Author: Scottish Mum

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45 Days & 13 People to Craft A Tweet

Tweet450

At first, I thought this article  was actually a wind up.

Let’s take the short version.

The brand seems to have 180 followers as of today, but around 100 at the time of the tweet.  It appears that it took 45 days to craft a single tweet.

The article states:

It can take a team of 13 social media and advertising specialists up to 45 days and 13 people to plan, create, approve, and publish a corporate social media post.

 

There must be more to it – surely?

Perhaps it’s some new kind of branding, or specialism that ends up with a tweet, but starts with a massive marketing campaign.

This is the tweet that took nearly 2 months to get approved.  It’s a nice tweet and a lovely image.

Perhaps someone can explain it to me, as I really do not understand it.  It seems an awful lot of money to spend out in relation to the potential return.

I’m in the WRONG business.

 

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OXO Shake & Flavour: Chinese & Garlic Rib Eye Steaks

OXO Chinese Rib Eye Steaks 3

Thanks go to OXO for the lovely OXO Shake & Flavour Summer Starter Kit, packed full of summer seasonings for cooking great meals.

Oxo 4

I took inspiration from one of the included OXO recipe cards and modified it to suit how my family prefers to eat.  We’re not big on chilli here, so for the OXO Chilli, Garlic and Thyme Steaks, I changed some of the ingredients.

When the weather starts warming up, it’s hard to make big and heavy stews and casseroles, but simply cooking meat on its own can leave food boring very quickly.  I often use spices, herbs and sauces when I’m cooking as it makes the meat more interesting and much more tasty for our family meals.

I wanted our lovely summer food to be quick, easy and fast to do and a marinade seems to be one of the easiest ways to achieve that.  Who doesn’t want good tasty food that is finished quickly and tastes amazing with a massive flavour transformation.

I wouldn’t have thought of using the Shake and Flavours in a marinade, so the recipe cards have been very welcome indeed.   OXO also gave us some lovely cards with a tin to keep new recipes, and that is one thing that I am really lacking.  If I don’t put recipes online very quickly, I tend to forget what I’ve put in them and they’re lost.  I always think I’ll remember what I put in them, but I never do.

Sadly, we seem to have lost the summer connection and the day I made my marinaded dish, the sky clouded over and we had rolling mist, so the pictures I’d imagined outside didn’t happen.

I found the Shake and Flavour seasoning really easy to use, and I can see me sprinkling some over all kinds of dishes, even when just grilling bacon, to add a neat twist to the flavour.

For my recipe, we had some lovely rib eye steaks from my local butcher that I was planning cooking for Sunday dinner and as the steak recipe mentioned rib eye steaks, it was the perfect way to try out the Rich Beef Shake and Flavour.   I like the fact that we can use Shake and Flavour before or after cooking.  I’d just have looked at the pots and assumed they were just for cooking.

Oxo Rib Eye Steaks 2

There are seven different varieties of OXO Shake & Flavour, and they’re all MSG free.

  • Garlic & Herb
  • Rich Beef
  • Roast Chicken
  • Southern Fried Chicken
  • Chinese Tikka
  • Italian (Asda Only)

Oxo 3

We have some lovely chicken burgers from my favourite butcher in the fridge, and those will be treated to a mix of Southern Fried Chicken with some Garlic & Herb tomorrow 🙂

Lesley Smith

OXO Chinese Garlic Rib Eye Steaks

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Course: Mains
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 4 teaspoons OXO Rich Beef Shake & Flavour
  • 4 teaspoons OXO Chinese Shake & Flavour
  • 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 5 - 6 Rib Eye Steaks
  • 1 clove Garlic
  • Salad To Serve
  • 150 g Soy Sauce

Method
 

  1. Mix all the ingredients, apart from the salad to serve and the steaks into a bowl big enough to hold everything when it's being cooked. I prefer to use a glass or steel dish rather than plastic. Mix the ingredients until smooth.
  2. Add the steaks and make sure the marinade covers them completely.
  3. Pop the steaks into the fridge for at least an hour, or overnight which would be even better.
  4. Take them out of the fridge at least 20 minutes before cooking them. They can be grilled or barbecued. Spoon over any of the marinade that is left in the bowl before you cook them.
  5. Cook on the grill for approximately 3 or 4 minutes on each side, or until your steak reaches the consistency that you prefer. I like my steak well done, so it's a longer cooking time in the Scottish Mum Household. For this version, I oven cooked mine for fifteen minutes each side on a moderate heat and it was perfect for us. You know your own meat tastes and can adjust that to suit.
  6. Let the meat rest before serving and enjoy.

