On Friday I went for my second round of Genuine Dermaroller.  For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s an anti ageing treatment that involves sticking hundreds of tiny needles into your face to stimulate collagen growth in the hope of making me look younger.  

Honest it doesn’t hurt

It’s been very difficult to convince you guys that it doesn’t in fact hurt, as they freeze your face first, so I thought I’d take a little video to prove it to you.

See it’s not that bad.  Too be honest, I haven’t noticed a huge change yet but I’m not expecting to for a month or so.

Poor Carolina, the owner and therapist at the Anti Ageing Clinic has her work cut out for her.  After years of bad habits, too much sun and a non-existent skin regime she has had to up the ante.  In addition, to the treatment she has also supplied me a plethora of face creams.

Snail Slime!

I’m completely fascinated by the Endocare Range as they are made from ‘the natural secretions of the mollusc Cryptomphallus aspersa’, in laymans terms, snail slime!  Don’t worry it’s been processed and is not just a box of snails.

As instructed, I have been applying the cream to my face day and night.  However, this morning my eye-lids were unusually puffy so I dropped her a message on Twitter.

Her first response was…..

’you didn’t put the cream on your eyelids did you?’ 

(As they’re part of my face)

‘yes, I did’

She did her best to be professional and not to laugh at me, but apparently, eye-cream is different than face cream and this would explain the puffiness!  Well who would’ve known?  At least she now knows who she is working with!

I’ll keep you posted.

If you missed my first visit, you can see it here.

I have to say I tutted when I was first asked to review this app as the first Topic is free and then you have to pay for the others.  However, my daughter is loving it and keeps going back to it again and again.  She only has the Sorting and Matching Topic. I think the most motivating thing for her is the certificate we can email to ourselves when she completes each section.  I’m tempted to purchase the other modules but do think they are a bit pricey.  All ten topics are £9.99.

Overall we thought:

Educational Content:	★★★★★
Fun:	★★★★★
Ease of Use:	★★★★★
Age Appropriateness:	★★★★★
Value for Money:	★★★☆☆
Overall:	★★★★½

For more of our App Reviews click here!

Thanks to the lovely Amy from Miss Cherry Red,  for this incredibly easy and delicious slow cooker recipe.  We will definitely be having it again.

Ingredients:
4 x skinless and boneless chicken breasts
4 x cloves garlic
1 x small knob of butter
4 x tablespoons wholegrain mustard
4 x tablespoons honey
1 x tablespoon lemon juice
100ml cream

Method:

1. Slice an opening along the length of each chicken breast (like you would a pitta bread) and place 1 garlic clove in each.
2. Heat the butter in a frying pan and seal each chicken breast on all sides
3. Take the chicken out and place in your slow cooker
4. Using the same pan you’ve sealed the chicken in, heat the lemon juice, mustard and honey and mix well together
5. Once done, pour the sauce over the chicken and give it a gentle stir to get everything covered*

* Hint – if you like your sauce… you can adjust the quantities by adding more honey and mustard… the same goes for those who prefer less.

Whack your slow cooker on Low for 5 – 6 hours.

10 minutes before the cooking time ends, pour the cream in the slow cooker and mix gently.

Serve with tagliatelle pasta and a large glass of wine!!

Thanks Amy!

I have to say I was the first person to take the ‘mick’ when the Legerra Pizza’s first came out.  What bright spark cuts a hole out of the middle of a pizza fills it with salad and charges you the same price for it?  Or would this be a genius.

Coincidentally, I’ve actually met the bright spark that came up with this idea.  He’s a friend of a friend.  His name is Antonio and he’s barking mad, in a good way. You can’t get much more Italian than him; sadly he’s no longer with Pizza Express.

Pizza Express was looking for inspiration for a new low calorie range and asked him about foods that were very unique to the region that he came from.  He told them about flat bread that they used to make with a hole in the centre and the idea for the New 500 Calorie Legerra Pizza was born!

If I’ll look like Jodie Kidd after eating one I’m all over that.

Joking aside, I went to an event quite a while back promoting the new Legerra Pizzas.  Apparently, I drank all their red wine; insulted a rather large parenting network but by all accounts I still managed to be entertaining.  No wonder I don’t get invited to that many events.

It was a great night.  We watched a demonstration by the chef on how to make the pizzas and then were let loose to make our own.   I was absolutely thrilled that they’d extended the range to include my all time favourite ‘The Padana’ (Goats cheese, spinach, red & caramelised onions, garlic oil).  I was absolutely stunned that my creation was more than edible, in fact, it was very tasty and the portion was perfect.

However, the chefs kept laughing at me an jumping in to fix mine….apparently, I wasn’t doing it right.

At no point did the chef tell us or demonstrate tossing the dough in the air pizzeria style.  But fill a room full of bloggers, ply them with alcohol and this is bound to happen.

Either Interflora are one of the most considerate companies I’ve ever worked for or amongst all the mayhem, I forgot that I promised to do some work for them.  As many of you know my husband was involved in a serious accident a few weeks ago, so Valentine’s Day was a bit of a non-event for me.  This is not a complaint as I’m very grateful to have him home.

