much darker and more 'blue' than the lilac bauble, it does make it confusing.


Christmas Surprises has a recommended age range of 3-6, and clearly my 3 1/2 year old had no problems playing either game. The games were also popular with my teenage girls, especially the Present/Shape Game. Christmas Surprises retails at £9.50 and is exclusive to Tesco, where it is currently on offer at £7. In spite of the confusing colour dice we give it a very well-deserved 5/5 because the Christmas Present/Shape game is so excellent.

We've always encouraged our children to be whoever they want to be. As long as it hurts no-one, it doesn't matter. Because there are so many of them maybe that forms a protective group. Maybe because none of us care they're given the courage and freedom to just go for it when others might hold back. Maybe they just don't care.

Boy no.3 was 5 yesterday and it's tradition in our house that the children choose their cake. I expected him to say 'chocolate' or 'carrot', but he had a very specific idea about what he wanted.

He is colour-blind, he sees no green, so his views on colours are different to other people's, but he still knows what he likes and what he finds attractive.

Was he pleased with it? I think he was....


 And what did he ask for?


He asked for "a pink and purple cake with lots of balls on the top"....


He can't see why pink is a girl's colour. He doesn't understand what the fuss is about. It's his favourite colour because to him it really stands out from all the khaki yellow. It would be so easy for him to fall into the trap of disliking it because he's told to. I'm really pleased he hasn't. 

And he had a great birthday.... it's a win.

Last Stand Of Dead Men whisks you away to the amazing far off land of.......erm.....well, modern day Ireland.

But it isn't just any Ireland. This is a secret, hidden world that the general population simply don't notice, or forget about immediately. This is the world where 400 year old skeleton Skullduggery Pleasant works magic with his assistant, the rather kick-ass Valkyrie (or Stephanie to her parents).

Written by Derek Landy, this is the 8th book in a series, but it is absolutely fine to read as a stand alone story. My son has read a couple of the others, but I haven't, and I found it easy to get to know the characters and have a good feel for who they were and what their intentions might be. It has a recommended reading age of 11 and over, and I feel that any 11 year old not put off by the sheer size of this book (it has 604 pages) will be able to read and very much enjoy it.

The two main characters are male and female, and gender really is no measure of power in this book, which is really refreshing. The characters are very witty, and their relationships show as almost entirely unprofessional and more 'bumbling' in the way we really would be more likely to behave if we were really faced with zombies or witches or attempting to destroy the world. There's a good amount of chatty dialogue and you can get to know the characters really well very soon into the book.

While there are witches and zombies and all manner of creepy characters in this book, it is far more Discworld than Lord Of The Rings. It never takes itself too seriously and is incredibly funny, although it has huge and vibrant battles and plenty of very serious moments.


I think that as much as I'm enjoying this book, any of my 5 teenagers would too, which is backed up by the fact that it was the no.1 Children's book in the UK very soon after release.

Skulduggery Pleasant: The Last Stand of Dead Men is published by HarperCollins and has an RRP of £14.99. It is currently on special offer from Amazon.co.uk in hardback with free UK delivery for a stunning £6.

I gave away 3 copies of this book. That giveaway is now over.

 

British Food Fortnight takes place 21st September until 6th October, and there are events all around Britain aiming to promote local and home-grown meals. 

In Harvestime Britain has an abundance of amazing produce which is really fresh, full of goodness and flavour because it hasn't had to travel halfway round the world to get to us. We should all take more advantage of these crops, as they also have low food miles and support British Farmers, and in times when food come into season the price drops - or if we're very organised, we can harvest the crops we've grown ourselves. 

We have loads of fantastic regional recipes that take advantage of local produce. Around here in North Manchester we're famous for our Black Pudding, which I won't be using on this occasion, and the main farming is vegetables. Hotpots and roast dinners are very popular, and very welcome when you get in from yet another rainy grey Manchester day. Yorkshire is barely a step away from me, so fairly local and I'll be making a Yorkshire Pudding.

OXO have challenged Bloggers to cook for their family in support of British Food Fortnight. To help me they've sent a new 11" Silicone Balloon Whisk and a Serrated Peeler. 