This post is part of a BritMums project with OXO Shake & Flavour. Shake & Flavour seasoning granules can be sprinkled into food during cooking or before serving. Find out more about the Shake & Flavour varieties.  

If you’re a Twitter fan, heading over to the #OXOMealtimeMagic will give you some good ideas for cooking from @OXOFamily and the OXO Shake & Flavour bloggers.

 

 

 

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Review: Magical World Journals

Magical World Journals recently sent us a Dragons The Journal to try out.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this is a substantial journal.

Journal Outside Cover 2

My youngest’s eyes popped out of his head when he saw it, and the possibilities of filling it with his own drawings meant he was keen to have it, and NOW.

He’s treating it like it’s a precious secret book and planning how he’s going to fill it up.  I expected him to simply start drawing and writing, but he seems to want to use it as a keepsake for the future, so no scribbling allowed.

There are 128 pages, each with a border or small illustration that follows the escape of the dragon and its rampage through a castle.  It’s a bit like a story within a drawing book, and one my boy is keen to make use of.

Journal Inside Page

There is a dragons eye and claw which rises from the journal, from a 3D wall cover and the tail comes out of the back.

The inspiration behind the 4 journals is to inspire kids to use their creativity and imagination by creating their own stories, drawings, poems and secrets in a lovely magical way.

I’m really pleased with this, and I think it would make for a great birthday or Christmas present for any child.

I’ve bookmarked it to order one for my nephews birthday later this year.   He’s one of those kids who has everything, and it’s going to be nice to have something unusually simple and fun to give to him.

 

 

 

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Review: Charge Key and Charge Card

I’ve had these for a wee while now.  It’s about time to let you know how I found them.

The CHARGEKEY and CHARGECARD were sent for us to try out by NOMAD.

The key part fits onto my keyring and means that as long as I can get access to a USB port of a USB plug, I can charge anywhere without tangled cables.  The CHARGECARD fits perfectly into a credit card sized slot in a wallet or purse.     They are chargers and not battery packs, so they do need access to an electricity supply, whether it is charging direct to a computer, through a USB plug, or from a back up battery.

ChargeKeyChargecard

I have the lightning charge key that works with my iPhone and the mini iPad.  I have a regular mini usb port on my iPhone 5, as I use a Mophie battery case, so in reflection, a mini usb charge key would probably have been better for me.

It’s quite deceiving actually as it really IS very little.  I have it on my keyring as if I desperately need charge in someones else’s house, I can actually get it without too much hassle.  The USB end is a lot than you expect a cable that plugs into a USB charger to be.  It’s about half the thickness of the regular USB cable end that you’d expect.

The cables are VERY short, so are not practical on my PC, although they’d be fine for a low lying laptop.  It’s unlikely that gadgets would be much use when plugged in to charge.  It’s not impossible, but the cable part is so very short.  Using it would be quite uncomfortable with the inability to turn devices around.

The cables are very very bendy.  I was wary of them snapping, but they seem solid enough and have stood up to my kids testing them out.

The short version of a review is:  they work perfectly.

I find them easiest for using in the car or our motor home as fabulous chargers that take up little space, with no cables to get tangled.  They’ve pretty much proved themselves very handy for that indeed and I keep the lightning connector on my keyring – just in case, as in desperation, I could remove the Mophie base to charge up a dying phone.

Note:  My older kids haven’t broken them, but I’m not sure how they’d stand up to a toddler.  I’d look after these chargers in the same was as you do the regular sized cable chargers and keep them away from children and pets.

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Saying Goodbye To Blog Rankings

I love my blog 600

I made a decision today.  It’s mostly based around the time aspect, and more importantly, around how I feel about it.

For a few years, I’ve been a member, and taken part in some lovely blogging groups which have blog stats.  I didn’t really care where I sat in the stats, as the blog just does it’s own thing and Google is very good to me these days.

My blog went down (out of action) for a few days recently and although I’ve only dropped about 100 places in one ranking, the others are likely to tank in the next few weeks.  Yes, I know by next month, I’d be back where I was, but when I spotted the drop, I instantly began planning a couple of competitions etc to temporarily up the blog reader number.

Then I stopped myself.

To be part of a couple of the groups, I felt myself giving in to not posting many of the types of things that I would really like to, as it means that the blog was going down a more specific route than I really wanted it to, and becoming more niche than I’d like.  My blog isn’t a business, it’s a hobby, and I felt myself losing that.