Madame had a friend sleep over and hubby, understandably, slept the day away but I managed to steal some much needed time to myself and enjoyed a few glasses of red!  It was one of the more bizarre Valentine’s Days I’ve had but I’ve never been more grateful for family and friends.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Interflora for the lovely bouquet of flowers, even if it was coincidental and a special thank you to you all for all of your kind messages of support, including the inappropriate ones that made me laugh my socks off, during a very difficult time.  I couldn’t have done it without you.

I wish I could take credit for these lovely Fingerprint Valentines Day cards but once again it was thanks to a Google Image Search.

My daughter is 4 and managed it and I think you could do it with young babes as well but you’d have to position their fingers.

You will need:

• White paper
• Selection of coloured paint (I used red, orange and pink)
• Coloured Card
• Prit Stick
• Gel Pen

How to do it:

1) Have your children create a couple of sheets of the heart fingerprints so you have a few good ones to choose from

2) Cut and fold the card
3) Once the prints dry carefully tear them out.  If you’re kids are old enough they could probably do this bit themselves.
4) Use the Prit Stick to glue the fingerprint hearts onto front of card.
5) Personalise them, I used a silver pen

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Whenever I need inspiration for crafting, I always turn to my mate Maggie from Redtedart.com and once again she has come through trumps or should I say hearts!

These Love Rocks caught my eye as they are so simple and required very little in terms of materials.  I think they’re going to make perfect Valentine’s Day gifts. However, posting to Canada or South Africa is not an option.

You will need

• PVA glue (we watered ours down a bit)
• Rocks
• A selection of fabric
• Scissors

Method

1. Dig some rocks out from under the frozen earth, wash in a colander and leave dry.
2. Get your neighbour around who is brilliant with anything crafty and blag her to bring fabric, glue and scissors.
3. Sit back and watch her do her magic.
4. All joking aside the 4-year olds enjoyed it for as long as their short attention spans allowed.  But, Eva and I could be found carrying on long after they left the room.  However, she made me cut out my own hearts!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How can we get more girls into IT?

“At present women only make up 17% of the IT/Tech workforce and in the last 10 years this has been falling by half a percent each year. If it continues the way it does by 2043 there will be no women in the industry. It is important to include women for social, political and moral reasons.

Based on these findings Lady Geek has decided to write a book called ‘Little Miss Geek’, which will explore why girls do not tend to consider careers in IT/Tech and how we can change this.

We are looking for insights, big ideas and solutions on how we can resolve this issue.” Lady Geek

So please join in our discussion on the Tues 7th Feb from 1-2pm by simply following and including #littlemissgeek in your tweets.  Sadly, if you’re account is protected we won’t be able to see you.

If you’re not on twitter but would still like to share your thoughts please leave a comment below.

Disclosure:  I’m NOT being paid in any way to do this, it’s just a topic of great interest to me!

Can you settle a debate between @chickenruby and me?  She says you should never under any circumstance have Fish in Curry and the mere thought makes her feel sick.  She likes fish and she likes curry but she says you shouldn’t mix the two.  I on the otherhand, have started cooking more fish curries recently and I really like them.

Here is a Haddock Curry that I made earlier and it was delicious.  The recipe can be found here.

Take Our Poll

Disclosure:  The fish was provided by John Milne of Delish Fish and is part of Fish is the Dish Campaign to encourage families to eat more fish from sustainable sources.

Every once in a while a new idea comes along that makes people wonder why nobody thought of it before. Hello Fresh is a brand new grocery delivery service tailored to the needs of busy mums. With Hello Fresh anyone can easily prepare amazing food for their family and friends in their own home.

Hello Fresh delivers amazing recipes and all the necessary ingredients to your door every week. It is easy to sign up on the website for a weekly subscription. Simply choose how many meals you would like to receive and Hello Fresh does all the hard work for you.

The recipes are created by professional chefs who have worked in world-famous restaurants such as the Fat Duck. These chefs have taken the hassle out of weekly meal planning, ensuring your family has a healthy balanced diet. And don’t worry; they are so easy to prepare that busy mums can create a Hello Fresh meal in no time. Kids love trying the exciting new meals. Take them on a journey around the world with dishes like Emperor’s Chocolate Chilli Con Carne, and Penne at Sunset. Pickier eaters can easily leave ingredients out of a recipe, or be bold and try something for the first time. Who knows, it could be a favourite!

In fact, Hello Fresh takes easy cooking to a new level. Recipes typically take only 30 minutes or less to prepare and don’t require fancy kitchen equipment. The recipe cards are lovely to look at and provide a photo for each step, making sure that every meal is just perfect. So if you enjoy great food but want to save time on meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking, – Hello Fresh comes to the rescue!

The company was started by a small group of food fanatics in Central London who believe that it should be easier for busy mums to cook delicious food in their own home. Launched in early January, the service has already found a following among savvy Londoners and is taking off as a revolutionary new way to eat. Currently, Hello Fresh only delivers to addresses within the M25 but expect this to change soon. Certainly one to watch for 2012!

The website is www.hellofresh.co.uk and and find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hellofresh.co.uk