NibNibs – From Yorkshire with Love – Review and Giveaway

Who doesn’t love nibbling? The late night TV session, a long ride on the train or a short break at work to regain focus – all of these are just a few examples of perfect nibbling moments not to mention the ubiquitous snack in the centre of the table as you enjoy a bottle of wine with friends. There are endless opportunities to nibble but what about the nibbles themselves? Again, the choice in this day and age is huge but once you really take a look closer look it is not so easy to pick the perfect snack… some of them are too salty or too sweet, they are sold in too big packaging or have too many “E” ingredients…

Lately I was introduced to NibNibs; tasty little snacks produced in a North Yorkshire bakery. I was sent a selection of MiniNibs and I must say they are perfect for nibbling on the go. Cheesy straws which come in a 65g tube like packaging. No foil bag which can get ripped, no huge boxes, just a convenient little tube filled with tasty little snacks 🙂 MiniNibs are sold in a choice of three flavours:

• Cheddar Cheese Straw
• Cheddar & Spicy Chilli Straw
• Cheddar & Cheeky Onion Straw

All flavours are extremely tasty and made using quality, local ingredients. They are handmade by artisan bakers. They look and taste good, and I believe just as food should taste. So far NibNibs have won a Delicious Yorkshire Award for 2013-2014 and Great Taste award for 2013.

And if you fancy a shared package, they also make them in “full size” packaging, which includes 175g of these tasty cheesy snacks and one additional flavour: Sea Salt & Cracked Black Pepper.

I think NibNibs have got it right – they have created a very tasty product at an acceptable price. MiniNibs can be purchase at £1.79 per “tube”. It is a bit higher than you would expect to pay for your snacks if bought from your supermarket but hey… they do offer so much more than your usual mass produced snacks… much more… so in my opinion the price is right and they are worth the extra pennies.

Have you ever tried NibNibs or a MiniNibs?

If you have I hope you liked them as much as we did!

Now the big news: NibNibs will send a snack selection to one of you.

Just follow the Rafflecopter link below and use as many entry methods as you wish. But hurry as the competition will end in just 7 days. After this time one of you will be able to indulge him or herself on tasty little NibNibs to fulfil your hearts’ desire.

Enter to win a selection of NibNibs

Good Luck!

* I received a NibNibs snacks selection for free for review purpose. All opinions about the products are honest and my own. The competition as stated above is solely run by NibNibs themselves. We are just passing on the good news and take no responsibilities for any prizes not received.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions
SuperLucky Blog Giveaways Linky

Review – Cocofina – The real taste of coconuts

I don’t know about you, but I just love coconut… coconut water, coconut milk, dried coconut… anything coconut related is on my favourite foods list. This is one of my happy foods, there is something about it that just makes me want to have more and more and I never get bored of it. Pair my coconut obsession with a lovely offer of reviewing some of Cocofina products (all coconut based) and you have one happy me!

I’ve never tried Cocofina before so I wasn’t picky with my selection of products. I asked their PR to make the choice for me, simply because I just wouldn’t be able to decide what I want; I would want it all.

This is what arrived in the post – a great selection of products for a Cocofina noob.

After the initial pictures were taken the first thing eaten were the bars. Yummy! There is a choice of three flavours:

• Organic Coconut & Date Bar
• Organic Coconut & Cocoa Bar
• Macaroon Bar

Both date and cocoa bars are certified organic. They are 100% vegan and have no GMOs. The ingredients list is clear and easy to read, there are no chemical wording or symbols we might not understand. Let’s take a look at the date bar for example…

Ingredients of Cocofina Organic Coconut & Date Bar: Raisins (99% raisins, 1% sunflower oil) (39%), coconut (28%), dates (28%), oats (5%), water. That’s all. And not to forget all these ingredients are 100% organic certified.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

My macaroon bar came in just a silver wrapping, so I actually have no idea what’s inside of it, but trust me, whatever it is, it taste divine.

After I munched on some bars (I didn’t eat them all at once and all by myself… I was a good girl and shared the love), I really needed a drink so it was very handy I had some coconut water around 🙂

The flavoured coconut water comes in three flavour combination:

• Coconut Water Mango & Guava
• Coconut Water Apple & Blueberry
• Coconut Water Tea and Passion Fruit

The last one was my favourite, but this said they all tasted really nice. You know sometimes when you have a flavoured drink you get a weird aftertaste or the flavours feel just a bit off, fake like… this isn’t happening here. All the drinks taste genuine and simply nice. You get a base line of coconut and all the other flavours on top. They are quite subtle and for sure not overpowering. The same applies with the bars. All the drinks are 100% vegan and with no GMOs addition. Despite me loving all the drinks I was a little bit disappointed to see that they are made from concentrate and have natural flavouring and sweetener added to them.