Yes, I’ll lose offers from PRs that use the blog ranking places, but that’s not all bad either. Anyone who knows the blog can work out it’s level as an SEO value, and it should drop some of the spam enquiries, that some days, actually fill the blog e-mail address up so much that I can spend ages just wading through them all.

I plan to pop on my Google page rank, play with the blog and do some posts around the business that I have unexpectedly had returned after being rented out to someone for the last 12 years.  It’s going to be a busy time, and to keep up with it all, I can’t be distracted by where I sit in ranking stats.

I feel slightly liberated today without blog badges reporting my stats back to the ranking websites.  Yes, I know I will be bottom of the rankings pile by next month with no stats reporting back, but I will have my blog back the way I used to feel. There will undoubtedly be days I will regret removing them, but I don’t want to feel I can’t post things as it won’t fit into my niche.

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In sickness and health, the bruised apple.

Could the Wicked Stepmother have saved herself a lot of heartache and just given Cinderella lots of bruised apples?

Perhaps rotten fruit hasn’t crossed your horizon yet, but it’s the one that stood out for me at university many moons ago.  I think I have written about it once before, but it merits a reminder I think.

It wasn’t the botulism, salmonela or listeria that most people know about that stood out for me.  Parents can often be paranoidically fastidious about avoiding the well known food rot, but patulin seems to have fallen under the radar.

Rotten Apples

What Is Patulin?

Quite simply, its a chemical – a toxic chemical fungal matter that is produced from some moulds, for example penicillium and aspergillus.   Does that mean anything to you?  Well, to be honest, it didn’t to me either.   It’s safe to say that although the apple is the fruit that I associate it with in my mind the most, it’s not the ONLY source of patulin.

Why is Patulin Dangerous?

It shows as toxic effects in animals and it should be avoided in foodstuffs as far as is possible.  As it is soluble in water, it is easily absorbed and can grow quickly.  Although there isn’t much research on humans, there has been a lot of testing on how it affects animals.  It shows significant damage to the stomach and lower intestines.

Which Foods is Patulin Found On?

Apples stick in my mind, but there is the possibility of it affecting apple juices, jams and pies.  It has been found on cherries, vegetables and other fruits too.  Cereals and cheese have shown to contain some patulin, but apples and apple products seems to be the biggest threat to our human diet.

How does it affect human health?

Most of the information on the toxicity of patulin is derived from animal studies and there is little or no experimental, or epidemiological, data on acute or chronic toxicity in humans if it is eaten in large quantities.   There is the possible worry about the long term effects of eating patulin regularly and it seems sensible to take precautions and stay away from patulin where it is at all possible.

Should We Stop Eating Apples?

Patulin isn’t something that is going to stand up, wave its arms and induce vomiting and diaorrhea – well okay, it might if someone is intolerant or allergic to the apples or any toxins present, but in general, it might not do more than the odd slightly upset tummy.

Should we ban apples because of its future potential?

Of course not, that would be silly.  Apples seem to be very good for us, and I wouldn’t stop my children eating apples just because of the possibility that a poison might affect their body a few decades down the line, but I do take care that the fruit I give them is bruise free.

Can Patulin Be Cooked Out?

Cooking or pasteurisation does NOT kill patulin.  There could be some evidence, that in juices, with some preservatives, it could be mitigated.

How To Avoid Patulin?

My lecturer simply told us to avoid all apples with bruises.  You could minimise the risk by cutting out the bruised portions of apples where the bruises are small, or simply discard all bruised apples in the same way that it is recommended to discard all green potatoes.  Discard any apples you cut open that have insect burrows and buy good quality apple juice.

Physical damage can help promote the rot, so over handling of fruit can also be a problem.   To keep your fruit in as good a condition as possible, I put mine in the fridge and cut off any bruised parts if I plan to make juice.

I don’t overly worry about it, but I hate seeing little ones being given apples with brown bits on it.  It’s NOT the same as a banana….

 

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Check Your Credit Card Transactions NOW

I think as bloggers, we are often at risk of more online potentially threatening situations, just by the way that we make transactions online and often use credit cards to pay for things on our blogs.

I’ve been targeted, and it’s possible that the attack and interception of details came from WooThemes.com, but it’s not 100%.

There is just the same chance that my details went missing from somewhere else.  Woo have said there are about 300 people who have reported in so far.

