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I’ve been thinking of trying a low carb diet for a while.  I eat a lot of carbs and I’m not sure I really should be.  I’d like to get out of the habit of being such a pasta fiend, but I’ve lacked the inspiration and the know-how to find the right meals to eat.  So when Love Yourself got in touch about their new low carb range, it seemed meant to be.

The new Low-Carb meal plan is available at LoveYourself.co.uk who prepare fresh food each day with the finest ingredients. With no additives, preservatives, or processed foods, each meal plan is available in a range of calorie options. All food is prepared by a gourmet Chef and Nutritionist to ensure each meal is balanced and tasty.

Love Yourself’s low carb diet is really easy to tailor to your needs.  They have four calorie options (1200, 1500, 2000 and 2500) depending on whether you want to lose weight, maintain or to allow for different calorific needs. There are loads of different ordering options, so you can buy a day’s worth of meals to try it out.  You can get a week’s worth (either 5 or 6 days) and you can buy for 1 week, 4 weeks, 8 weeks or subscribe. Each day’s worth of meals includes breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.

As I eat a lot of carbs normally the meals did seem on the small side, but because they contain plenty of protein you don’t feel hungry.  They are also packed full of good things, so you feel virtuous too.  There’s the snack too too keep you going if you feel peckish mid afternoon say.
The meals arrived by courier.  I had a few deliveries, as I had a few days of the plan to try out. A lot of effort went into keeping the meals cool whilst they were transported and the packages were well insulated. A lot of effort has gone into to making the packaging sustainable.   All the containers are biodegradable and 90 days compostable – I rinsed mine out and sent it off in our garden waste bin for the council to compost. The bags are made of paper and the bottles (I had a flaxseed and berry smoothie as my snack one day) are made from 100% recyclable plastics.

Generally the delivery went well, but on one occasion there was a bit of leaking from one of the meals.  It proved salvageable though. The other small problem was that the printing on the labels was a little faint (like the printer cartridge was running low).  I could still read it, but needed good light to be able to do so.

Just to give you a bit of an idea of the range of dishes, here are some of things I got to sample whilst I was trying the plan:

• baked beans & turkey with gluten free veggie bread
• lamb & feta meatballs
• shredded Vietnamese chicken salad
• Mediterranean frittata
• chocolate almond butter balls
• chicken with lemon and tarragon sauce

Every meal is scannable via the MyFitness app to help you keep track of calories and macro-nutrients. Meal plans start from just £15 per day from LoveYourself.co.uk

These meals arrived just as I was recovering from a minor operation.  It was great to have healthy meals ready to go to help me during my recovery.  If you lead a busy life this would be ideal too, as you can eat well without needing to do all the shopping and preparation that normally goes along with that.  The meals were extremely tasty and I really enjoyed eating them – I don’t think there was anything I didn’t like.  The low carb side of things worked well too, as I felt less bloated and had more energy.  I was really pleased with the meals and would happily order again.

Disclosure: I was sent a few days worth of Love Yourself low carb meals for the purposes of this review.

One of the things I’ve most missed about lockdown is eating out and having friends around to entertain.  For me sharing food is a great way of cementing and developing relationships, or simply enjoying each other’s company.  As a food writer though I’ve also missed writing about the food that I try in the various eateries that I visit and also photographing the dishes that I sample.  I’m hoping that all that will restart very soon and to get be started I’ve been sent just the right thing to try: the Instagram Bag from Paper Bag Co.

#TheFoodieBag comes complete with a great amount of kit:

• Stylish 12oz black canvas bag with internal pocket, mesh divider and zip closure
• 5 in 1 pop up reflector
• 8 postcard set with handy tips
• 4 photographic backdrops

One of my favourite items is the 15-inch photographic reflector and diffuser. It will help you to brighten and enhance both highlights and shadows depending on the mood and look you are trying to evoke.

I also loved the set of four beautifully crafted papers from Black Velvet Styling, the photographic backdrop company.  They are a little smaller than the ones I tend to use at home, but the advantage of the smaller size is that they are that much more portable.  So they are great when you are out and about as they fit neatly into the canvas bag.  I loved that there was a good range of colours and styles.  As you can see there are two lighter ones and two darker ones.

For ideas to improve my food photography, there’s an exclusive set of ten beautiful postcards, with tips on the reverse of each explaining how to use light, think about composition, choose your background and more.

The bag, that the set comes in, is a limited-edition bespoke double-sided tote bag, with internal zip pocket.  I think I’ll carry the backdrops in the cardboard roll they come in, but there’s plenty of space, even when fully packed, to store other bits and pieces like props. You’d probably want to keep your camera in a more padded container, but most photographers will already own a camera bag.

I’m looking forward to using this kit to create some fabulous new pictures. When ordering you’ll find dispatch is very quick and I had my bag the next day.

Disclosure: I was sent this bag for the purposes of this review.

Last year was the summer of the garden party or get together and it looks like that could well be the case this year too.  I’ve been having more drinks outside when I’m entertaining and in nice weather it’s important to have something cool and refreshing. We get through a lot of ice cubes in our house and we use the ice dispenser in the freezer, traditional ice cube trays and buy ice too. However, none of those solutions work that well for us.  Buying ice is fine for a party, but it takes up a lot of room in the freezer the rest of the time.  The ice dispenser has been disappointing and I find ice cube trays are often too rigid or too easily damaged. The other problem is that traditional ice cubes are quite small and you need several to keep a drink cool.  You end up with lots of pieces of ice floating around in your drink.

