Christmas with Warninks Advocaat

This time of year is certainly one for reminiscing. Remembering childhood Christmases, remembering loved ones and remembering Christmas traditions and passing them on to the next generation.

When Warninks Advocaat contacted me about our favourite Christmas moments my mind immediately drifted back to my teenage years, standing in my grandparents conservatory, behind their bar, taking orders and making snowballs. I loved the moment that the lemonade hits the Advocaat and froths up. No Christmas is complete without a trusty snowball. Before I tell you about some easy snowball recipes I thought that I would share with you our Christmas traditions and how they are being passed down from generation to generation.

Once December arrives all of our attention goes to Christmas. One tradition that we have started since the twins were two is going to buy a real Christmas tree. This was something that I had always wanted so when we decided that it was going to be a memory for our children to treasure I was excited. The whole experience of going out to select the tree, watching it get wrapped up in the net, trying to get it in the car to bringing it inside and decorating has become a much loved occasion. Once the tree is ready for decorating the Christmas music goes on and the kids get busy. Before, I used to be so particular about how the tree was decorated. But seeing how excited the children get when they are adding the decorations that they have made is so much more important. Gone are the days of colour coordination. They have now been replaced with sentimental ornaments. This year our tree is full of memories from baubles that were my grandparents to home made ornaments, from decorations that Santa has left in the children's stockings to keepsakes that the hubby has bought for me over the years.

New Panasonic L500 Slow Juicer Plus Recipes

When Panasonic contacted me about their new L500 Slow Juicer I was curious to see how it could be different to regular, high speed juicers. We already have a high speed juicer but due to the sheer size and bulkiness of the machine it has been tucked away in a cupboard! When I read that this was a more compact machine I knew that our kitchen really would put it to the test. We have a good sized kitchen, but lack on storage and worktops due to the shape of the room. So finding kitchen equipment that we will be able to have out, to hand, all of the time is a must and can be difficult.

When the parcel arrived the first thing that I noticed was that it was not a large box, this immediately pleased me. If the box is not large, the contents cannot be large!

Before I tell you how I got on using the Panasonic Slow Juicer, let me give you some technical information as well as what the benefits are of slow juicing as opposed to high speed juicing and why it is better for you. I will also be sharing with you an iced dessert, iced cocktail and a juice recipe!

POM Wonderful - For Your Smoothies and Cocktails!

In January everybody likes to make new years resolutions about their health, fitness or life. I am not one for new years resolutions as they always seem to be empty promises. What I like to do is make changes throughout the year and makes changes which I know will be easy to make into permanent changes. 

One simple change that you can ,make for the benefit of your health is eat and drink healthier foods. Swapping your high sugar fruit juice for POM Wonderful is a step in the right direction.

Pomegranates are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin K, Fibre, Potassium and Folate as well as anti oxidants. POM Wonderful juice is simply 100% pomegranate. Each 710ml bottle contains 6 pomegranates with no added sugar, preservatives or colourants. This juice is so full of flavour, it is a little bit sweet and a little bit sour but both extremities balance this juice perfectly.

Pina Colada Cheesecake - Great Bloggers Bake Off

I absolutely adore cheesecake. However I have only made a baked cheesecake a couple of times. I usually go for the easier no bake ones. So when I saw that cheesecakes were one of the challenges for the bakers I knew that I had to make one.

Cheesecake is definitely one of my most favourite desserts.

At the moment I have a real passion for coconut ingredients. I regularly use coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut flour. So when I was thinking of what my favourite summer flavours were what came to mind?

Yes, you guessed it, coconut!

But I did not want to make just a coconut cheesecake I wanted to add more flavours. This led me to one of my favour cocktails, Pina Colada. Pineapple and coconut are such a classic combination, I knew they would be perfect for this weeks challenge.

I have got the basic weights from BBC Good Food and have adapted the recipe.

Here is my Pina Colada Cheesecake...

Cocktails with Vita Coco - Gin Pina Colada

You may have noticed that recently I have been using more coconut products in both my baking and cooking. I cannot believe it has taken me so long to discover the delicious flavours that coconut adds to dishes. I have always like coconut but now I am enjoying it in a greater variety of foods. So when Vita Coco asked me of I would like to create a cocktail using their coconut water you can imagine how pleased I was!

If you have not seen Vita Coco before let me tell you what they do. Vita Coco produce a number of natural coconut products such as...

• Coconut Water - both original and with flavours such as peach and mango, pineapple and lemonade
• Coconut oil (which I currently use in my cooking!)
• Vita Coco Cafe both cafe latte and cafe latte mocha
• Vita Coco for kids

The coconut natural water which I received to try is...

• "As natural as natural gets"
• Never from concentrate
• A great source of potassium
• No fat!
• Gluten free and dairy free

The ingredients are simply 99% coconut water and 1% natural fruit sugars!

It really is that pure, each carton is simply full of goodness. As it says on the carton it is "like sticking a straw in a coconut!"

When is came to deciding what cocktail to make I decided to give a traditional cocktail a little twist.

This is what I did...