Pineapple Plant

I found a fantastic article on Stumble from Tickled Red about growing your own pineapples.  How could I not try this out!!

Now I don't know if we have quite the right climate for growing pineapples so I did a bit more research from the UK and found this article from Gardeners World saying all you need is a bright windowsill; which we have as all our windows and balcony face South (lucky us!).  So I'm going to give it a go, now this is not a quick process it can take 3 years to grow a pineapple, but I will try to keep you updated of all the exciting progress :oP

Here is my happy little pineapple before I start, all I need to do is cut the top off and trim all of the fruit away as we are not a hot country and it might go mouldy.  Sit it in a jar of water until it starts to grow roots, then plant it up in a fairly large pot as they can grow up to 1 meter wide.  I'm very excited but I won't hold my breath just yet.

Pinned

My best purchase so far this year has to be the Zuko Quick Pop Maker. This small contraption sits in the freezer until we are feeling peckish and then in under 10 minutes transforms a Muller light yoghurt, a splash of milk and squirt of agave into some very yummy ice lollies.  It is great for us, as we are both trying to loose weight so when we need something sweet and light quickly, we just make an ice pop.  So here are some pins of other recipes I have found to try out.

Homemade Fresh Fruit Pops from Dandy Sugar

Made from fruit, just fruit, from a bender, such a quick and easy pop!!

Rainbow Popsicles from The Family Kitchen on Babble

I love Rainbows, this would be easy with our Zuko!!

Zoku Quick Pop Character Toolkit from Apartment Theropy

This is not a recipe but a toolkit to make fruit pictures in your pops, so much fun!!

Frosty Margaritas Ice Pops from Hostess with the Mostess

Mmmm Margaritas!!

Layered Cheesecake Popsicle from Cutest Food

Cheesecake in a popsicle... WIN!!

Dirty Pirate Popsicles from Endless Simmer

All the 'Poptails' on this website are awesome, but rum and coke has to be my favourite.

Check out the rest here.

Cookie Jars

For Christmas my mum bought me these make your own cookie jars, they are such a good idea for gifts, and much more fun than cake mix from the supermarket.  They have been sitting in my cupboard for a while now, so inspired by my Pinned post I decided to get them out and make some heart cookies for Graeme. I chose the oatmeal and raisin cookies and all I needed was the Jar full of dry ingredients (oatmeal, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, sugar and raisins) 85g butter and 1 egg.  (I don't know the exact measurements of the other ingredients, but I will find out because these cookies were good!).

The instructions were sellotaped to the side of the jar, but all I really needed to do was mix everything together in a bowl.  As I didn't have any baking paper I lightly sprayed an oven tray with Frylight before carefully spooning the mixture into the heart moulds. They were popped into into the oven for 20 minutes and out came the best cookies yum! These don't help my diet at all but we all need sweet treats occasionally, lets just hope we don't eat them all at once.

UPDATE: We already finished the cookies whoops!!

Pinned

Today was the first day I have been on Pinterest in a while.  I had to wean myself off it as I was getting far too addicted and spending (wasting) far to much time on it.  It seems as though everyone is in full swing for Valentines day so here are some ideas I have been pinning lately. My mind seems to have been on food a lot recently, the one problem with being on a diet, so these are my favourite Valentine food ideas.

Breakfast

Eggs in Toast from Say Yes To Hoboken

All you need is a heart shaped cutter so simple!

Heart Bacon from The Paper Mama

There can not possibly be a simpler way to man's heart than bacon, well maybe cookies...

Dinner

Hearty Ravioli from Vegalicious Recipes
Another way to give a basic meal a valentine's twist.

Roast Heart Potatos from Haniela's Food & Photography
Now I can't be the only person who saw these and straight away bought a heart shaped cookie cutter, can I?

Dessert

Hidden Heart Cake from i am baker

I love every cake on this blog but this one is quite fantastic!

Heart Cinnamon Rolls from cake & allie

I was gutted when Cinnabon closed down at Legoland, those rolls were just too good!! At least I can learn to make my own now.

Grazing

I often find with blogging that so much can happen at once that I completely forget about posts I started writing in the past and either never finished or even started (apart from a title).  I have finished all but the pictures and some that I want to write but just can't seem to find the time (this has happened a lot more recently).  I even have posts that are complete but never published because something better has come along.  Well today is one of those days, because I received my first Graze box and was far too excited not to post about it.

My friend from work, Lucy has been getting Graze boxes for some time now and it's always fun to see the new things she gets, so for Christmas she gave me a coupon for Christmas for 2 free boxes and I could not wait to sign up. Graze is a fairly basic concept how many times has someone brought a box of biscuits into work and you just couldn't resist having one, or two.  The same goes for boxes of chocolates, we say to ourselves one tiny Celebration can't hurt but by the end of the day you have a small mountain of wrappers on your desk and have probably eaten the equivalent of 3 chocolate bars.  The Graze box is the healthy alternative and comes filled with nuts, seeds, crackers, breads, dips and the odd chocolate treat or two.  Graze lives by this 80/20 principle, if you are good 80% of the time you can have the odd treat now and again.

There are few things that are great about the Graze box firstly it gets delivered straight to my desk, second on the day I choose and also I like the fact that they choose the packs so it is a complete surprise what you get (you can tell them your likes and dislikes).  I was good and went for the light boxes so won't be sent anything too naughty as each pack is under 150 calories, but each box comes with all the nutritional information so I can easily work out which sets have the highest calorie values.

Today I had Sun Dance which consisted of Mango, Milk Chocolate Sunflower Seeds and Green Raisins and was really yummy.  It was one of my 5 a day and was 134 calories so about 6 syns (for Slimming World attendees), not one of the healthier packs but everyone needs a treat now and then.

It might not be for everyone but after a week I find it keeps me happy when the 3'o'clock hunger pangs hit and gives me something to nibble on.  If you would like to try it out for yourself you can have a free box on me using the code below.  If it's not for you, just cancel the order after your first free box.

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