 Toad-In-The-Hole is a real favourite in our house, so I've blogged about it with a recipe before in this post.


I tested the OXO 11" Silicone Balloon Whisk to mix my batter and I have to say I was really impressed. The soft handle is lovely to hold and the whisk was great - it was really light and worked incredibly well, genuinely noticeably quicker and better than a metal whisk. It also washed very well, and I'm able to put it in the dishwasher if I wish. 


On this occasion I added a 1/2teaspoon of Sage and  some quartered Lancashire mushrooms to the mix with my spoon of Thyme and 2 Lancashire red onions cut into wedges. Britain has a huge array of native herbs that really do add a lot of extra taste to our meals. I used Lincolnshire style (probably cheating) meat free sausages because the black pepper taste goes really well in this dish.


Creamed Carrot and Swede is an excellent vegetable accompaniment, and one that makes good use of the plentiful home-grown root veg at this time of year. It has a little sweetness and a complete change of texture. I like to add half an onion, which gives depth to the flavour.


I used the Oxo Serrated Peeler to peel the carrots and then cut off the outer layer of the swede with a knife. Slice, dice and then boil your veg in just enough water to cover them. When they soften let the water evaporate and you won't be pouring away all the remaining water-soluble vitamins. Season with salt and pepper and maybe a drop of cream if you're spoiling yourself. Mash to a pulp.

Crispy Roast Potatoes can be virtually guaranteed by taking a few simple steps. 

Preparation takes the same amount of time whenever you do it, so a good few hours before you're going to need them peel, chop and boil your potatoes. 


I used the Oxo Serrated Peeler to peel my spuds.  It was magic. It really did glide through the peel and was a joy. The handle is again soft and feels really nice in your hand. The peeler isn't really designed for potatoes, the serrations are there to catch hold of the skins of soft and waxed fruits, and they're incredibly sharp so the included blade guard is an excellent thing. 

When you boil your spuds don't add anything to the water - no salt, nothing. You need the potatoes to boil to the point they're soft and delicate, but not actually falling apart. You can tell they're ready when they start 'feathering' around the edges. 


Immediately, and very gently, pour away the hot water and refill the pan with cold. Do this 2 or 3 times to cool your spuds quickly, but don't let the potatoes turn to smush. You can even ice the water if it's a warm room as you want your potatoes to stop cooking. Leave your spuds in the water in the fridge until you need them.

When you're ready to cook get the oven nice and hot (at least 200/400/Gas Mark 6, slightly higher if you can, or put the potatoes on the top shelf of a non-fan oven) and put a little oil in the tray. You need to be able to use a teaspoon to pour the oil over the potatoes, but you don't need a ladleful. Carefully tip out your potatoes into your tray and drizzle over a little oil seasoned with Salt, Black Pepper and plenty of Rosemary. 


After 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 40 minutes use a spoon and baste your potatoes using the oil in the pan with them. Cook them for around 50 minutes to an hour, depending on just how crispy you want them..


Spotted Dick is a real English classic nursery pudding. Stodgy and filling, yet very cheap and easy to make.

 I used a recipe that is freely available on the BBC Good Food  Website. 

Although it wasn't entirely necessary I wanted to try out the Oxo Serrated Peeler for it's proper purpose. The serrations are vicious, and they are there so that the peeler can grip onto the peel or skin of soft fruits and fruits with a waxy skin. It worked a treat on lemon and orange peel to chop and add to my mix.


A lot of the old-fashioned steamed puddings are made with a basic stodgy recipe to which you add whatever fruit you desire, wrap and steam. You can also add spices such as Nutmeg, Cinnamon or Cloves to give a more seasonal feel during Winter. 

When you wrap your pudding in greaseproof paper place the pudding in the middle of the paper and bring the two edges together and roll, then tie the ends like a cracker. This way there is room for the pudding to expand during cooking.



Make sure your pudding never touches the water, or you'll end up with mush. Mine was actually a little dry. When you make your dough it should be soft, but not sticky. I also didn't have anything long enough for a 20cm pudding, so I bent it a little....

And naturally we served it with custard....