Credit Card Fraud

From the 5th of May, some fraudulent transactions started showing up.  It’s not easy to sort things like this out, as I suspect they always start from a position of “the customer may be lying.

My card hasn’t been out of my sight and nobody else knows the pin.  Actually, I don’t even know the pin anymore so I haven’t been using it at all for over a year.

A few days ago, I called and cancelled my card.  The card as far as I was aware, could only access funds in the account and not elsewhere.  Despite that, three days after cancelling the card, another payment went through, which took up the remaining balance on that account.

I know now that the payments were made online, so whoever made them, has my security number from the back of my card.

At the same time, Woo Themes sent out an e-mail today notifying customers that there is a problem and some customers have reported fraudulent transactions on their credit cards.  You can read it for yourself here.  It also made me sigh with relief to know there is a likely candidate for where details went missing.

It could have been so much worse if I had not known transactions were being taken.

Check your credit and debit card payments regularly.  You just never know when it might be you.

 

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Recipe: Bag Roasted Rustic Chicken Stew

This is one of the dishes I make when time is failing me badly.  It’s simply a case of popping all the veg, meat and flavours into a bag, putting it in the oven, and taking out a fully cooked meal an hour or two later.  It has a slightly smokey BBQ flavour so be prepared for that when you cook it.

Rustic Chicken 3

I am a massive fan of quick cooking,  so bag roasting is up there with slow cooking for me, but without the day long torment of gorgeous smelling food in the kitchen when I’m trying to concentrate.  Chicken is always popular with all of my kids and I’m lucky enough to get mine from a great butcher, the Fresh Food Guru, so it always tastes great.

Consider splitting this over two bags with one sachet of seasoning for each bag if your oven is small.

Lesley Smith

Bag Roasting: Rustic Chicken Stew

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings: 5 - 6
Course: Mains
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 6 Chicken Breasts
  • 4 Large Carrots
  • 2 kg Baby Potatoes
  • 2 Rustic Chicken Knorr Season and Shake Packs
  • 300 ml Water
  • 1 Turkey Roasting Bag

Method
 

  1. Pop the oven on to around 190 - 200°C. Open the roasting bag and pop in the chicken breasts. You could cut these into quarters to cook them more quickly. Be careful when you put ingredients in as you really don't want the bag splitting.
  2. You can do the vegetables separately, and I suspect I'd do that next time as my bag was absolutely huge. I put my baby potatoes in whole, but I suspect slicing them would lead to a faster cooking time. Add the sliced carrots and the potatoes to the bag.
  3. I add the seasoning mix from the Knorr Rustic Chicken Pack and then add two small glasses of water. A gentle mix around of all the ingredients is a good idea to help spread the seasoning around.
  4. Close the bag with the fastener but make sure you leave some expansion room in the bag. If your bag is very full, it would be a better idea to use two bags. Put your bag on an oven tray with plenty of room above the bag. If you have several oven shelves, it would be a good idea to remove upper ones to give the bag some expansion room as it will fill out as it fills with steam. The bad shouldn't touch the sides or top of the oven when cooking.

    The recommendations are to put the bag sideways, but I've had some of the liquid run out on me on large bags so I put the tied end upwards on larger bags and lie them on their side with smaller ones.
  5. I cook this dish for approximately one and a half hours, but it will depend on your oven. Smaller pieces might well cook faster. When you open the bag, beware of the escaping steam as it can easily burn. I transfer my cooked food into a casserole dish and pop it back into the oven for five minutes to heat the dish.

    We serve the dish by placing it in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves to. Make sure the meat is fully cooked before serving it up.

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Birchbox Review – Good Enough To Eat

Birchbox sent me one of their lovely monthly boxes to review.   It was the April box which was “Good Enough To Eat,”

Make Up Goodies

Inside the box were my small sample sizes of some make-up, popcorn and wipes.

I actually like the sample sizes as they’re definitely handy for holidays and small make-up bag goodies.  There seems to be a monthly theme around the boxes and some suggestions for DIY Beauty by using natural ingredients from our kitchen cupboards to make our own home made masks and scrubs.  There are some fabulous recipes online on their blog.

There are different levels of subscriptions to the service, which also lets you buy full sized versions of your samples online.

Monthly Recurring

  • £10 + £2.95 P&P = £12.95 a month.
  • 5 samples.
  • Earn reward points.IGN UP

6 Month Subscription

£50 for the 6 months + £2.95 P&P = £67.70 for the 6 months = £11.29 each month.