So I checked the coconut water packaging. Woot! 100% coconut water, nothing else. How great is that? The small note on the side of the box made me smile: “Cocofina coconut water may vary in taste, colour and sweetness depending on the season”. At least you know that this is a natural product and not modified to fit the “standard”.

If you are like me are a coconut fan you should really try Cocofina products, especially the water. It really tastes like the real deal.

Do you love coconut and coconut based products?

What’s Cooking – Chocolate Cornflakes Bites

My last night creation – Chocolate Cornflakes Bites

Last night I had, and could not shift, a huge craving for something sweet and crunchy. The first thing that came into my mind was “Why not make some Chocolate Cornflakes Bites!” It only takes 10 min of preparation plus another 30 minutes of chilling time, this is the point that your saliva glands start kicking in to action. Almost immediately after my brilliant idea popped into my head I hit a problem – we have no plain Cornflakes in the house… but nothing was lost, we did have some Frosties, which are basically Cornflakes covered with sugar 🙂 and as this was going to be a sugar fest anyway it seemed like a small detail.

So what do you need to make this awesome, super fast sweet snack? (It’s a long list)

• 200g Cornflakes preferably, or Frosties if all else fails, or even Rice Crispies I guess
• 300g melted chocolate, milk works the best for us but plain will do if you like it more intense

Frosties to the rescue

Method: (Difficulty Rating 5+ – Complicated))

Put your Frosties (or alternatives) into a large mixing bowl. All we had in the pantry were lots of those small packs of Frosties left over from some variety boxes we acquired at some point. As the box misleads you on how many Frosties are actually inside we ended up using 10 of them. If you have a normal 750g sized box then it would be about a third of the box. (see I told you it was complicated 😉 )

Melt your chocolate in a double boiler if you are doing this correctly, in the microwave if you like to cheat! (Mark just yelled that at me) – I used one bar of cooking chocolate and one bar of 52% cocoa chocolate; normally I would use a milk one but my Frosties were already covered in sugar so needed something to balance the taste out.

Tricky part of this recipe… pouring the chocolate

Now comes the technical challenge, you have to pour ALL the melted chocolate over the Frosties without spilling any on the work top, or down the outside of the mixing bowl, a steady hand here is a must.

I think I was mixing to fast… none of the pictures come out in focus

Now with a large metal spoon gently incorporate them thoroughly but do be gently, as you do not want to break too many Frosties (or alternative) up.

Once every flake is totally covered with chocolate you can either:

Option A:place everything in a baking tray, and with the edge of your spoon flatten out mixture till it is all the same depth roughly. Pop in the fridge for 30 minutes whilst you prepare yourself for your sugar-fest. Retrieve from the fridge, cut into bite size pieces and enjoy!

Option B: Fill a couple of baking sheets with paper cup cake holders and then spoon equal amounts of the mixture into each. Pop in the fridge for 30 minutes whilst you prepare yourself for your sugar-fest. Visit the fridge and retrieve ONE cup cake case per person, now set a stop watch to see who caves first and wanders back to the fridge for “just one more…”

Finally!!! Time for my Chocolate Cornflakes Bites!

What’s happening when a man gets bored?

Last night I had to work some extra hours and to add to this I had to participate in a 1 hour online chat for which I had promised to take part in, so I was kind of busy all evening.

Mark wasn’t sure how to entertain himself so due to boredom he wondered into our kitchen and decided to create some snacks for us.

Look what I discovered once I finally left my office.

Midnight snack to suit all type of munchies

Isn’t this great (…well for me it is anyways)!

Tons of fantastic homemade goodies to munch on.

We had some cheese straws,
which were light and fluffy unfortunately they were all eaten last night

Individual apple and cinnamon tarts
with homemade custard nestled in a mountain range of light fluffy homemade puff pastry,
half of whom did survive till the morning were they were promptly eaten with coffee for breakfast

A selection of delicious meringues that have a wonderful toasted look to them.
Mark says it is from the soft brown sugars caramelising in the oven. They should last us for a while.

And to make things even better… look what Mark created this morning…

Marks Make It Up As You Go Along Trifle

He took some yoghurt cake he made a couple of days ago, put it in the bottom of the big bowl and poured some lemon and lime jelly over. That was last night, this morning the jelly was set and he added the rest of the home made custard left over from the apple tarts. On top of that is a chocolate mousse, I’m actually drooling with anticipation! Now he tells me that whipped cream, chocolate bits, fudge bits and of course some fruit to keep the healthy part of our brains happy are going on top.

I think we are going to have to invite the neighbours over…