So I was interested to try out the large ice cube trays from Oliver’s Kitchen. The main advantage of large ice cube is that you only need one of them for the average glass.  There’s a choice of square or sphere shapes too, so there should be one to suit every shape of glass. Because the ice cubes are so big they take longer to melt so they are able to keep your drink cooler for longer.  The giant ice cubes were perfect for my gin and tonic.  You use the spherical shaped moulds and fill to the top with the help of the little funnel provided with the pack.

One thing that I found really helpful was the silicone material of the moulds.  This made it really easy to push the cubes out when you are ready to use them and so much better than rigid trays.  The top trays act as lids which means you can stack one set on top of the other really easily, so freeing up space in your freezer.  Obviously it’s difficult to know how long they will last, but they feel really durable and I have high hopes that I’ll be using these for a long time to come.  They come with a 30 day money back guarantee and with a 1-year free replacement warranty, which is very reassuring.  You can just pop them in the dishwasher after use and they will be ready to go again in no time.

I use my normal grater several times a week, but it’s not without its frustrations.  I’ve a couple of graters and one of them doesn’t grate very easily.  So I appreciate a grater that is up to the job.  I’ve tried the Oliver’s Kitchen grater and it’s very easy to use.  The various sides grate easily and there’s a rubberised bottom, which means it stays in place and doesn’t move whilst you are working.The various sides mean you can grate many different things: I’ve used it for cheddar, parmesan and carrot, but you can use it for so many things.  It’s easy to clean and comes apart for easy dishwashing – just pop it in the machine or wash by hand.  It’s easy to see how much you are grating because of the see-through box that fits onto the bottom, plus it means there’s no mess.  I like that it doubles up as a handy way to store stuff too – there’s a lid.  You can easily grate your cheese in advance and pop it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.  I’ve found it really easy to use – it sits well in the hand.

I’ve teamed up with Oliver’s Kitchen to offer readers a chance to win some of their lovely kitchen products.  You can win the following Oliver’s Kitchen products:

– Garlic Press
– 4X Ice Cube Trays
– Chopping Board Set
– Cooking Tongs
– Salt & Pepper Mills

Just enter via the Gleam widget below.

Competition Terms and Conditions

1. No bulk, third-party or automated entries allowed.

2. Entrants must be aged 18 years or older and resident in the UK.

3. The winner or winners will be chosen by a random draw using the competition widget.

4. Promoter is responsible for fulfilling the prize and full contact details of the winner will be passed onto the promoter to enable prize fulfillment.

5. The winner’s name may be published on this site.

6. Competition closes at the end of Sunday 16th May 2021.

Oliver’s Kitchen

A couple of years ago, I discovered that by adding a powder to my breakfast cereal enabled me to pump up the amount of nutrition my body was receiving in each mouthful.  Previously I’d stuck to berry or fruit powder blends as they added some colour and a fruity flavour to my meal too.  Bioglan Superfoods recently asked me to try out some of their powder blends and I happily agreed.

Australian brand Bioglan Superfoods harvest the world’s finest quality ingredients, to make better tasting healthy products, new look packs and even new products, to ensure that everyone can get  the necessary vitamins, minerals and superfoods into their diets.

Government advice has been that we need to eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day.  Many nutritional experts also say we should ingest ‘superfoods’ daily and that we need 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.  I find it difficult to get all that into three meals a day.  Enter Bioglan Superfoods, an easy way to get these much- needed superfoods, that give your body natural vitamins and minerals, into your daily diet, hassle free and cost effective. Add one of the powders to a morning smoothie, sprinkle on cereal or include within your food intake to get the full benefit.

With a range of great tasting powders, such as Superberries, containing an array of colorful berries including Goji, Acai and Pomegranate, with added Vitamin C & K (great for skin, hair and nails) and Folic Acid with Magnesium (great for women) or the Superberries, made up of amazing superfoods such as Spirulina (which has more protein than 5 steaks – so great for vegans) and Chlorella, an algae that draws toxins from the body and lowers cholesterol and blood sugars, with added vitamins B12, C and E for energy.  The powders have all been made to taste great, no earthy, grassy flavours here, just yummy sweet fruit notes or warming spices that taste great in recipes or even with nut milk or just plain water. .

Bioglan Superfoods powders are really easy to use, just two teaspoons in your regular smoothie, or on your cereal to set you up for the day, The powders are also great in recipes, ideal for whole family- the Green Boost is yummy in a pesto and the Cacao Boost makes some fab healthy chocolate and raspberry muffins. You can make a huge change to your health without making a huge change to your lifestyle or bank balance.

I’m very familiar with using a fruit based powder blend, but I’ve enjoyed trying out some of the other varieties I was sent. I’ve been very impressed with how good they taste – previously I’d stuck with fruit powders because I was worried about this.  I can really see myself introducing a range of these powders into my diet.  I’ve got plans to do a bit more experimentation – really interested to see how they perform in pesto because that’s something I love to eat for a quick and easy meal.

Good news for readers: I’ve teamed up with Bioglan Superfoods to offer one lucky reader a bundle of Bioglan Superfoods powders including Superberries and Cacao Boost.  Enter via the Gleam widget below.

Competition Terms and Conditions

1. No bulk, third-party or automated entries allowed.

2. Entrants must be aged 18 years or older and resident in the UK.

3. The winner or winners will be chosen by a random draw using the competition widget.

4. Promoter is responsible for fulfilling the prize and full contact details of the winner will be passed onto the promoter to enable prize fulfillment.

5. The winner’s name may be published on this site.

6. Competition closes at the end of Sunday 14th February 2021.

Bioglan Superfoods