Yearly Subscription

£90 for 12 months + £2.95 P&P = £125.40 for the 12 months = £10.45 each month.

My Box Samples

Thebalm Cosmetics – How ‘Bout Them Apples?  

A cheek and lip balm cream.  It’s actually pretty nice.  I have rosy cheeks so wearing anything on my cheeks apart from fake tan and brown shades is impossible, but as a lip colour it is nice a light.  I have the Pie shade which is a bit bright, but summer is coming, so it might get an outing quite soon.  I actually really like the wee sample which seems to have a magnetic closure strip.   I’m quite impressed by that as a sample.

Lord and Berry Black Kohl Eye Pencil

This made my make-up bag in ten seconds flat.   It draws on easily, but doesn’t come off quickly in wear either.  It’s not a brand I’ve heard of before, but I like it.

Color Club Gala’s Nail Polish

I have the wee gold struck colour.  I tend not to wear nail polish on my hands, so I can’t comment on this one much, though it may well make it onto my toes in summer.  The sample size seems reasonable to me and looks like it would easily do a few coatings of both fingernails and toes.

Laura Mercier Souffle Body Creme

This is what made me realise I haven’t been taking care of myself.  Just squeezing out some of the souffle and rubbing it into my hands reminded me of holidays gone by.  It’s more of a honey vanilla smell that I expected so very lush and very subtle and unexpected.

Yes To Cucumbers Facial Wipes

An organic, soothing cucumber wipe, oil free and made to cleanse, gently exfoliate and moisturise.    The travel size has 10 towels, so it’s about the size of the small packs you’d normally buy in shops.  Paraben free, so great for getting rid of make up last thing at night.

Propercorn, Popcorn Done Properly

This was intriguing.  Ours is sweet coconut and vanilla for 35 calories per bag which is really good.   It tasted very much like a bit of a combination of cinema and butterscotch popcorn so actually very satisfying in a small bag.  I’ll like to know where to buy these regularly for the long term as I’ve not seen them in shops here and we don’t have a Waitrose, which seems to stock the larger bags.  The sample size is actually the perfect snack size, but I can’t find those anywhere.

Final Thoughts

This is definitely a luxury purchase.  The samples are great quality and with more free money, I’d have bought the large sizes of all of them.  I’m not sure if that says I need to take more care of myself or what, but I really enjoyed getting this wee box.  It seemed to be a very personal thing to get.

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BritMums Brilliance In Blogging Award Shortlist 2014 – I’m On It

I am quite surprised to be nominated for the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards for 2014

BiBbigLogo2014a-600x600

Stage 1

I’ve been nominated in the Food category, so for whoever put me forward for it, I am very grateful indeed.  It’s lovely to think that someone made the effort to have us listed.  The shortlist consists of 16 bloggers out of the man who have been nominated. 11 were chosen by other bloggers, and 5 were chosen by the BritMums judges.

BritMums has about 4000ish bloggers as part of it’s continually growing network. I can’t remember how many there were when I started off, but it wasn’t a lot.  I’ve not been to a BritMums conference since 2011, so its been a long time since I’ve really met many other bloggers from the network.

Getting down to the 16 shortlisted bloggers in the food category is really nice and quite a surprise.  There are so many great blogs out there, that I’m quite shocked, in a lovely way.

Stage 2

The BIBS have now opened up for voters to choose which if their favourite blogs from each category will win the overall award for 2014.

I know most of you who read my blog do it by e-mail rather than coming directly to the blog online as I send out the whole post, so I know it would be a big ask to get you to log in online and give me a wee vote, but if any of you feel up to it, I’d be delighted.

Out of the 16 bloggers in each category, there will be 6 finalists in total.  4 will be chosen by blogger votes and 2 will be selected by the BritMums to go forward to the judging panel.

You can only vote once as the form has been designed to only allow one vote per person in each category.

Finalists will be announced on the 23rd May.

Voting is open now and the form will stay online until Friday 16th May.

Britmums Vote

 

Obviously, if you do decide to vote for your favourite bloggers, I’d be delighted if you included me as one of the votes in the food category, but even if you don’t vote for me, please do vote in the BiBs as each vote counts for whoever you vote for.

BritMums is hosting an award and party night at BritMums Live on 20th June, and the winners will be announced then.

The last thing I would say is that I wish all the shortlisted bloggers in their categories the best of luck.   Thank you to those who put me into the shortlist, I am very grateful for my lovely readers. x